“He’ll die from cold if left out longer,” remarked his wife; “we must run some risk. He might be able to keep on the back of the old white mare.”
“That’s so,” answered her husband, “we’ll try Ab’s plan.”
As no time was to be lost, it being essential to make the diversion before the Indians were detailed by Captain Versailles to their posts for the night, the boys caught up their guns and left, while Abner and Mr Bland slipped over to the hiding-place of the soldier, told him what was intended, and helped him down from his perch. The prospect of speedy escape gave him unwonted strength, and leaning on his friends he managed to walk to the house, where Mrs Bland, afterdressing his wound, insisted on washing his face and tidying him up. “For sure,” she said, “you’re going home to your friends, and you mustn’t give Canada a bad name.”
“That I never will,” murmured the grateful soldier, “God has anointed the hearts of both peoples with the same oil of kindness, and it’s only the politicians and big men on both sides that make trouble between us.”
The evening was calm and mild for the season, and Mr Bland sat listening by the open door. Presently, there burst from a remote corner of the woods, a sharp volley, followed by such shouts and cries as would lead the listener to fancy a fierce fight was in progress. “There they are!” exclaimed Mr Bland, while the shots and uproar continued to increase, “let ’em keep that up for five minutes, and there won’t be an Indian within earshot who won’t be running to the spot.”
The noise did continue that long and longer too, while, with skilful imitation, it subsided and increased, and passed from one part of the woods to another, the cheers of soldiers mingling with equally good imitations of Indian yells, giving the impression of a running fight between a detachment of the American garrison and the Indian guard. When Mr Bland considered all the Indians had left for the neighborhood of the supposed fight, the old mare was brought to the door, which the soldier was helped to mount, andAbner, grasping the bridle, led the way. By this time the moon was high enough to be pouring down its rays through the tree-tops, and though its light was useful in showing him how to avoid obstacles and to go much faster than they otherwise could have done, Abner would have dispensed with it for fear of its revealing their presence to the Indians. His fear was groundless. His device was a complete success. Not an Indian was met, the woods were traversed in safety, and Abner exulted in the thought how he had tricked the Indians, and almost laughed right out when he pictured to himself their disgust, on reaching the scene of the supposed fight, to find it to be only a coon-hunt. If they had trapped him in the morning, he had outwitted them in the evening. When the light of his father’s house was discerned, Abner relieved his feelings by a great shout of exultation, that drew his parents to the door.
“Well, Abner, you see the Indians did not catch you?”
“Didn’t they mother! I feel the clutch of one of ’em at my scalp yet. Won’t you help the stranger down, father? He is a soldier and wounded.”
“Wounded! Poor critter, I must get the bed ready,” and Mrs Smith darted indoors.
Stiff and sore from the exertion and cold, the poor soldier was like to fall when they helped him off the mare, and, gently, father and son carried him to the bed.
“Poor man, ain’t he tuckered out!” exclaimed Mrs Smith, as she approached him when his head had been laid on the pillow. Shading the candle she glanced at him, started, looked again, and crying out, “Blessed if it ben’t my own brother Bill from Varmont!” she fell on his neck in a paroxysm of hysterical sobs. And so it turned out to be. He had been among those last drafted to reinforce Hampton, and had been unconscious that his sister lived so near the camp at Four Corners. Abner was the hero of the night when the soldier told how he had been the means of saving him. “No,” said the lad modestly, “it was mother’s sending me against my will to the Blands that saved you.”
“That’s so, Abner, and you never forget it, that blood is thicker than water, and in doing a kind deed to those you considered an enemy we were serving ourselves.”
After the stifling heat and blinding glare of a Canadian summer day, it is most refreshing to walk forth as the sun, shorn of its strength, sinks, a glowing ball of fire, behind the forest that edges the landscape. Vegetation, wilted by the day’s glaring heat, revives with the dewy coolness of the hour, and from the neighboring bush comes the song of the greybird. As the glow fades from the sky, nowhere else in the world of tenderer blue or more translucent depth, the stars drop into sight, and should Venus be in the ascendant, she burns with a white flame unknown at any other season. Generally, with the setting of the sun, a light breeze springs up from the west or northwest, refreshing to the farmers who toiled throughout the sultry day, and swaying the heads of timothy until the meadows seem to be swept by billows. The eye of the saunterer takes in the scene, passing over the great flat fields of grain and grass, until ended by the recurring belt of bush; the snug farm-houses set amid shade-trees and orchards; the pond-like reaches of theChateaugay, sleeping peacefully in the hollows of its rounded banks, unruffled save as the wing of one of the swallows, that skim its glassy surface, frets it for a moment, or from the leap of an inhabitant of its clear waters; and, in the finished beauty of the picture, he finds it hard to realize that he is looking upon the results of the labor of scarce half a century, that underneath a few of the roofs before him still live men and women who saw the country when a wilderness of forest and swamp, and who are survivors of the generation who wrought the wondrous change—men and women who underwent privations the most painful and labors the most exhausting in making the country what it is. To give those who have inherited the fruits of their sacrifices some idea of what the first settlers underwent, I here submit the narrative of one of them, as nearly as may be in the words I was told it:
You have driven a long way to see me, sir, and I am afraid I can tell you little worth the hearing. It is strange you should go to so much trouble to gather these old-time stories, but if I can tell you anything that will be of use to you I am willing. You want me to begin with our leaving the Old Country and go on in order, as you can recollect best that way. Very well, only you will have to come and see me again, for it is a long story, and if you print any of it, you are to change it so that nobody will know who toldyou. I don’t mind myself, but some of my children might not like it.
We belonged to the Border, and the first sight that met my eyes every morning was the Eildon hills. My husband was a shepherd and we lived well enough until our family began to grow large, and then we thought it would be well for their sake to try Canada. We had a little saved and that, with what we got from the roup of our furniture, paid our passage and plenishing. We sailed from the Solway, into which a big ship from Liverpool called for a party of emigrants. We were rowed out in small boats, and when I got on to her deck my heart failed me, for such dirt and confusion I never saw the like, crowded as she was with 242 emigrants from county Kerry, who had gone on board at Liverpool. This we never expected, but it was too late now, and we had to make the best of it. The sight below was worse than above, and I turned fairly sick when I went down the ladder to our berths; the noise was bad enough but the smell was just awful. The mate, a swearing character, was not without a show of decency, and did the great favor of allotting to us Border folks, who numbered an even six dozen, the row of berths aft the main hatchway, so that we were kept together. We slipped out of the firth that night with the tide, and next morning, which was a most beautiful day, we kept tacking off and on the coast of theNorth of Ireland. As we got out on the ocean I grew sea-sick, and for a few days I was just in misery; having to attend the children yet hardly able to raise my head. The ship’s provisions were scanty and very bad, which did not matter much to us, for we had taken a good deal with us, but the poor Irish, who had brought nothing, were always wanting to borrow, and as we, not having more than enough to serve ourselves, had to refuse, they abused us for being proud, and tried to pick quarrels, but both the Scotch and English of us kept our tempers and gave them no offence. Their jealousy and ill-feeling grew, and one morning they banded together to prevent our getting hot water at the galley. This we could not stand, for the water was bad and only fit to drink when boiled and made into tea or gruel. The captain refused to interfere, being afraid, we thought, of having trouble with the Kerry men, and when we told the mate he only swore at our lads for a cowardly lot of sheep-tenders. When dinner-time came, our men got out their crooks, and, going quietly on deck, formed in a column and, laying about them right and left, cleared a road to the galley. There were fearful threats made, but nothing came of them, and after that we were respected and left alone.
