In the Canadian parishes faith is simple, with a pronounced taste for the supernatural. In the year 1907 a Jesuit priest, M. Hudon, published at Montreal the life of Marie Catherine de Saint Augustin, 1632-1668, a Quebec nun. This devout lady lived in an atmosphere charged always with the supernatural. She knew of events before they happened; with demons who tempted her she had terrific combats; she read the thoughts of others with divine insight. Perhaps the climax of her experiences is found when she has regularly, as confessor and mentor, the Jesuit father and martyr Brébœuf, dead for some years. M. Hudon declared that he had submitted the evidence for these wonders to all the tests that modern scientific canons could require and that they were undoubtedly true. The Archbishop of Quebec, Mgr. Begin, wrote a prefatory note approvingof the teaching of the book, and adding that Mother Marie Catherine's life could not fail to be an inspiration to young girls to live nobly. This simple belief in the constant occurrence of the supernatural is not found only in the remoter parishes of the Province of Quebec as a French Canadian writer seems to indicate;[31]it appears everywhere. All Christians believe in a God who shapes human events and hears and answers prayer. But many, Catholic and Protestant alike, believe that the energy of God, in response to man's appeal, is applied through the ordinary machinery of nature's laws. Modern thought is pervaded with the conception of nature's rigour. I have seen good Catholics shrug their shoulders at the wonders narrated by Marie Catherine de Saint Augustin. But others, and these not only the ignorant, think that this attitude shows the lack of a deeper faith. Must God and his saints, they ask, be confined within the narrow framework of nature's laws? Cannot He do all things?
So it is not strange that the Canadian peasant dwells in a world charged with the supernatural. Night furnishes the opportunity for goblins to be abroad; the flickering lights on the marshes are goblin fires. Then, too, the vagrant dead wander about restlessly, sinful souls refused entrance to Heaven until they have sought and secured adequate prayers for their pardon andrelief. To cross a cemetery at night might attract the fatal vengeance of the dead thus disturbed. The grumbling mendicant at the door may really be an evil spirit bent on mischief. With a few, magic and the gift of the evil eye are still dreaded forces and it is well to know some charm by which evil may be averted. Since night is the time of danger, if abroad then be watchful; if at home close doors and windows, ere you go to sleep. I was once on a fishing expedition with habitant guides when we had to share the samecabane. The air becoming insufferable, I got up quietly, opened the door and went back to bed. Presently I heard one of the guides steal softly to the door and close it. When I thought he was asleep I opened it again. But in vain; once more it was closed. In the morning nothing was said about it. Certainly not cold was what he feared, for the weather was hot. I do not think it was the mosquitoes. Was it the goblins?
A simpler and touching faith is common. Every one has noticed in the Province of Quebec the numerous crosses by the way side. These Calvaires are of rough wood, usually eight or ten feet high; sometimes with the cross are the dread implements of Christ's pain—the crown of thorns, the hammer and nails, the executioner's ladder, the Roman soldier's spear. Often at the foot is a box for alms to help the forgotten dead who are inpurgatory. As the habitant passes them he usually lifts his hat. The Calvaires are a kind of domestic altar to which the people come. In the summer evenings one may see a family grouped about them in prayer. When there is need for special prayers, several families will come across the fields to meet at the Calvaire. Dr. Henry, of whom more later, tells how at Malbaie some eighty years ago he found in the cottages social family worship night and morning. It is to be feared that the present generation at Malbaie is less devout, corrupted it may be by the heretic visitors' bad influence and example. But still the guide with whom one goes camping rarely neglects his evening devotions. In some families prayer sanctifies all the actions of the day. There is prayer at rising, prayer at going to bed. Though here, as in France, women are spoken of as onlycréatures, the mother is usually better educated than the father and often leads these devotions, the others joining in the responses. Before meals is recited a prayer, usually theBenedicite. There is often a family oratory and here at the appropriate seasons, in the month consecrated to the special family saint and guardian, in May, the Virgin's month, in June, that of the Sacred Heart, in November, "the month of the dead," special prayers are said. On Sunday evenings the family chant the Canticles. The Church's feasts are marked by festal signs such as the laying of thebest rugs on the floor. If there is drought groups gather frequently at the Calvaires to pray for rain. Occasionally such supplications have a curiously commercial basis in frugal minds. A habitant's wife, learning that a near neighbour had made an offering to the curé for prayers for rain, declared that she would give nothing, since if rain fell on the neighbour's farm it would not stop there: "S'il mouille chez les Pierrot Benjamin, il mouillera ben icitte."[32]
In each year, if he chooses, the habitant has a good many chances to cast his vote. The Church, the greatest institution of the village has its annual election—that for a churchwarden; of the three churchwardens one retires every year. An annual election there is also for the municipal council, two or three of whose members retire each year. This body looks after the highways, the granting of licenses to sell spirituous liquors and so on. Annually also are elected school commissioners, who have charge of education. The municipal council and the school commission are comparatively new institutions in the Province of Quebec. They have been borrowed from the Anglo-Saxon world, but the habitant takes kindly to the elector's privileges and struggles are sometimes keen. The innovation of the ballot not having been adopted, as yet, in municipal elections, the voting is open. Every voter must thusshow his preferences and when a moral question, such as the licensing of drinking places, is before the electors this open voting aids the Church's influence. Usually the curé is an ardent temperance man and to vote for a license against his wishes, made known perhaps from the pulpit, needs great strength of conviction. It thus happens that a very large number of parishes in the Province of Quebec have no licensed drinking places.