The ship made little headway owing to the wind keeping in the west, and it was on the eighth day of our voyage that it became known to us that awoman, who had been sick for some time, was ill of the fever. On that day she got delirious and her people could not hide the truth longer. Four of the oldest men of our party were sent to tell the captain. He made light of their news and said they were mistaken about the disease, but he refused to come and see the woman or to erect a partition across the hold to separate us from the rest of the passengers. We took his treatment sore to heart. When ship-owners get his passage-money, they don’t care what becomes of the poor emigrant, and would just as soon he would die on the voyage as land him. We went to sleep that night sad and frightened, for we knew, by reading the papers, what ship-fever meant. Well, next day the woman was worse, and on the evening of the third she died. We were all anxious that the corpse should be buried at once, so that the infection might not be spread by it, and two of our folk, taking some things that might be useful in preparing the body, went over to where it lay to advise that that be done. The poor creatures got angry at once, and drove them back, and cursed us for a set of heretics, who would put the decent woman out of sight without waking her. They laid the corpse on top of some chests in the centre of the ship, surrounded it by candles, and then the keening began, which drove me nearly into hysterics. The captain, hearing what was going on, sent down a keg of rum, andmade matters worse. Towards morning, when the drink had taken effect, they began to quarrel, and the noise and confusion was terrible. There being no partition, we could see the whole length of the hold, with the rows of berths on either side, and towards the far end, in the middle of the ship, was the white heap formed by the corpse and lighted by candles, with the women sitting around it, wailing in the most unearthly way, and taking no heed of the men and children who swarmed outside of them, talking, shouting, pushing, and fighting. A candle was knocked down and there was a cry of fire, but an old woman smothered it with her cloak. As we could not sleep, and were afraid they might come to our end of the ship and give us trouble, we went on deck to wait till all was over. It was a cold, raw morning, with not enough of wind to keep the ship from pitching, but anything was better than being below. When the eight o’clock bell struck, the Irish came swarming up, bearing the corpse. They rested it awhile by the bulwarks, when all, even to the smallest child, fell on their knees in prayer. Then it was lifted over and let drop into the ocean. The sailors would not help, keeping by themselves on the forecastle, for they were afraid of the infection. As four days passed without a new case, we were beginning to hope the danger was passed, but on the fifth three children took ill, and before the week was donethere were 17 down. After that the disease had its own way, and deaths became so frequent that it was impossible to hold wakes. We pitied the poor creatures, and gave more than we could spare to help them. The worst want of the sick was water and though it smelt so that a horse would not have touched it and not worth the saving, for there was plenty on board such as it was, the captain would not order that the allowance be increased, but he encouraged the steward to sell liquor, in the profit of which he shared. I cannot begin to tell you of the scenes we had to endure; it was of God’s mercy that they did not take away our senses. If the ship was dirty before the fever broke out, it was worse now, and the smell, as you stepped from the deck, was like to knock you down. None of our folk, with one sorrowful exception, took the disease, which was not considered strange by the Irish, for they accounted the taking away of the sick, especially of the young, as a sign of favor by the saints, who carried them to glory. The exception was my husband. When about to raise a tin of tea to his lips one morning, he saw a child looking at him from her berth with such entreating eyes, that he went over and held the vessel to the girl’s mouth. When she was satisfied, he drank what was left. Three days after he complained of a racking headache, which was followed by a chill, after that the fever set in. Just because he wassuch a lusty man the disease went hard with him, and on the tenth day of his illness I saw there was no hope. It was in the afternoon as I sat by him, listening to his ravings, that he suddenly sat up, and pointing to the shaft of sunshine that poured down the hatchway into the dark and loathsome hold, he said, “It fa’s on the Cheviots and glints on the Tweed e’noo; let me bask in’t once mair.” We carried him over and laid him in the sunlight. The delirium left him, and a sweet smile came to his face. “Hae ye onything to say?” I whispered in his ear. “No, Mailie,” he answered softly, “I am quite happy an’ feel the grip o’ my Saviour’s han’: God will be wi’ you and the bairns.” He never opened his een mair, but the smile lingered on his lips until the sun began to sink, and as he felt the glow leave his cheek, he muttered, “It’s growin’ late and the nicht will be ower cauld for the lammies; I’ll ca’ the ewes frae the knowes,” and so saying he slipped awa wi’ the Great Shepherd o’ the Sheep to the lown valley and the still waters. Though my sorrow was like to rive my head, I kept my composure, for there was work to be done, and nothing can excuse neglect of duty. I prepared him for burial, and when all was ready, an old friend, a brother shepherd of my husband from a boy, gave out the 90th psalm, and when it had been sung, he read the 14th chapter of John, and offered up a most soul-striving prayer, so that, when the corpse waslifted, there was not a dry cheek. We followed as it was carried to the deck. The ship was on the banks of Newfoundland, and the ocean was a dead calm, the new moon lighting up the thin haze of mist that lay upon it. I had wrapped my husband in his plaid, and thrust his crook lengthways through the outer fold. Holding each an end of it, two of the strongest of our men swung the body well out from the ship’s side. As it disappeared I felt that my love for man as wife had gone with it, and such a sense of desolation came over me as words cannot tell.
Five days after we came to quarantine, where the sick were landed, and, just five weeks and two days from the time we left Scotland, we sailed into Quebec harbor. We were a small and heartbroken handful. Our chests had been brought on deck and we sat on them, waiting for the steamer to come alongside that was to carry us to Montreal. None of our folk had asked me what I was going to do, and I knew the reason. It was not that they were unwilling to help me, but because they had more than they could do to mind themselves. They felt for me sore, but they could not take the bite out of their own children’s mouths to give to mine. Indeed, there was hardly one of them who knew what they were going to do, for they had come to Canada to seek new homes on chance. I had had my own thoughts and had marked out what I would try to do.
“There’s the steamer; get yer bairns thegither and I’ll look to yer kists.”
It was a hard-favored man that spoke, a shepherd named Braxton from Cumberland, who all the voyage had hardly said a word. Glad of his help I followed him. He bought milk and bread for us when the steamer called at Three Rivers, but never saying aught until Montreal was in sight.
“What beest thou gaun to do?” he asked. I said I was going to bide in Montreal and try to get something to do. I was strong and had a pair of good hands. He gave a kind of snort.
“Ye canna mak eneugh to keep five bairns; ye’d better come wi’ me.”
“Where till?” I asked.
“I dinna knaw yet, but I’se get lan’ somewhere near and ye’se keep house for me.”
“Are ye a single man?” He nodded. I sat thinking. He was a stranger to me beyond what I had seen of him on the ship. Could I trust him? Here was a home for my children in the meanwhile. For their sake would I do right to refuse the offer? My mind was made up, and I told him I would go with him.