Of offices in the gift of the village voter those in the Church are the most highly esteemed. To be a municipal councillor or a school commissioner is indeed all very well. But the village council is not really very important. It spends only a few hundred dollars a year and to keep up the roads is not an exciting task. The village council rarely has even the "town hall" usual in other communities; it meets in the "salle publique," or the vestry, of the Church, or in the school house. The school commissioners too have no very dazzling work to do. The curé is sometimes their chairman and thus in some degree they come under the control of the Church. The commissioners appoint the teachers in the schools and keep up the school buildings, but their outlay is also very small, for the salaries of teachers, usually women, are appallingly low. The really important elective office in the parish is that of churchwarden (marguiller). In the churchthe churchwardens have a special seat of honour assigned to them. They control the temporalities and may beard even the curé himself. Large sums of money pass through their hands. They receive the pew rents,—and every habitant has a pew; they receive the voluntary offerings. It often happens that the Church accumulates large sums of money and that, if the building of apresbytèreor parish church is decided upon, there is enough on hand to pay for it outright. The municipal council and the schoolboard, on the other hand, are always poor. The habitant watches their taxation with a parsimonious scrutiny and it is a thankless task to carry on their work.
Municipal interests represent of course only a part of the village's political thought. In provincial politics, federal politics, there is often in Quebec an interest keener even than in other parts of Canada. It would be too much to say that the habitant has a wide outlook on public questions; but the village notary and the village doctor are likely to have political ambitions and rivalry becomes acute; often indeed the curse of the village is the professional politician. At times in Quebec politics have been closely associated with religion and always the bishops are persons to be reckoned with. Their attitude has ever been that, if the policy of one or the other party seems to be inimical to the Church, they have the right to direct Catholic electors to vote againstsuch a party. From the point of view of British supremacy in French Canada it would be a mistake to say that the bishops in a political rôle have always been mischievous. After the conquest they soon became the most staunch supporters of the authority of George III and through the Church the British conqueror was able to reach the people. When the American Revolution began, the bishops were strenuous for British connection and from the pulpits came solemn warnings against the Americans. Again in Britain's war on Revolutionary France the Canadian bishops were with her, heart and soul. They orderedTe Deumswhen Nelson destroyed the French fleet at the battle of the Nile, and over Trafalgar there were great rejoicings. After Waterloo we find in French Canada perhaps the most curious of all the thanksgivings; at Malbaie, as elsewhere, aTe Deumwas sung and the people were told in glowing terms of the victory of the "immortal Wellington" which had covered "our army" with glory and ended a cruel war. Later, in the days of Papineau, the Church opposed rebellion; she has since opposed annexation to the United States. She has also helped to preserve order. If a crime was to be detected, the curé read from the pulpit a demand that any one, who could give information to further this end, should do so. Solemn excommunication was pronounced against offenders; to make the warning impressive thepriest would drop to the ground a lighted candle and put it out with his foot; so would God extinguish the offenders thus denounced, and those who abetted their crimes.
Since the Church has aided the state, not unnaturally she expected some special favours in return. She got them in the days of the early British governors of Canada. Sir Guy Carleton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, secured for the Church the legal power to levy the tithe on Catholics and practically all the other privileges she had enjoyed under the old régime. The bishops tended to become more and more active in politics and this reached a climax in 1896. With great heat the bishops threw themselves into the attack on the Liberal party, because it would not support the Church's demands for her own separate schools in Manitoba, supported by taxes levied on Roman Catholics by the state. Some of the bishops went too far in denunciation; an appeal against their action was carried by Catholics to the Pope and the offenders were rebuked. The incident showed that in politics the habitant knows his own mind, for he gave an overwhelming support to the party on which the bishops were warring. Since then many a habitant draws a sharp distinction between the spiritual and the political claims of the bishops. Their full spiritual authority he does not doubt; in politics he thinks his own opinion as good as theirs.
If in spiritual matters the Church led it was intended that in temporal affairs too the habitants should always have guidance. An old world flavour seems to pervade the relations between seigneur and vassal in a French Canadian parish. The seigneur was himself the vassal of the crown, bound to do humble homage at the capital when he received his grant. We have a detailed account of the ceremony as performed, perhaps for the first time under British rule. On December 23rd, 1760, in the morning one Jacques Noël, a seigneur, accompanied by royal notaries, proceeded to the government house in Quebec. He knocked at the principal entrance and, when a servant appeared, Noël asked if His Excellency James Murray, the Governor, was at home. The servant replied that His Excellency was within and that he would give him notice. On being admitted to the presence of the Governor, Noël with head uncovered, and, to symbolize his humble obedience, wearing neither sword nor spur, fell on his knees before him and declared that he performed faith and homage for the seigniory to which, on his father's death, he had become the heir. He then took an oath on the gospels to be faithful to the king and to be no party to anything against his interests; to hold his own vassals to the same obedience; and to perform all other duties required by the terms of his holding.
The Crown required very little of the seigneur and so, in truth, did the seigneur of his tenants. Their annual payment ofcens et rentesrarely amounted to more than a very few dollars. When it fell due in the autumn they were given abundant notice. Still in the Canadian parishes, when the Sunday morning mass is over, the crier stands on a raised platform near the church door, the people gather round, and the announcement is made of tithes and taxes due, of articles lost or found, of anything indeed of general interest to the community. It was in this way that as St. Martin's day, November 11th, approached the people were reminded of the falling due of thecens et rentes. The meaning of the two terms is somewhat obscure. Thecenswas a trifling payment by thecensitairein recognition of the seigneur's position and rights as landowner; while therentesrepresented a real rental based in some degree on the supposed value of the land. But the rate was usually conventional and very small. In early Canada the river was the highway and upon it therefore every settler desired to have a frontage. There was, also, greater safety from Indian attacks in having the houses close together at the front of the farms. So these became long narrow strips, with the houses built so close together that the country side often seems like a continuous village. The habitant paid usually incens et rentestwenty sols (about twenty cents) for eacharpent (192 feet) of frontage; instead of cash usually he might pay in kind—a live capon or a small measure (demi-minot) of grain for each arpent. He paid also about one cent of rent for each superficial acre. Thus for a farm of 100 acres, with two arpents of frontage, a habitant might pay $1.00 in cash and two capons. If each of 400 such tenants paid for their frontage in capons, 800 of these fowls would he brought to the seigneur's barn-yard each autumn!
Though payment was due on November 11th, the habitants usually waited for the first winter days when the sleighing had become good. In many of the sleighs, hastening with the merry sound of bells over the wintry roads to the manor house, there would be one or two captive capons or a bag or two of grain. M. de Gaspé has described how on such an occasion the seigneur, or some member of his family for him, would be found by the tenant "seated majestically in a large arm chair, near a table covered with green baize cloth." Here he received the payments, or in many cases only excuses for non-payment. The scene outside was often animated, for the fowls brought in payment of the rent, with legs tied but throats free, would not bear their captivity in silence. Rent day was a festal occasion, but the great day in the year at the manor house was New Year's Day. Then the people came to offer their respects to the seigneur and Nairne speaksof the prodigious consumption of whiskey and cakes at such a time. The seigneur was usually god-father to the first-born of the children of his tenants. It is a pretty custom among French Canadians for the children to go on New Year's Day, which is a great festival, to the chamber of their parents in the early morning and kneel before the bed for their benediction. To the seigneur as to a parent came on this day his god-children and we have it from M. de Gaspé, an eye witness, that on one occasion he saw no less than one hundred of these come to call upon the seigneur at the manor house! In the old days the people came also on the first day of May to plant the May-pole before his door and to dance round it.
Some of the seigneurs were as poor as their owncensitairesand, like them, toiled with their hands. But usually there was a social gulf between the cottage and the manor house. Even the Church marked this. The seigneur had the right to a special pew; he was censed first; he received the wafer first at the communion; he took precedence in processions, and was specially recommended from the pulpit to the prayers of the congregation. Caldwell, who was seigneur of Lauzon opposite Quebec, used to drive through his great seigniory in state, half reclining on the cushions of his carriage and with a numerous following. If on a long drive he stopped at a farm house, even for the light refreshment of a drink of milk, he neverpaid the habitant with anything less than a gold coin. I once asked a habitant, who remembered the old days, whether the seigneur really was such a very great man in the village. He replied, with something like awe in his voice, "Monsieur, il était le roi, l'empereur, du village."
The ministrations of the manor house were often patriarchical and beneficent; the seigneur's wife was like the squire's wife in an English village. In time this relation aroused resentment. Some villager's son with a taste for business or letters made his way in the world, got into touch with more advanced thought, and when he came back to the village was not so willing as formerly to touch his hat to the seigneur and accept an inferior social status as a matter of course. M. de Gaspé tells how he often accompanied Madame Taché, in her own right co-seigneuress of Kamouraska, opposite Malbaie, in her visits to the people on the seigniory. She took alms to the poor, and wine, cordials, delicacies to the sick and convalescent. "She reigned as sovereign in the seigniory," he says, "by the very tender ties of love and of gratitude." When she left the village church after mass on Sunday the habitants, most of whom drove to church in their own vehicles, would wait respectfully for her to start and then follow her in a long procession, none of them venturing to pass her on the road. At the point where she turned from the high-way up the avenueleading to the manor house, each habitant, as he passed, would raise his hat, although only her back was in view disappearing in the direction of the house.