“I canna offer thee wages,” he said.
“I dinna ask any.”
“Very well,” he replied, and no more was said.
By this time they had yoked the steamer to a string of oxen, which helped it up the current intothe harbor, and in course of an hour we were in Sandy Shaw’s tavern. In answer to Braxton, the landlord told him of there being bush land easy to be had near to the city. Next day at sunrise he left to see it, and it was after dark on the third day when he came back. He had got a lot on the Chateaugay, and we were to start for it early next day. I had the children dressed soon after daylight, and the three youngest rode on the French cart that was hired to take our chests to Lachine. The rest of us followed on foot. It was a fine morning, but very warm, and the road was deep with dust, which the wind raised in clouds like to choke us. When we got to Lachine we were disappointed to find that the ferryboat was unable to leave her wharf owing to the strong wind blowing down the lake and which had raised a heavy sea. We sat on our boxes and spent a weary day, my head being just like to split with the heat and the shouting and jabbering of the bateau men. There were several hundred emigrants waiting besides ourselves, for the Durham boats could not start until the wind changed. We could not get a bite to buy, for the Canadians were afraid of us on account of the fever, and they had reason, for among those waiting were many who had been sick of it, and there were some who were so white and wasted that you would say the hand of death was upon them. Towards sunset the wind fell and the lake gotcalmer, so the ferry boat started. Her paddles were not driven by a steam-engine but by a pair of horses, which went round and round. It was going to be moonlight, so when we were put off at the Basin, we thought we would push on to Reeves’s, for it would be cooler than to walk next day, and we might thereby catch the canoes Braxton had bespoke. A cart was hired to convey our chests and the younger children, and we set off. We got along very well for about five miles, when we heard distant thunder, and half an hour after the sky was clouded and we saw a storm would soon burst. We knocked at the doors of several houses, but none would let us in. As soon as the habitants saw we were emigrants, they shut the door in our face, being afraid of the fever. When the rain began to fall, the boy who was driving halted beneath a clump of trees by the river-side, and I got under the cart with the children. It just poured for about half an hour and the lightning and thunder were fearful. We were soon wet to the skin, and I felt so desolate and lonesome, that I drew my shawl over my head, and, hugging my youngest child to my bosom, had a good cry. Those born here cannot understand how castdown and solitary newcomers feel. For months after I came, the tear would start to my eye whenever I thought of Scotland. Well, the storm passed, and the moon came out bright in a clear sky. It was much cooler, butthe roads were awful, and we went on, slipping at every step or splashing through mud-holes. Had I not been so much concerned about the children, I could never have got through that night; helping and cheering them made me forget my own weariness. It was getting to be daylight when the cart at last stopped in front of a long stone house, in which there was not a soul stirring, though the doors were all open. The boy pointed us to where the kitchen was and turned to unyoke his horse. I found four men sleeping on the floor, who woke up as we went in. They were French and very civil, giving up the buffaloes they had been sleeping upon for the children. I sat down on a rocking-chair, and fell at once asleep. The sound of somebody stamping past woke me with a start. It was the master of the house, a lame man, whom I found out after to be very keen but honest and kind in his way. It was well on in the day, and breakfast was on the table. I was so tired and sore that I could hardly move. Braxton came in and asked if we were able to go on, for the canoes would be ready to start in an hour. I was determined he should not be hindered by me, so I woke up the children, washed and tidied them as I best could, and then we had breakfast, which did us a deal of good. There were two canoes, which were just long flat boats, with two men in each to manage them. Our baggage and ourselves were divided equallybetween them, and we started, everything looking most fresh and beautiful, but the mosquitoes were perfectly awful, the children’s faces swelling into lumps, and between them and the heat they grew fretful. For a long way after leaving Reeves’s there were breaks in the bush that lined the river banks—the clearances of settlers with shanties in front—but they grew fewer as we went on, until we would go a long way without seeing anything but the trees, that grew down to the water’s edge. Getting round the rapids was very tiresome, and it was late in the day when the men turned the canoes into a creek and pulled up alongside its west bank. This was our lot and where we were to stay. Placing our boxes so as to form a sort of wall, the canoemen felled some small cedars for a roof, and, lighting a fire, they left us. I watched the boats until they were out of sight and the sound of their paddles died away, and then felt, for the first time, what it is to be alone in the backwoods. There was so much to do that I had no time to think of anything, and the children were happy, everything being new to them. The kettle was put on and tea made, and we had our first meal on our farm—if you had seen it, with the underbrush around us so thick that we could not go six rods, you would have said it never could be made a farm.
We slept that night under our cover of cedar bushes and slept sound. In the morning Braxtonand my oldest boy started down the track, for it was no road, that followed the bank of the Chateaugay, to see if the settlers below would help to raise a shanty, and while they were gone I did my best to get things into order. For all I had come through, there was lightness in my heart, for there is a freedom and hopefulness in living in the woods that nothing else seems to give one, and I made child’s play of discomforts that would have disheartened me had I been told of them before leaving Scotland. It was nigh noon when Braxton came back. He had been made welcome everywhere, all were glad to have a new neighbor, and the promise given that word would be sent to all within reach to come to a bee next day. After dinner he took the axe and tried his hand at chopping. He began on a tree about half a foot thick and was nicking it all round, we looking on and admiring.
“Ye’ll kill somebody with that tree,” said a voice behind us, and turning, to our astonishment we saw a tall woman, in a poke-bonnet, looking on. Explaining that it was necessary to know how a tree would fall, she pointed how any direction could be secured by the way it was chopped, and, seizing the axe, she showed how, and, under her strokes, the first tree fell amid the shouts of the children. She was the wife of our nearest neighbor, and, on hearing of our arrival, had come over to see us, “Being real glad,” as she said, “to havea woman so near.” She stayed an hour, and after finding out all about us, showed me how to do a great many things needful in bush-life. Among the rest, how to make a smudge to protect us from the mosquitoes, which was a real comfort.
Next morning six men came and spent the day in clearing space for the shanty and in making logs for it. The day after, Braxton with two of the men went to Todd’s to buy boards and rafted them down the river. On the third day the raising took place, and that night, though it was not finished, we slept in it, and proud we were, for the house as well as the land was our own. It was quite a while before Braxton could finish it, for there was more pressing work to do, and for a month and more our only door was a blanket. The fire was on the hearth with an open chimney made of poles covered with clay. And here I must tell of my first trial at baking. We had brought a bag of flour and, once established in our shanty, I resolved to make a loaf. As you know, in Scotland there is no baking of bread in the houses of the commonality, and though nobody could beat me at scones or oat cake, I had never seen a loaf made. I thought, however, there was no great knack about it. I knew hops were needed, and sent one of my boys with a pail to borrow some from my neighbor, who sent it back half full. I set to work, and after making a nice dough I mixed the hops with it, andmoulded a loaf, which my oldest son, who had seen the process while visiting round, undertook to bake. He put it into a Dutch oven, or chaudron, and heaping hot ashes over it, we waited for an hour, when the chaudron was taken out and the cover lifted. Instead of a nice, well-raised loaf, there was at the bottom of it a flat black cake. “Maybe it will taste better than it looks,” says I, thrusting a knife at it, but the point was turned, and we found our loaf to be so hard that you could have broken it with a hammer. And the taste! It was bitter as gall. Well, that was a good lesson to me, and I was not above asking my neighbors after that about matters on which I was ignorant.