But early in the 19th century this spirit was changing:
One day I was myself witness, says M. de Gaspé, of a violation of this universal deference. It was St. Louis's day, the festival of the parish of Kamouraska. As usual Madame Taché, at the close of mass, was leading the long escort of hercensitaires, when a young man, excited by the frequent libations of which in the country many are accustomed to partake during the parish fêtes,—a young man, I say, breaking from the procession passed the carriage of the seigneuress as fast as his horse would go. Madame Taché stopped her carriage and turning round towards those who followed her cried in a loud voice:"What insolent person is this who has passed before me?"An old man went up to her, hat in hand, and said with tears in his voice:"Madame, it is my son who unfortunately is tipsy, but be sure that I shall bring him to make his apologies and meanwhile I beg you to accept mine for his boorishness."I ought to add that the whole parish spoke with indignation of the conduct of the young man. The delinquent had committed a double offence. He had been rude to their benefactress, and besides, violating a French Canadian custom, he had passed a carriage without asking permission.[33]
One day I was myself witness, says M. de Gaspé, of a violation of this universal deference. It was St. Louis's day, the festival of the parish of Kamouraska. As usual Madame Taché, at the close of mass, was leading the long escort of hercensitaires, when a young man, excited by the frequent libations of which in the country many are accustomed to partake during the parish fêtes,—a young man, I say, breaking from the procession passed the carriage of the seigneuress as fast as his horse would go. Madame Taché stopped her carriage and turning round towards those who followed her cried in a loud voice:
"What insolent person is this who has passed before me?"
An old man went up to her, hat in hand, and said with tears in his voice:
"Madame, it is my son who unfortunately is tipsy, but be sure that I shall bring him to make his apologies and meanwhile I beg you to accept mine for his boorishness."
I ought to add that the whole parish spoke with indignation of the conduct of the young man. The delinquent had committed a double offence. He had been rude to their benefactress, and besides, violating a French Canadian custom, he had passed a carriage without asking permission.[33]
This must have been before 1813 for in that year this good Madame Taché died: even so earlywas youth restive under the old traditions of deference and subordination. Already some even of the seigneurs were saying that the system retarded settlement. It would have suited the seigneurs to have their holdings converted into freehold, for then they could have held the unsettled land as their own property instead of being under obligation to grant it for a nominal rental tocensitaires. But to make this conversion would have been too kind to the seigneurs; so the matter dragged on for a long time.
The grievances of the habitant against the seigneurs were numerous, some of them real, some fanciful. It seemed anomalous that, in a British colony in the nineteenth century, there should be men holding great tracts of land with rights over their tenants, as some authors have seriously claimed, extending from the power of trying them for petty offences to that of inflicting the death penalty. This last right was, in any case, only nominal and was never exercised by any seigneur in Canada; but even the claim that it existed shows how high were the authority and privilege of the seigneur. A right like thecorvéehad a sinister meaning. One of the greatest hardships of the old régime, in France it meant that, on demand, the peasant must drop his own work to join in making highways, in carrying from one place to another the effects of a regiment, and other unwelcome tasks, all without pay.In Canada it was milder. The seigneur levied acorvéeof so many days' labour, which he employed on the useful task of improving the highway. Some seigneurs required that at the times they chose, the habitants should work for them a certain number of days, usually six, in each year. They could even make the habitants work without pay at building a manor house; a few of the massive stone mansions still fairly numerous in the Province of Quebec were constructed by such labour. Not unnaturally the habitant came to feel it odious and humiliating to be obliged thus to give his labour at another's order.
The seigneuries too were often broken up. In Canada there is no law of primogeniture and, at a seigneur's death, the land went to daughters as well as to sons. Few of the old seigniorial families remained on their original estates. In time those who held the property came to think that a rental of about a cent an acre was not enough. In the days of French rule they could not have increased it; but the old custom, they claimed, did not apply under British sovereignty. So these charges were often increased; in time instead of a penny the habitant had to pay three-pence, six-pence, and even eight-pence, an acre; the seigneurs, as a judge put it, showed an excellent knowledge of arithmetical progression. Thus thecens et rentesbegan to bring in a real income. So did thelods et ventes, the tax of one-twelfth of the price of whatever land the habitant sold. In early days land was rarely sold. But when towns and villages had grown up on seigniorial estates, a good deal of buying and selling took place and there stood always the seigneur demanding in every transaction his share of the selling price. If the land was sold two or three times in a year, as might well happen, each time the seigneur got his share of one-twelfth. If the occupier had built on the land a house at his own cost, none the less did the seigneur, who had done nothing, get his large percentage on the selling value of these improvements. This was a real grievance. To avoid paying the seigneur's claim a price, lower than that really paid, was sometimes named in the deed, and this led to perjury. To protect themselves the seigneur used hisdroit de retraitthe right for forty days of himself taking the property at the price named. This involved vexation and delay and increased discontent. Moreover the seigneur's right tolods et ventesstood in the way of a ready transfer of property between members of the same family.
There were other causes of discontent. The seigneur had thedroit de banalité, the banal rights, under which in France the habitant must use the seigneur's wine-press, his oven and his mill. In Canada no wine was made, so the seigneur's winepress did not exist. Some attempts were made to force the habitant to bake his bread inthe seigneur's oven but what would do in a compact French village, where fuel was scarce, became absurd in Canada; the picture is ludicrous of a habitant carrying a dozen miles, over rough roads, to the seigneur's oven, unbaked dough which might be hard frozenen route. Moreover new inventions made ovens common and cheap so that the habitant could afford to have his own. The seigneur's oven thus caused no grievance. Not so however the seigneur's mill. In the early days when the seigneur had the sole right to build a mill this became for him, in truth, a duty sometimes burdensome; for, whether it would pay or not, the government forced him to build a mill or else abandon the right. But in time the mill proved profitable and to it the peasant must bring his wheat. There might be a good mill near his house, while the seigneur's mill might be a dozen miles away and even then might give poor service; yet to the seigneur's mill he must go. If it was a wind-mill, nature, by denying wind, might cause a long delay before the flour should be ready. As time went on, some seigneurs claimed or reserved a monopoly in regard to all mills; grist mills, saw mills, carding mills, factories of every kind. Canada in time exported flour, but the seigneur's rights stood in the way of the free grinding of the wheat for this trade. The habitant might have on his land an excellent mill site with water power convenient, but hecould not use it without the seigneur's consent. More than this the seigneur often reserved the right to take such a site to the extent of six arpents for his own use without any compensation to the habitant.
In many cases the seigneur might freely cut timber on the habitant's land to erect buildings for public use,—church, presbytery, mill, and even a manor house. The rights to base metals on the property he also retained. The eleventh fish caught in the rivers was his. He might change the course of streams or rivers for manufacturing purposes; he alone could establish a ferry; his will determined where roads should be opened. Some seigneurs were even able to force villages and towns to pay a bonus for the right to carry on the ordinary business of buying and selling. So it turned out that if the habitant's crop failed he had little chance to do anything else without the seigneur's consent; he is, says the report of a Commission of Enquiry in 1843, "kept in a perpetual state of feebleness and dependence. He can never escape from the tie that forever binds to the soil him and his progeny; a cultivator he is born, a mere cultivator he is doomed to die." No doubt this plaint is pitched in a rather high key. But in time the burden of grievances was generally felt and then the seigniorial system was doomed.
In the days of the last John Nairne political agitation became an old story at Malbaie. We get echoes of meetings held in the village to support the cause of the idol of habitant radicalism, Louis Joseph Papineau; in 1836 ninety-two resolutions drawn up by him and attacking the whole system of government in Canada appear to have met with clamorous approval from the assembled villagers. Papineau was himself a seigneur and did not assail the system. But after his unsuccessful rebellion in 1837-38 the attack on the seigneurs intensified. We know little of what happened at Malbaie but the end came suddenly. In 1854, after an election fought largely on this issue, the Parliament of Canada swept away the seigniorial system. The habitants then became tenants paying as rent the oldcens et rentes. They could not be disturbed as long as this trifling rent was paid. Moreover at any time they might become simple freeholders by paying to the seigneur a sum of money representing their annual rent capitalized on a six per cent, basis. The term seigneur is still used but is now a mere honorary title. No longer does his position give him the authority of a magistrate; no longer must the habitants grind their corn at his mill; no longer can he claimlods et venteswhen land is sold. For the loss of these rights he was paid compensation out of the public treasury.[34]
With the abolition of the seigniorial system ends too the story of the Nairne family. In 1861, exactly one hundred years after Colonel Nairne first visited Malbaie, died his grandson and the last of his descendants, John McNicol Nairne, son of Colonel Nairne's eldest daughter Magdalen. This last Nairne left the property absolutely to his widow, tied only by the condition that it was to go to her male issue if she had such, even by a second marriage. In 1884, she too died childless, and bequeathed the property to an old friend, both of herself and of her husband, Mr. W.E. Duggan. Had Mr. Duggan not survived Mrs. Nairne the property was to go to St. Matthew's Church, Quebec. Mr. Duggan occupied it, until his death in 1898, when it passed by will to his half-brother, Mr. E.J. Duggan, the present seigneur.[35]