No sooner had shelter been provided for us, than we all turned to with hearty will to clear up a bit of land. My boys were a great help, and the oldest got to be very handy with the axe, which was well, for Braxton never got into the right hang of using it, and spent double the strength in doing the same work my boy did. There is quite an art in chopping. It was exhausting work clearing up the land, being quite new to us and the weather very hot. Often had Braxton to lay down his axe and bathe his head in the creek, but he never stopped, working from dawn to darkening, and when it was moonlight still longer. I helped to brush and log, as much to encourage my boys to work as for all I could do. When ready to burn, three neighbors cameto show us how to do it and, the logs being large and full of sap, it was a slow and laborious job. The men looked like Blackamoors, being blacker than any sweeps, from smoke and the coom that rubbed off the logs, while the sweat just rolled down them, owing to the heat of the fires and the weather. We came on to our lot on the 29th of May and it was well on in June when the remains of the logs were handspiked out of the way and the ground was kind of clear between the stumps on half an acre. In the ashes we planted potatoes, and a week after, when a bit more land was taken in, we put in a few more. This done, we turned to make potash. Except along the creek there was no timber on our lot fit for making ashes but on its banks there was a fine cut of swale elm. The chopping of the trees was the easiest part of the work, the getting of the logs together and burning them being difficult, the underbrush being very thick and we so short of help in handling the felled trees. A neighbor showed us how to make a plan-heap and skid logs, but from inexperience we did not work to much advantage that summer. We, however, wrought with a will and kept at it, even my youngest, Ailie, helping by fetching water to drink. Young people nowadays have no idea of what work is, and I don’t suppose that one in twenty of them would go through what their fathers and mothers did. Although it was a drysummer, the banks of the creek were soft, so our feet were wet all the time and we had to raise the heaps on beds of logs to get them to burn. Our first lot of ashes we lost. Before they could be lifted into the leaches, a thunderstorm came on and in a few minutes the labor of a fortnight was spoiled. After that, we kept them covered with strips of bark.
The neighbors were very kind. They had little and had not an hour to spare, but they never grudged lending us a hand or sharing with us anything we could not do without. There was no pride or ceremony then, and neighbors lived as if they were one family. One of them who had a potash kettle lent it to us, and it was fetched on a float or sort of raft, which was pushed up the creek as far as it would go. Then the kettle was lifted out and carried by main strength, suspended on a pole. We had thought the chopping, the logging, and the burning bad enough, (the carrying of water to the leaches and the boiling of the lye was child’s play) but the melting of the salts was awful. Between the exertion in stirring, the heat of the sun and of the fire, flesh and blood could hardly bear up. How we ever managed I do not know, unless it was by keeping at it and aye at it, but on the first week of October we had filled a barrel with potash, and Reeves took it away in one of his canoes and sold it in town for us, on the understandingthat we were to take the pay out of his store. He made thus both ways, and everything he kept was very dear. I have paid him 25 cents a yard for common calico and a dollar a pound for tea. We could not help ourselves just then.
I should have told you our potatoes grew wonderfully. There is a warmth in newly-burned land or a nourishment in ashes, I don’t know which, that makes everything grow on new land far beyond what they do elsewhere. The frost held off well that fall, and we lifted our crop in good order, except a few that were very late planted, which did not ripen properly. When we landed on our lot, Braxton used his last dollar to pay the canoemen, and I had just 15 shillings left after paying the boards we got at Todd’s mill, so all we had to put us over until another crop would be raised, was the potatoes and what we could make out of potash. We were in no way discouraged. The work was slavish, but we were working for ourselves in making a home; the land was our own, and every day it was improving. The children took to the country and its ways at once and were quite contented. We were cheerful and hopeful, feeling we had something to work for and it was worth our while to put up with present hardship. I remember a neighbor’s wife, who was always miscalling Canada and regretting she had come to it, being satisfied with nothing here. She said to her husband one day,in my hearing, “In Scotland you had your two cows’ grass and besides your wage sae muckle meal and potatoes, and we were bien and comfortable; but you wad leave, and dae better, and this is your Canada for you!” “Can you no haud your tongue, woman,” he replied, “we haea prospecthere, and that is what we hadna in Scotland.” That was just it, we had a prospect before us that cheered us on to thole our hardships.
I counted not the least of the drawbacks of the bush, the lack of public ordinances. There was no church to go to on Sabbath, and the day was spent in idleness, mostly in visiting. Sometimes the young men went fishing or hunting, but that was not common in our neighborhood, where the settlers respected it as a day of rest, though without religious observance of any kind. Accustomed from a child to go to kirk regularly in Scotland, I felt out of my ordinary as each Sabbath came round. To be sure, I taught the children their catechism and we read the story of Joseph and the two books of Kings before the winter set in, but that did not satisfy me. The nearest preaching was at South Georgetown, and tho’ I heard no good of the minister I wanted to go. Somehow, something aye came in the way every Sabbath morning I set. At last, it was after the potatoes had been lifted and the outdoor work about over one Sabbath morning in October, a canoe, on its way down, stopped to leave a message for us.This was my chance, and getting ready I and my two oldest children went, leaving the others in charge of Braxton, and, for a quiet man, he got on well with children, for he was fond of them. I remember that sail as if it were yesterday—the glow of the hazy sunlight, the river smooth as a looking-glass, in which the trees, new clad in red and yellow claes, keeked at themselves, and the very spirit of peace seemed to hover in the air. Oh it was soothing, and I thought over all I had come through since I left Scotland. Tho’ I could not help thinking how different it had been with me six months before, yet my heart welled up as I thought of all the blessings showered on me and mine and thanked God for his goodness. It was late when we came in sight of the church, for the sound of singing told us worship had begun. Dundee was the tune, and as the voices came softly over the water my heart so melted within me to hear once again and in a strange land the psalmody of Scotland that I had to turn away my head to greet. Stepping ashore where the church stood on the river bank, we went quietly in. It was a bare shed of a place, with planks set up for seats, and there were not over thirty present. The minister was a fresh-colored, presentable enough man, and gave a very good sermon, from the 11th chapter of Second Corinthians. While he was expatiating on what the apostle had suffered, something seemed to strike him, andhe said, “Aye, aye, Paul, ye went through much but you never cut down trees in Canada.” He spoke feelingly, for he had to work like the rest of his neighbors to earn his bread. One end of the church was boarded off, and in it he and his wife lived. I will say no more about Mr McWattie, for his failing was notorious. When worship was over, it was a great treat to mix with the folk. That I did not know a soul present made no difference, for all were free then and I made friendships that day that have lasted to this. When he heard that I was from the south of Scotland, Mr Brodie would take no refusal and I had to go with him across the river to his house, where we had dinner, and soon after set out to walk home. People now-a-days think it a hardship to walk a mile to church, but I knew many then who went four or five, let the weather be what it might. It was dark before we got home, and that night there was a frost that killed everything. The weather kept fine, however, until December, and we had no severe cold until the week before New Year.