It is a sad story this of the extinction of a family. Both Thomas Nairne and his father were buried at first in the Protestant cemetery at Quebec. But not there permanently were they to lie, and many years ago they found a resting-place in a new tomb in Mount Hermon Cemetery. On a lovely autumn day in 1907 I made my way in Quebec to the spot where the Nairnes are interred. In the fresh cool air it was a pleasure to walk briskly the three miles of the St. Louis road to the cemetery. One crossed the battle field of the Plains of Abraham where, within a few months, a century and a half ago, Britain and France grappled in deadly strife. The elder Nairne saw that field with its harvest of dead on September 13th, 1759, and, in the following April, he saw its snow stained with the blood of brave men who fell in Murray's battle with Lévis. In May, 1776, he marched across it in victorious pursuit of the fleeing American army. At Mount Hermon I readily found the Nairne tomb. It lies on the slope of the hill towards the river. Through the noble trees gleamed the mighty tide of the St. Lawrence. A great pine tree stands near the block of granite that marks the Nairne graves and a gentle breeze through its countless needles caused that mysterious sighing which is perhaps nature's softest and saddest note. One's thoughts went back to the brave old Colonel who wrought so well and had such high hopes for his posterityto the soldier son, remembered here, who died in far distant India; and to the other soldier son who fell in Canada upon the field of battle. He was the last male heir of his line. The name and the family are now well-nigh forgotten. The inscriptions on the tomb, reared by a friend, connected with the Nairnes by ties of friendship only, not of blood, are themselves the memorial of the rise and extinction of a Canadian family.[36]
In the Middle Ages mankind in pursuit of change of air and scene and of bodily and spiritual health went on pilgrimage to some famous shrine; in modern times dwellers in cities, in a similar pursuit, go in summer to some beautiful spot by sea, or lake, or mountain. To many these places then become as sacred as was the saint's shrine of an earlier age. Busy men have leisure there to be idle, to read, to enjoy companionship, to pursue wholesome pleasures. Such a spot has Murray Bay become to many. Their intrusion was not looked upon with favour by those who wished to preserve the old simplicity, but it could not be resisted. More than a hundred years ago Colonel Nairne and Colonel Fraser had parties of guests in the summer that must have made the two manor houses lively enough. The beauty of the place, its coolness when Quebec and Montreal suffered from sweltering heat in the short Canadian summer, the simplicity and charm of its life, proved alluring. There was also excellentsport. Salmon and trout abounded. Though time has brought changes, in some seasons the salmon fishing is still excellent and, in all the world, probably, there is no better trout fishing than in the upper waters of the Murray and in some of the lakes.
Thus it happened that the earliest annals of pleasure seeking at Murray Bay relate to fishing. It is at least possible that more than two hundred years ago the Sieur de Comporté tried his fortune as a fisherman in the lake that bears his name. A hundred and fifty years ago, as we have seen, Captain Nairne and his guest Gilchrist had such excellent salmon fishing that Gilchrist thought this sport alone worth a trip across the Atlantic. Many other fishing expeditions to Malbaie there must have been and, fortunately, a detailed narrative of one of them, made in 1830, has been preserved. The fishermen were Major Wingfield and Dr. Henry—attached to the 66th regiment at Montreal.
They went by steamer from Montreal to Quebec and an American General on board jeered at them for travelling three hundred miles to catch fish which they could buy in the market at their door! When they reached Quebec they found no steamer for Murray Bay,—hardly strange as then the steamboat was comparatively new. Three days they waited at Quebec until at length they bargained with the captain of a coasting schoonerbound for Kamouraska, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, to land them at Malbaie. The weather was stormy, the ship nearly foundered, and the eighty miles of the journey occupied no less than four days and nights. The fishermen had brought with them a quarter of cold lamb, a loaf, and a bottle of wine, but, before the journey was over, sheer hunger drove them to the ship's salt pork and to sausages stuffed with garlic. Rather than take refuge below among "thirty or forty dirty habitants from Kamouraska" they stuck to the deck and encamped under the great sail, but the rain fell so heavily that they could not even keep their cigars alight. At length "with beards like Jews," cold, wet, half-starved and miserable, they reached their destination. As they landed at Murray Bay they saw a salmon floundering in a net, bought it, and carried it with them to the house of a man named Chaperon where they had engaged lodgings. Here, says Dr. Henry, the sensation of being clean and comfortable in their host's "pleasant parlour" was delicious. The tea, the toast, the dainty prints of fresh butter were all exquisite "after rancid pork and garlic," and he declares that they ate for two hours and consumed "some half gallon of thick cream and half a bushel of new laid eggs." Under their window bloomed a rose bush in full flower. Murray Bay was at its best.
On Monday morning, July 5th, 1830, the two fishermen engaged acalèche, and a boy named Louis Panet drove them up the Murray River. The present village church was already standing, "a respectable church," says Dr. Henry, "with its long roof and glittering spire and a tall elm or two"; the elms, alas, have disappeared and now there are only willows. A wooden bridge crossed the Murray and its large abutments loaded with great boulders told of formidable spring floods sweeping down the valley. A recent "éboulement" or land slide had blocked the road along the river and men were still busy clearing away the rubbish. Eight or ten miles up the river at the fall known as the Chute, still a favourite spot for salmon fishing, they had magnificent sport. One Jean Gros, in a crazy canoe, took them to the best places for casting the fly. The first salmon weighed twenty-five pounds and they had to play it for three-quarters of an hour. That evening when they returned to M. Chaperon's, to feast once more, they had five salmon weighing in all one hundred and five pounds and forty-five sea trout averaging three pounds each. No wonder Gilchrist has said such fishing was worth a trip across the Atlantic! The blot on the day's enjoyment was that in the July weather they were pestered with flies.
Excellent sport continued from day to day. Once Jean Gros lost his hold of the pole bywhich he controlled the canoe and it drifted helplessly towards a rapid, Henry all the time playing a salmon. The man was alarmed and knelt to mumble prayers but Henry caught up a board thrown from the shore, gave him a whack with it on the back and shouted: "Ramez! Sacré! Ramez!" The effect was electrical. The old fellow seized the board, paddled with it like mad, steered down the rapid, and Henry finally landed his salmon. Day after day the two fishermen drove up to the Chute to fish until, after a fortnight, the river fell and the salmon ceased to rise; then they went down in a large boat to Rivière Noire, said never yet to have been fished with a rod, slept at night on the sandy beach, but had no luck. Henry tells of an annoyance at Malbaie that still continues; mongrel dogs ran after theircalèche; sometimes one would try to seize the horse by the nose and nearly cause a run-away. Each cur pursued the vehicle and barked himself hoarse, and then, when he retired, his neighbour would take up the task. At length, after this experience had been frequently renewed, they decided to retaliate. One black shaggy beast had made himself specially obnoxious; with his thick wooly fur he did not mind in the least being struck by the whip. So one day Dr. Henry got ready the salmon gaff and, as the brute darted out at them, skilfully hooked him by the side. The driver whipped up his horse, which seemedto enjoy the punishment of his enemy, and the vehicle went tearing along the road, the dog yelling hideously as he was dragged by the hook. The people ran to the doors holding up their hands in astonishment. The Doctor soon shook off the dog and he trotted home little the worse. Next day when he saw the fisherman's calèche coming he limped into the house "as mute as a fish" with his tail between his legs.
Dr. Henry thought Murray Bay an earthly paradise. The people in this "secluded valley" were the most virtuous he had ever seen. Flagrant crime was unknown,—doors were never locked at night. There was no need of temperance reform; "whole families pass their lives without any individual ever having tasted intoxicating fluids." The devout people, he says, had social family worship, morning and evening; the families were huge, fifteen to twenty children being not uncommon; when a young couple married the relations united to build a house for them; and so on. Unfortunately we know from other sources that conditions were not as idyllic at Murray Bay as Dr. Henry describes; but it was, no doubt, a simple and virtuous community.
In time its isolation was to disappear before invaders like Dr. Henry, in pursuit of pleasure. So gradual was the change that we hardly know when it came. By 1850 there was a little summer colony mostly from Quebec and Montreal. Soona few came from points more distant. As means of transport on the St. Lawrence improved a great many travellers passed Murray Bay on their way to the Saguenay. Tadousac, at its mouth, was already well known and an occasional stray visitor stopped off at Murray Bay to see what it was like. The accommodation offered was rude enough, no doubt, but perhaps less rude than one might suppose. At Pointe au Pic stood a substantial stone house. This was turned into a hotel and known some fifty years ago as Duberger's house. There were besides a few other houses for summer visitors. Thus, long ago, was there tolerable comfort at Murray Bay. In any case visitors soon found that the place had abundant compensations even for discomfort. They came and came again. Friends came to visit them and they too learned to love the spot. Some Americans from New York chanced to find it out and others of their countrymen followed; by 1885 already well established was the now dominant American colony.
The influx has limited and restricted but has not destroyed the old diversion of fishing. There are still many hundreds of lakes in the neighbourhood on which no fisherman has ever yet cast a fly. But nearly all the good spots within easy range are now leased or owned by private persons and clubs; no longer may the transient tourist fish almost where he pleases. All the better for thisrestriction is the quality of the fishing. What magnificent sport there is in some of those tiny lakes on the mountain side and what glorious views as one drives thither! To reach Lac à Comporté, for instance, one crosses the brawling Murray, drives up its left bank for a mile or so and then heads straight up the mountain side. Turning back one can see the silver gleam of the small river winding through its narrow valley until lost in the enveloping mountains. From points still higher one looks northwestward upon the mountain crests worn round ages ago, some of them probably never yet trodden by the foot of man. Most are wooded to the top but there are bare crags, a glowing purple sometimes in the afternoon light; but the prevailing tone is the deep, deep blue, the richest surely that nature can show anywhere. Along the road where we are driving stretch the houses of the habitants and sometimes, to survey the passing strangers, the whole family stands on the rude door-step. They rarely fail in a courteous greeting, with a touch still of the manners of France.