I cannot think of anything out of the common that first winter. Our neighbors wrought at chopping cordwood to raft to Montreal in the spring, but Braxton could not, for he had no oxen to draw the wood to the river-bank, so we went on enlarging our clearance. I forgot to say, that one of our North Georgetown acquaintances gave myoldest boy a pig in a present, and we managed to keep the little creature alive with the house-slop and boiling the potatoes that had not ripened well.
We all suffered from the cold, which was past anything we had any conception of before coming to Canada. Our shanty was so open that it did little more than break the wind, and water spilled on the floor at once froze. We had plenty of wood, but it was green, and the logs were fizzing and boiling out the sap the day long, and it took Braxton quite a while to learn that some kinds of wood burn better than others. At first he was just as likely to bring in a basswood or elm log as one of maple or hemlock. Most of the heat went up the big chimney, so that while our faces would be burning, our backs were cold. It was worst in the mornings, for I would rise to find everything solid, even the bread having to be thawed, and the blankets so stiff from our breaths and the snow that had sifted in that I had to hang them near the fire to dry. We kept our health, however, and after the middle of February the weather moderated. In March a deer, while crossing our clearance, broke through the crust, and while floundering in the snow was killed by two of my boys. After that they were on the watch, and ran down and killed two more with their axes. I salted and dried the hams, and but for them we would have fared poorly. Having no kettle, we made only a little maple sugar thatspring by boiling the sap in the kailpot. There was no sugar then like what is made now, it was black and had a smoky flavor.
The spring was late and wet, which was a great disappointment, for Braxton could not burn the log-heaps he had ready and make potash, on the money for which he counted to buy provisions to put us over until harvest. To make matters worse, provisions got to be very scarce and dear, so that flour and oatmeal sold at $5 the quintal, and sometimes was not to be had. One day, when quite out, I went down to Rutherford’s, who kept a bit of a store, and he had neither meal nor flour, but went into the kitchen and brought out a bowlful of the meal they had for themselves. I went over the potatoes we had cut for seed, and sliced off enough around the eyes to make a dinner for us. In June, provisions became more plentiful, for the boats had begun to bring supplies from Upper Canada to Montreal. It was the middle of that month before Braxton had a barrel of potash ready, and the money it brought did not pay what we were due the storekeepers. We were kept very bare that summer, but had a prospect before us in the three acres of crops which we had got in and which were doing finely.
I can never forget that summer from the fright I had about Ailie. She was as sweet a wee dot as there was in the world, so loving and confiding that she made friends with everybody at sight.I was never tired of watching her pretty ways and listening to her merry prattle. We were busy one afternoon leaching ashes, when suddenly my oldest boy asked, “Where’s Ailie?” I started, and remembered that it was over an hour since I had seen her. “She’ll have gone back to the house to take a sleep,” I said, and I told one of her sisters to go and see. We went on again, carrying water, when, after a while, the lassie came back with the word that she could find Ailie nowhere. We threw down our tubs and dishes, and I shouted her name as loud as I could, thinking she was nearby in the woods. No answer came. “She’ll have fallen asleep under some bush, and doesna hear us,” I said, and, with my children, we went here and there searching for her, calling her name, and all without finding Ailie. Braxton was an immovable man, who seldom spoke or gave sign of what he was thinking about, but when we were together again and all had the same report, his mouth quivered. Turning down the wooden scoop with which he had been shovelling ashes, he said, “We’ll dae nae mae wark till we find the bairn.” This time we went more systematically about our search, but again it was without avail. It was a hot afternoon, and the sunshine was so bright it lighted up the darkest nooks of the forest, but in none we explored was Ailie. When we met one another in our search and learned not a trace had been found, a pang of agony went through ourhearts. Braxton followed the creek and looked well along the bank of the Chateaugay. It was not until it had become too dark to see that our shouts and cries of “Ailie” ceased to sound through the bush. When we had returned to the house, I stirred up the fire and made supper. When we sat down, not one of us could eat. Braxton bit a piece of bread, but could not swallow it, and with a groan he left the table. We talked over what should be done next, and agreed to warn our neighbors to come and help at daylight, which Braxton and the boys went to do. None of us liked to speak of what may have befallen the child, though we all had our fears, that she had strayed down to the Chateaugay and been drowned or gone into the woods and a wild beast had devoured her. Although they had not troubled us, we knew there were bears and wolves in the swamps to the north of us and there had been even talk of a catamount having been seen. While there was hope I was not going to lose heart, and when I besought the Lord to restore my last born to my arms I thanked Him that the night was so dry and warm that she could come by no ill from the weather. I did not sleep a wink that night, sitting at the door and straining my hearing in the hope that I might catch the cry of my Ailie. Beside the croaking of the frogs and the bit chirrup of some mother-bird that wakened in its nest and tucked her young closer under her wings,I heard nothing. When the stars were beginning to fade I set about getting breakfast ready and wakened the children. I had no need to call Braxton. Poor man, though he said not a word, I knew he had not closed an eye. I insisted on their making a hearty breakfast so as to be strong for the work before them, and in the pockets of each I put a slice of bread and a bit of maple sugar for Ailie, should they find her, for I knew she would be perishing from hunger. Soon after sunrise the neighbors began to drop in until there was a party of over twenty. All had their dogs and some of them had brought axes and guns. It was arranged we should start out in every direction, yet keeping so near as to be always within hearing. By spreading out this way in a circle we would be sure to examine every part of the bush, while two men were to search the river bank in a canoe. We started, some calling aloud, others blowing horns or ringing ox-bells until the woods echoed again, and all without avail, for no Ailie was to be found. What could have become of the bairn? It was as if the earth had opened and swallowed her up. After beating the bush for miles around we gathered together at noon, as had been arranged. Not a trace had been found. We talked it over and over and were at our wits’ end. One lad, new come out and with his head full about Indians, suggested that one of them might have stolen her, and, indeed, it lookedfeasible, did we not know that the few Indians we had were civil and harmless. Had a wild beast taken her, we would have found some fragments of her bit dress. I was dumb with disappointment and sorrow, and had begun to think I would never see her alive. It was agreed among the men it would be useless to spread out farther, that we were now deeper in the woods than it was possible for her to have wandered, and that we should use the afternoon in going back over the ground we had passed, making a better examination of it. We went back slowly, stopping to look at every log and going through every hollow, and, though there was once a shout that her trail had been struck, it proved a mistake, and our second scouring of the woods was as fruitless as the first. The sun was fast westering when we drew nigh our shanty. About four acres back of it there was a waterhole, a low wet spot which all of us had gone round, nobody deeming it possible for the child to have put foot upon it. As I looked at the black oozy muck, half floating in water, the thought struck me, the toddler could walk where a grown up person would sink, and without saying a word to the lad who was with me, I drew off my shoes and stockings, and, kilting my petticoat, stepped in. How I wrestled through I do not know, but once in I had to scramble as I best could until I reached a dry spot in the centre that was like an island, and onwhich there was a thicket of bushes. Daubed with muck and wringing wet, I paused when I got my footing. I heard a rustle. I was panting for breath, so exhausted that I was about to sit down for a little, but that sound revived hope in me. I peered through the bushes and saw a deer gazing at me. The creature stared, without moving, which was strange for so timid an animal. I slipped through an opening in the bushes and there, on a grassy plot, lay my Ailie asleep, crusted with muck, and with her arms clasped round the neck of a baby deer; her wee bit face black with dirt and streaked where the tears had been running down. I snatched her to my bosom and sinking down I hugged and cried over her like one demented. Oh, had you heard her joyful cry of “Mammie, mammie!” and seen her lift her bit pinched mou to mine, you would have cried with us. The deer did not stir but stood looking on, startled and wondering, while the fawn lay quietly beside me. This was a mystery, which I soon solved, for I found the fawn could not move from having a broken leg, and the faithful mother deer would not leave her young one. The shout that Ailie had been found soon brought plenty of help, and the first man that came made to kill the deer, but I prevented him and could not, ever after, bear him near me. There are savages among us who cannot see any of God’s creatures, however harmless, in a state of nature, without trying to taketheir lives. Sportsmen, indeed! Useless louts, who would do the country a service were they to use their powder and shot in killing one another. The fallen tree, by which the deer got across the swale to its well-hidden nest, was found, and I returned by it, carrying Ailie, while Braxton took the fawn in his arms, the deer following. There was much rejoicing at our humble shanty before our neighbors left, and many attempts to account for Ailie’s wandering to where she did. She was weak from want of food and I feared she might be the worse of her exposure, but next day, beyond that she was pale, she was well as ever. From what we could gather from her, we made out tolerably plain how her disappearance had come about. While playing near the house, she saw the deer come out of the woods, jump the fence of our clearance, and begin to browse on the oats. Ailie seeing the fawn ran to catch the bonnie creature, when the mother took the alarm, and bounded back into the woods. In attempting to follow, the fawn struck one of its hind feet against the top rail of the fence, and broke the bone. Ailie caught the wee beastie, and held it in her arms, when the doe returned, bunted her away, and managed to induce its young one to hirple after it on three legs to its lair in the wee swamp. Ailie, wanting to get the fawn, followed, which she could do, for they must have gone slowly. When tired of fondling the creature, shewould have returned home, but could not find the way out, and cried and slept, and slept and cried, croodling down beside the wounded fawn, as it nestled under its mother, which, from its concern for its injured offspring, never tried to drive Ailie away. Well, Braxton set the broken bone and the leg got strong again, but before it did the fawn had become so attached to Ailie that it would not leave her, and the mother, which had watched over her offspring in the most touching way, had become so accustomed to us and so tame that it did not offer to leave, running in the woods where it had a mind, and making its home in a shed my boys put up for her. She was torn to death, two years after, by a hound that a Yankee neer-do-weel brought in, but the fawn lived with us until she died of a natural death.
We had a fair harvest that fall, and, when it was got in, we had the satisfaction of knowing that we would have enough to eat until another was ready. There being no oatmeal-mill then in the country, Braxton traded half of the oats for wheat with a neighbor who wanted them for a lumber-camp. There was a grist mill convenient at the Portage, which was burned the following summer, after which we had to send all the way to Huntingdon, where there was a poor sort of a mill. Having no horse, the bag was carried by Braxton on his shoulder. The want of a yoke of oxen was so much against our getting on, that wedetermined to run some risk in getting one, and saved in every way possible with that in view. The week before New Year we hired a horse and traineau from a neighbor, paying him in work, and Braxton went to Montreal with two barrels of potash. On his way down he had the offer at the Basin of a heifer that was coming in, and instead of buying the cloth intended, he saved the money, and took her on his way home. She was a real beauty, and, out of all the cows we had after, there was not one to me like her, she was so kindly and proved such a grand milker. We were all so proud of her that, for a week after she came, we never tired looking at her, and the children were comforted for the want of the clothing they needed by having her for a pet. You may not think it, but the sorest want of our settlement was clothes. When those brought from the Old Country were done, there was no money to spare to buy others, and families who had plenty to eat were nigh half-naked, you may say, and on very cold days could not venture out. I did the best I could, patching and darning, yet we all suffered much from cold that winter on account of want of sufficient clothing. Braxton, poor man, had only a thickness of cloth between him and the weather, yet he never complained and went to his work in the bush on the coldest days. The exposure, together with hard work, told on him afterwards and shortened his life.When the lumber-camps were breaking up, we had a chance of a yoke of oxen within our ability to pay for, and they were brought home to the barn that had been raised before the snow came. We had not straw enough for three head, but managed to keep them alive by cutting down trees for them to eat the tender ends of the branches. Many a pailful of browse I snapped off for my bossie that spring. It was well for us the grass came early.
I do not know that I have much more to tell that would interest you. The oxen gave us a great start in clearing the land, and that season we did more than all we had done before. We paid the seignior regularly, and once we were a little ahead, it was wonderful how well we got on. Then you must bear in mind, that, as my boys grew up, we were strong in help, and our place improved quickly compared with the generality of those beside us. That fall we got another cow and two sheep, so that we never afterwards wanted for milk or yarn. It was a hard struggle, with many ups and downs, much slavish work and pinching and paring, but in course of time we had all we could reasonably wish and were content.
I was long concerned about the schooling of my children, of whom only two had got any before leaving Scotland. We could not help ourselves until the fourth year of our coming, when a man, lame of a leg, came round and told us he was a schoolmaster. The neighbors consulted and oneof them gave a log stable he was not using, which was fitted up as a schoolhouse, and the man set to work. He could teach his scholars little, and tried to cover up his deficiencies by threshing them unmercifully. He was got rid of and another hired, who was more qualified but was given to drink. They were a miserable lot of teachers in those days, being either lazy or drunken fellows who took to keeping school without considering whether they were qualified. In course of time we had a church at Ormstown, Mr Colquhoun, a proud Highlander, being the first minister. When we came, there was only one (old Jones) living where Ormstown stands, now it is a large village, with buildings the like of which nobody could have expected to see. There has been a wonderful improvement all over, and, when I first saw it, to have foretold the country would become what it now is, nobody would have believed. That the people have improved correspondingly I do not think. The money, scraped together by the hard work of their fathers, I have seen squandered by lads who despised the plow, and the upsetting ways of many families are pitiful to see. Folk in the old times lived far more simply and happily.
You want to know what became of Braxton. He died 14 years after we came here. It was in the winter and I thought he had caught cold while skidding logs in the bush. Any way, inflammationset in, and he died within a week of his first complaining. We mourned sorely for him. A more patient or truer soul never breathed, and to the example he set my boys, who have all done well, I set down much of the credit. We counted up his share of the property, and, adding £20 to it, sent it to his sister in England, who was his only relative. I may say all my old acquaintances are gone, for there are few now on the river who were there when I came, and I wait patiently to follow them, living happily, as you see, with Ailie and her children until the Lord is pleased to call me.
Only those who have lived in a cold country like Canada can fully realize the pleasurable sensations which attend the opening of spring. The weary monotony of winter, with its unvarying aspect of white fields, and steady frost, often so intense as to make exposure painful, gives way to freedom and life, and with some such feelings as stir the heart of the prisoner, when he exchanges his darksome cell for sunshine and green fields, does the dweller of Canada hail the time when the snowbanks disappear and when he can, without wraps, move whether he will in the genial atmosphere. It was at that period of the year when the simple incidents I am going to relate took place.
Amid the unbroken forest which covered the county of Huntingdon in the year 1820, a log shanty stood on the west bank of Oak creek, at a point where the beavers had by their industry formed a small meadow. The shanty was rudeas might be, of unsquared logs, with a roof of basswood split into slabs, and a stick chimney. The interior consisted of a single room, and a small one at that. The inmates were a mother and daughter. The mother, engaged in spinning, sat in the sunshine which streamed through the open door, brightening the few pieces of furniture it fell upon and whitening still more the heaps of ashes in the open fire-place, behind which smouldered a huge backlog. She had evidently passed her fiftieth year, while the pressed lips and look of patient reserve told of the endurance of a lifelong sorrow.
“Dae ye no see or hear ocht?” she asked, looking through the doorway to the woods beyond, to which she often turned her eyes.
“No, mother,” replied the girl addressed, who was sitting on the doorstep.
“What can hae come ower him!” said the woman in a low voice.
“Dinna fret; he’ll be here soon,” said Jeanie in a tone that spoke more of a desire to comfort her mother than faith in her statement.
As if not heeding her, the mother resumed, “He said he would be back last nicht, and he should hae been. I sair misdoot ill has befaen him.”
It was of her husband of whom she spoke. He had worked all winter for a party of Americans, who were cutting the best of the timber along the banks of the creek, and had gone Monday morningto aid them in driving the logs to the point on the Chateaugay where they were to be formed into rafts and thence taken to Quebec. His last words had been that he would, at the latest, be back the following evening and it was now the third day.
Jeanie strained her eyes and ears to catch the faintest sign of her father’s approach. The quaver of the grey-bird and the chirrup of the chipmunk came occasionally from the recesses of the woods, which lay sleeping in the April sunshine that glorified everything, but no rustle of branch or cracking of dried stick that would indicate an approaching footstep. The usually silent creek, now swollen by melted snow, lapped its banks in pursuing its tortuous course, murmuring a soothing lullaby to the genial day; and that great peace, to be found only in mountain recess or forest depth, brooded over the scene. But there, where all the influences of nature were so soothing, were two hearts filled with anxious care.
“Jeanie,” suddenly exclaimed the mother, after a long pause, and staying the whirr of the wheel, “you maun gang and seek your father. Gae down to Palmer’s and there you’ll find the rafts, and the men will tell you whether he left for hame or no.”
“But I dinna like to leave you, mother, and I am sure you are taking trouble without need. He will be here by dark.”
The mother understood the affectionate motive of her child in trying to make light of her fears, but well knew her anxiety was no less than her own.
“Say nae mair, my lassie, but gang while there is time for you to get back. You ken the yarn for the Yankee wife at the Fort is ready and there is no flour until he gangs there for it.”
Casting one long eager glance down the creek, along which her father should come, the girl turned in from the door and made ready for the journey. Her preparations were easily made. The slipping on of her stoutest pair of shoes and throwing a plaid over her arm, as a hap from the cold after sunset, comprised them, and bidding her mother not to fret for she would bring back good news she started. She did not follow the creek, but struck northward across the peninsula that forms the township of Elgin, her design being to reach Trout river, as being more fordable than the wider Chateaugay. The path was, probably, at first a deer run, which the few who travelled it, chiefly lumbermen, had roughly brushed. Only one accustomed to the woods could have kept the track, for, to a stranger’s eye, it differed little from the openings which ever and anon appeared among the trees. Jeanie, however, was no novice to the path or to the bush, and she stepped quickly and with confidence on her way. She had walked about an hour beneath the solemn gloom of theprimeval forest when she saw an opening ahead, and knew she was approaching Trout river. On reaching it, she followed its bank, until, with one end grounded in a little bay, she found a large log. Grasping the first straight stick she saw lying about to serve as a pole, she pushed the log from its anchorage, and stepping on it as it moved guided it across the narrow river. From the liability of the log to roll, such a mode of ferrying is dangerous to those unused to it, but Jeanie knew how to place her feet and keep her balance and speedily gained the other bank and resumed her journey. On reaching the place where the two rivers unite, she could not, despite her anxiety, help pausing to admire the beautiful expanse of water, which, unruffled by a breath of wind, lay glassing itself in the sunshine, while the forest, which rose from its margin on either side, formed no unfit setting. Presently she saw a ripple upon its surface, and her keen eye perceived the black head of a muskrat, which was making its way to the opposite bank. While she followed the rapid movements of the little creature, there was the flash and smoke of a gun before her, and, while the woods were still echoing the report, a dog jumped into the water to bring in the rat, which floated dead upon the current. A few steps brought Jeanie to the marksman, a tall, wiry man, of rather prepossessing appearance. His dog had returned and laid the rat at his master’s feet, who wasencouraging him with exclamations of “Good dog! good dog!” when he caught sight of her.
“Waal neow, who would a thought it? Miss Jeanie herself and nobody else. How do you do?” And stretching forth his sinewy arm, he grasped her hand in a clutch that would have made a bear shed tears.
“Oh, I’m well, thank you, Mr Palmer, and my mother, but we’re in sore trouble.”
“Don’t say the old man is sick?” and an anxious look passed over the kindly face of the honest Yankee.
“Oh, dear sir, we dinna ken whether he’s sick or well. He left home Monday morning and was to be back next night and he hasna come yet, and I’ve come to ask after him and get help to find him if nobody knows where he is?” As she spoke there was a tremor in Jeanie’s voice, and a tear glistened on her drooping eyelashes.
“Ha, do tell; this is serious,” and the hunter leant upon his rifle and gazed abstractedly upon the river, as if trying to conjecture what could have become of the lost man, until, noting Jeanie’s evident distress, he aroused himself, and, exhorting her to keep up heart, led the way to his house.
“You see,” he said, as they picked their way along the rough path by the river’s edge, “there ain’t much to shoot yet and what there is ain’t worth killing, but I kinder felt lonesome to be about doors so fine a day, and I took a stroll, tho’all I came across was that mushrat, which, darn it skin, ain’t worth the lead that killed it.”
“If the shooting is poor, the fishing will be good,” said Jeanie, who humored the spirit of the sportsman.
“Couldn’t be better,” answered Mr Palmer, “I speared seven salmon at the foot of the rapids last night, and this morning I drew my seine full of as pretty fish as you would want to clap your eyes on.”
The sound of rushing water told of their approach to the rapids, at the head of which, on a knoll a few rods to the left, stood Mr Palmer’s house, which was a comfortable log one, overshadowed by majestic pines. On entering, they found Mrs Palmer, a rather delicate-looking woman, engaged in baking. Uttering an exclamation of surprise at the sight of Jeanie, she wiped her dusty hands and gave her a cordial welcome, as well she might, for the visits she had received from members of her own sex, since she had taken up her abode by the Chateaugay, might have been counted on her fingers without exhausting them. On learning the cause of Jeanie’s journey, she received the tidings with the same anxious look as her husband. Evidently both entertained the worst forebodings, while both had a delicacy in speaking of what they believed to be the cause of his absence. Neither had seen him, but the gang of lumbermen he had helped were nowforming a raft half a mile below the house and it was arranged that Mr Palmer should go and see them while Jeanie would wait. Her hostess resumed her baking, and Jeanie, feeling the heat indoors oppressive on so fine a day, stepped out and sat on a log, near enough to keep up the conversation yet sufficiently far to enjoy the balmy atmosphere and the beauty of the scene before her. And here, before attempting to describe it, let me tell what manner of woman Jeanie was. She had that first quality of a handsome girl, stature—she was tall, with a form instinct with life—lithe and graceful, which, when matured by age, would become dignified also. She had no pretension to beauty, beyond what the liveliness of youth and a sweet temper can give to the countenance, but still her well-formed mouth, gray eyes, a forehead broad though not too high, and a wealth of light brown hair went to form a face that was pleasant to look upon. She had been a visitor at Palmer’s house before, but its surroundings were still sufficiently novel to engage her even in her present distracted frame of mind, for, as became a Scotchwoman, she had a keen relish for whatever is beautiful in nature. Above, and until directly opposite her, the Chateaugay came sweeping, with graceful curve, a wide, unruffled sheet of water, until suddenly it fell over a rocky ledge and became a mass of foaming rapids, which brattled between banks, covered by trees and overhung by hazel bushes, until lostto sight by a sharp bend a considerable distance below.[A]Being at flood height, the rapids were seen at their best, and Jeanie never wearied admiring the graceful sweep of the smooth water as it neared the ledge that preceded its fall, or the tumult of breakers into which, a moment after, it was tossed. It flashed upon her that the river was, perhaps, to prove a true type of her own and her mother’s fate,—the even tenor of their life hitherto was about to be suddenly broken by her father’s disappearance, and then the water, tossed from rock to rock, broken into spray and driven in every direction, except upward, would too truly represent their life hereafter. Raising her gaze to the south, she caught a glimpse, through a gash among the trees on the opposite bank where fire had levelled them, of a range of smooth moulded hills, which, blue and soft in the sweet spring sunshine, brought back to memory the dear old hills of her native land, and joy mingled with her sorrow.
The afternoon wore away apace and still Mr Palmer did not return. Above the noise of the rapids Jeanie heard, now and then, the shouts of the lumbermen as they heaved the logs in forming their raft, and whom Mr Palmer had gone down to see. Having finished her household duties andspread the supper on the table, Mrs Palmer sat down beside Jeanie and, with kindly craft, by talking of commonplace matters, strove to divert her mind. By-and-by the appearance of a fine spaniel, the same that had swam to the rat, indicated the approach of Mr Palmer, who, when he came up to them, leading his eldest girl, a chattering child, seemed in no hurry to answer the questioning eyes of the two women.
“Blessed if the dog don’t scent something,” said the worthy man, as he watched the animal creeping to a clump of underbrush to the right.
“Bother the dog,” exclaimed Mrs Palmer, “what did the men tell you?”
“Waal, they ain’t jest sure, you know, but they guess ’tis all right,” and as he drawled out the words slowly and reluctantly, Jeanie could see that he was far from thinking it was all right.
“Oh, sir,” she said, “you are a father yourself and you are as dear to your child as she is to you. Tell me the worst, and be done wi’ it.”
“Don’t take on, Jeanie; it may be all right yet. Your father helped to tote the logs to the foot of the rapids, and left them, well and strong, to walk home last night. I rather conjecture he lost his way, but he will be home by this time.”
This was all Mr Palmer seemed disposed to tell, and, hoping for the best, she tried to share in her host’s affected confidence as to her father’s safety, and followed him in answer to his wife’s call “Thatsupper was ready.” A capital cook, and having a larder to draw from replenished by the gun and rod of her husband, Mrs Palmer, in honor of her guest, had spread a table that contrasted painfully with the meagre fare to which Jeanie was accustomed, and made her think of the mess of boiled corn of which her mother would then be partaking. After supper, the canoe was launched, and bidding farewell to her hostess and her little girl on the river’s bank, Jeanie stepped in, when, propelled by the paddle of Mr Palmer, it began steadily to stem the current.
Who that has undergone the agony of sorrowful apprehension has not noted how every trifling incident that may have occurred during that period has become imprinted indelibly upon the memory? The watcher by the sick-bed, over which death hovers, is puzzled how, at a time when the mind is absorbed with one thought, the perceptions should be so sharpened as to note trivial events and objects, down to the very furniture and pattern of the wallpaper, which on ordinary occasions leave no trace upon the memory. On that April evening Jeanie’s mind was laboring under this intensified acuteness, and while brooding continually over her father’s probable fate, to her dying day she remembered every feature of the scenery she was now passing. The smooth flowing river, swollen and discolored by the melted snow from the hills, hemmed in on either bankby a thick growth of trees, many of which, as if enamored with the beautiful sheet of water by which they grew, bent over it until, in their leafy prime, their branches almost kissed its surface. Now, though leafless, their tops were glorified by the setting sun, which filled the still air with the lambent blue haze which distinguishes the evenings of early spring in Canada. Keeping to the Chateaugay at its union with Trout river, the canoe stole silently beneath the shadow of the overhanging trees until the mouth of Oak creek was reached, when Jeanie stepped ashore to pursue her way on foot to her home. Before bidding her goodbye, Mr Palmer paused and said: “Now, you keep up a good heart for whatever may happen, and we’ll be up tomorrow to search the woods. Give that to your mother and—God bless you.” Without giving her time to say a word, he pushed his canoe into the stream and speedily glided out of sight, leaving Jeanie standing on the bank perplexed by what he had said and holding the basket he had thrust into her hands, which contained a loaf of bread and a string of fish. With a heavier heart than ever, she began to trace her way homeward by the creek. Once in that lonely journey she thought she saw her father walking ahead of her, and once she thought she heard his voice. She called out and paused to listen for a reply. The only sound that reached her was the dismal croakings of the frogs. Knowing that her imaginationwas deceiving her, she hurried on and, when she caught the first glimpse of light gleaming from her humble home, it outlined her mother’s figure seated on the doorstep waiting her return.
“You hav’na found him, Jeanie?”
“No, mother; and he hasna come hame?”
“What can hae come ower him!” exclaimed the mother, as she sank into a seat by the open fire-place.
It was remarkable that in their conversation no conjecture was hazarded by either as to the probable fate of the missing one. Both, plainly, entertained the same painful surmise, which they were alike ashamed to breathe. They sat by the glowing backlog for many hours, hoping against hope that the wanderer might return, until Jeanie overcome by fatigue sought her bed. Once she awoke during the night, thinking she heard a voice. She listened in the darkness. It was her mother wrestling with God on behalf of her father.