Two or three days spent on one of these wild mountain lakes, such as Lac à Comporté, is as pleasant an experience as any one can have. The walk is beautiful from the last cottage where the vehicles are left and the two or three men are secured who shoulder the packs with the necessary provisions. At first the forest path is hewnbroadly in a straight line but it soon narrows to a trail winding up the mountain side. The way is rough; one must clamber over occasional boulders and turn aside to avoid fallen trees. The white stems of birches are conspicuous in the forest thicket. After a stiff climb we have passed over the shoulder of the mountain; the path is now trending downward and at length through the arch of green over the pathway one catches the gleam of the lake. The pace quickens and in a few minutes we stand upon the shore of a lovely little sheet of water with a shore line perhaps three miles long, lying in the mountain hollow. Evening is near and, half an hour later, each fisherman is in a boat paddled softly by a habitant companion. In a thousand places the calm water is disturbed by the trout feeding busily; they often throw themselves quite clear of the water and, when the sport has well begun, at a single cast one occasionally takes a trout on each of his three flies. Before it is dark the whole circuit of the lake has been made and a goodly basket of trout is the result.
A camp at evening is always delightful. The tired fishermen lie by the cheery fire while the men prepare the evening meal, to consist chiefly of the trout just caught. They have the vivacity and readiness of their race: rough habitants though they are their courtesy is inborn, inalienable. After the meal is over silence often fallson the group of three or four by the fire. Every one is tired and at barely nine o'clock it is time for bed. Before each of the two or three small tents standing some distance apart by the water's edge the men have built a blazing fire which throws its light far out over the tiny lake. All round rise the mountains, now dark and sombre; a sharp wind is blowing and as one stands alone looking out over the water there comes a sense of chill; for a moment the mountain solitude seems remote, melancholy and friendless: with something like a shiver one turns to the cheerful fire before the tent. Here blankets are spread on sweet scented boughs ofsapin; the bed is hard, but not too hard for a tired man and one quickly falls asleep.
Other fishing expeditions at Murray Bay take one farther afield and into more varied scenes. In its upper stretches, three thousand feet above the sea, the Murray River flows through a level country before it plunges into mountain fastnesses, almost impregnable in summer, for a long and troubled détour, to emerge at length into this last valley. To reach this flat upland one must drive through a beautiful mountain pass with great heights towering on either side of the winding roadway. In the upper river the fishing is still unsurpassed. Of small trout there are vast numbers, excellent for the table, but in the deep pools are also huge trout, ranging in weight from threeto eight pounds. The surrounding country is open; there are only clumps of scrubby timber; and the plain is covered with deep moss readily beaten into a hard path upon which the foot treads silently. Here the bears come to feed upon the berries and the Canadians have called the plain prettily the "Jardin des Ours." Other sport than trout fishing there is. In season the caribou and the moose are abundant—but that is a sportsman's tale by itself.
Fishing and hunting are not the sole diversions. As long ago as in 1811, when young Captain Nairne came here fresh from Europe, the boating attracted him and he spent much time on the bay and the river. No doubt the young seigneur was soon skilful in the art of paddling a canoe. In those days there were real Indians and no other canoes than those of birch bark; now these have well-nigh disappeared and, indeed, few visitors at Murray Bay, use any kind of a canoe. The pastime is thought too dangerous for all but the initiated. Amid these mountains, winds rise quickly and beat up a sea, and it is well to keep near the shore. The rising tide sweeps like a mill race over the bar at the mouth of the bay and when one has passed out to the great river it is like being afloat on the open sea. On perfectly calm days we may go far out to be swept up with the tide; but it is both safer and pleasanter to glide along close to shore under the shadow of the cliffs, around sharpcorners, dodging in and out among boulders submerged, or now being submerged, by the rising tide. The successive sandy beaches are each backed by high cliffs. The river is a shining, spangled, surface of light blue and white, reflecting the sky sprinkled with fleecy clouds. Here a chattering stream, the Petit Ruisseau, falls over white rocks to lose itself in the sand. Far ahead now one can see the Church of Ste. Irénée perched on a level table-land, two or three hundred feet above the river. Soon a dark green line on the high birch-clad shore marks the gorge by which the Grand Ruisseau flows to the St. Lawrence. At its mouth is a good place to land and make tea. The canoes are drawn up on a sandy beach under the shadow of cliffs, a medley of red and grey and brown. Near by, the Grand Ruisseau, a fair sized brook, babbles in its bed crowded with great boulders. A wild path, part of it including steps from rock to rock in the bed of the stream itself, leads to a lovely little cascade where, in white foam, the water falls into a deep dark pool. One hurries to visit it and then, with the evening shadows falling and the narrow gorge becoming sombre, it is wise to hasten back. As one steps out from the wooded path to the shore of the great river the scene is enchanting. The river's shining surface is perfectly smooth. Far across it is a dark-blue serried line of mountains. Houses, twenty miles distant, stand out whitein the last light of the sun. From the tin-covered spire of a church far away, the flash of the rays comes back like the glow of fire. Standing in shadow we look out on a realm of light: