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Life in the Backwoods

by Susanna Moodie · English · Gutenberg #8393 · 404,001 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Life in the Backwoods

Author: Susanna Moodie


        
Release date: June 1, 2005 [eBook #8393]
                Most recently updated: March 16, 2018

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS ***




Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Bidwell and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team









LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS,


A Sequel To Roughing It In The Bush.


By Susanna Moodie


Author Of “Life In The Clearings,” “Flora Lyndsay,” “Geoffrey Moncton,”
 Etc., Etc.


  I sketch from Nature, and the picture's true;
  Whate'er the subject, whether grave or gay,
  Painful experience in a distant land
  Made it mine own.


New York:

John W. Lovell Company,

14 And 16 Vesey Street.



CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.--A Journey to the Woods--Corduroy Roads--No Ghosts in Canada

CHAPTER II.--The Wilderness and our Indian Friends--The House on
Fire--No Papoose; the Mother all alone

CHAPTER III.--Running the Fallow--A Wall of Fire--“But God can save us
yet.”

CHAPTER IV.--Our Logging Bee--“Och! my ould granny taught me.”--Signal
Mercies

CHAPTER V.--A Trip to Stony Lake--A Feast in an Outhouse--The Squatter's
Log Hut

CHAPTER VI.--Disappointed Hopes--Milk, Bread and Potatoes our only
Fare--The Deer Hunt

CHAPTER VII.--The Little Stumpy Man--Hiding from the Sheriff--An
ill-natured volunteer

CHAPTER VIII.--The Fire--“Oh, dear Mamma, do save Papa's Flute”--“No
time to be clane!”

CHAPTER IX.--The Outbreak--Moodie joins the Volunteers--“Scribblin' and
Scrabblin' when you should be in bed”

CHAPTER X.--The Whirlwind--Two Miles of Trees Levelled to the
Ground--Sick Children

CHAPTER XI.--The Walk to Dummer--Honest, Faithful Jenny--A sad
History--Tried and Found most Faithful

CHAPTER XII.--A Change in our Prospects--In a Canoe--Nearing the
Rapids--Dandelion Coffee

CHAPTER XIII.--The Magic Spell--“The Sleighs are Come!”--Leaving the
Bush--End of Life in the Backwoods




LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS

A SEQUEL TO ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH.




CHAPTER I.

A JOURNEY TO THE WOODS.

  'Tis well for us poor denizens of earth
  That God conceals the future from our gaze;
  Or Hope, the blessed watcher on Life's tower,
  Would fold her wings, and on the dreary waste
  Close the bright eye that through the murky clouds
  Of blank Despair still sees the glorious sun.

It was a bright, frosty morning when I bade adieu to the farm, the
birthplace of my little Agnes, who, nestled beneath my cloak, was
sweetly sleeping on my knee, unconscious of the long journey before us
into the wilderness. The sun had not as yet risen. Anxious to get to our
place of destination before dark, we started as early as we could. Our
own fine team had been sold the day before for forty pounds; and one of
our neighbours, a Mr. D----, was to convey us and our household goods to
Douro for the sum of twenty dollars. During the week he had made several
journeys, with furniture and stores; and all that now remained was to
be conveyed to the woods in two large lumber-sleighs, one driven by
himself, the other by a younger brother.

It was not without regret that I left Melsetter, for so my husband
had called the place, after his father's estate in Orkney. It was a
beautiful, picturesque spot; and, in spite of the evil neighbourhood, I
had learned to love it; indeed, it was much against my wish that it
was sold. I had a great dislike to removing, which involves a necessary
loss, and is apt to give to the emigrant roving and unsettled habits.
But all regrets were now useless; and happily unconscious of the life
of toil and anxiety that awaited us in those dreadful woods, I tried my
best to be cheerful, and to regard the future with a hopeful eye.

Our driver was a shrewd, clever man, for his opportunities. He
took charge of the living cargo, which consisted of my husband, our
maid-servant, the two little children, and myself--besides a large
hamper, full of poultry--a dog, and a cat. The lordly sultan of the
imprisoned seraglio thought fit to conduct himself in a very eccentric
manner, for at every barnyard we happened to pass, he clapped his wings,
and crowed so long and loud that it afforded great amusement to the
whole party, and doubtless was very edifying to the poor hens, who lay
huddled together as mute as mice.

“That 'ere rooster thinks he's on the top of the heap,” said our driver,
laughing. “I guess he's not used to travelling in a close conveyance.
Listen! How all the crowers in the neighbourhood give him back a note
of defiance! But he knows that he's safe enough at the bottom of the
basket.”

The day was so bright for the time of year (the first week in February),
that we suffered no inconvenience from the cold. Little Katie was
enchanted with the jingling of the sleigh-bells, and, nestled among
the packages, kept singing or talking to the horses in her baby lingo.
Trifling as these little incidents were, before we had proceeded ten
miles on our long journey, they revived my drooping spirits, and I began
to feel a lively interest in the scenes through which we were passing.

The first twenty miles of the way was over a hilly and well-cleared
country; and as in winter the deep snow fills up the inequalities, and
makes all roads alike, we glided as swiftly and steadily along as if
they had been the best highways in the world. Anon, the clearings began
to diminish, and tall woods arose on either side of the path; their
solemn aspect, and the deep silence that brooded over their vast
solitudes, inspiring the mind with a strange awe. Not a breath of wind
stirred the leafless branches, whose huge shadows, reflected upon the
dazzling white covering of snow, lay so perfectly still, that it seemed
as if Nature had suspended her operations, that life and motion had
ceased, and that she was sleeping in her winding-sheet, upon the bier of
death.

“I guess you will find the woods pretty lonesome,” said our driver,
whose thoughts had been evidently employed on the same subject as our
own. “We were once in the woods, but emigration has stepped ahead of us,
and made our'n a cleared part of the country. When I was a boy, all
this country, for thirty miles on every side of us, was bush land. As
to Peterborough, the place was unknown; not a settler had ever passed
through the great swamp, and some of them believed that it was the end
of the world.”

“What swamp is that?” asked I.

“Oh, the great Cavan swamp. We are just two miles from it; and I tell
you the horses will need a good rest, and ourselves a good dinner, by
the time we are through it. Ah! Mrs. Moodie, if ever you travel that
way in summer, you will know something about corduroy roads. I was 'most
jolted to death last fall; I thought it would have been no bad notion to
have insured my teeth before I left C----. I really expected that they
would have been shook out of my head before we had done manoeuvring over
the big logs.”

“How will my crockery stand it in the next sleigh?” quoth I. “If the
road is such as you describe, I am afraid that I shall not bring a whole
plate to Douro.”

“Oh! the snow is a great leveller--it makes all rough places smooth. But
with regard to this swamp, I have something to tell you. About ten years
ago, no one had ever seen the other side of it; and if pigs or cattle
strayed away into it, they fell a prey to the wolves and bears, and were
seldom recovered.

“An old Scotch emigrant, who had located himself on this side of it, so
often lost his beasts that he determined during the summer season to try
and explore the place, and see if there were any end to it. So he
takes an axe on his shoulder, and a bag of provisions for the week, not
forgetting a flask of whiskey, and off he starts all alone, and tells
his wife that if he never returned, she and little Jock must try and
carry on the farm without him; but he was determined to see the end
of the swamp, even if it led to the other world. He fell upon a fresh
cattle-track, which he followed all that day; and towards night he found
himself in the heart of a tangled wilderness of bushes, and himself half
eaten up with mosquitoes and black-flies. He was more than tempted to
give in, and return home by the first glimpse of light.

“The Scotch are a tough people; they are not easily daunted--a few
difficulties only seem to make them more eager to get on; and he felt
ashamed the next moment, as he told me, of giving up. So he finds out
a large, thick cedar-tree for his bed, climbs up, and coiling himself
among the branches like a bear, he was soon fast asleep.

“The next morning, by daylight, he continued his journey, not forgetting
to blaze with his axe the trees to the right and left as he went along.
The ground was so spongy and wet that at every step he plunged up to his
knees in water, but he seemed no nearer the end of the swamp than he had
been the day before. He saw several deer, a raccoon, and a groundhog,
during his walk, but was unmolested by bears or wolves. Having passed
through several creeks, and killed a great many snakes, he felt so weary
towards the second day that he determined to go home the next morning.
But just as he began to think his search was fruitless, he observed
that the cedars and tamaracks which had obstructed his path became less
numerous, and were succeeded by bass and soft maple. The ground, also,
became less moist, and he was soon ascending a rising slope, covered
with oak and beech, which shaded land of the very best quality. The old
man was now fully convinced that he had cleared the great swamp; and
that, instead of leading to the other world, it had conducted him to
a country that would yield the very best returns for cultivation. His
favourable report led to the formation of the road that we are about to
cross, and to the settlement of Peterborough, which is one of the most
promising new settlements in this district, and is surrounded by a
splendid back country.”

We were descending a very steep hill, and encountered an ox-sleigh,
which was crawling slowly up it in a contrary direction. Three people
were seated at the bottom of the vehicle upon straw, which made a cheap
substitute for buffalo robes. Perched, as we were, upon the crown of the
height, we looked completely down into the sleigh, and during the whole
course of my life I never saw three uglier mortals collected into such
a narrow space. The man was blear-eyed, with a hare-lip, through which
protruded two dreadful yellow teeth which resembled the tusks of a boar.
The woman was long-faced, high cheek-boned, red-haired, and freckled
all over like a toad. The boy resembled his hideous mother, but with the
addition of a villainous obliquity of vision which rendered him the most
disgusting object in this singular trio.

As we passed them, our driver gave a knowing nod to my husband,
directing, at the same time, the most quizzical glance towards the
strangers, as he exclaimed, “We are in luck, sir! I think that 'ere
sleigh may be called Beauty's egg-basket!”

We made ourselves very merry at the poor people's expense, and Mr.
D----, with his odd stories and Yankeefied expressions, amused the
tedium of our progress through the great swamp, which in summer presents
for several miles one uniform bridge of rough and unequal logs, all
laid loosely across huge sleepers, so that they jumped up and down, when
pressed by the wheels, like the keys of a piano. The rough motion and
jolting occasioned by this collision is so distressing that it never
fails to entail upon the traveller sore bones and an aching head for the
rest of the day. The path is so narrow over these logs that two wagons
cannot pass without great difficulty, which is rendered more dangerous
by the deep natural ditches on either side of the bridge, formed
by broad creeks that flow out of the swamp, and often terminate in
mud-holes of very ominous dimensions. The snow, however, hid from us all
the ugly features of the road, and Mr. D---- steered us through it in
perfect safety, and landed us at the door of a little log house which
crowned the steep hill on the other side of the swamp, and which he
dignified with the name of a tavern.

It was now two o'clock. We had been on the road since seven; and men,
women, and children were all ready for the good dinner that Mr. D----
had promised us at this splendid house of entertainment, where we
were destined to stay for two hours, to refresh ourselves and rest the
horses.

“Well, Mrs. J----, what have you got for our dinner?” said the driver,
after he had seen to the accommodation of his teams.

“Pritters and pork, sir. Nothing else to be had in the woods. Thank God,
we have enough of that!”

D---- shrugged up his shoulders, and looked at us.

“We've plenty of that same at home. But hunger's good sauce. Come, be
spry, widow, and see about it, for I am very hungry.”

I inquired for a private room for myself and the children, but there
were no private rooms in the house. The apartment we occupied was like
the cobbler's stall in the old song, and I was obliged to attend upon
them in public.

“You have much to learn, ma'am, if you are going to the woods,” said
Mrs. J----.

“To unlearn, you mean,” said Mr. D----. “To tell you the truth, Mrs.
Moodie, ladies and gentlemen have no business in the woods. Eddication
spoils man or woman for that location. So, widow (turning to our
hostess), you are not tired of living alone yet?”

“No, sir; I have no wish for a second husband. I had enough of the
first. I like to have my own way--to lie down mistress, and get up
master.”

“You don't like to be put out of your _old_ way,” returned he, with a
mischievous glance.

She coloured very red; but it might be the heat of the fire over which
she was frying the pork for our dinner.

I was very hungry, but I felt no appetite for the dish she was preparing
for us. It proved salt, hard, and unsavoury.

D---- pronounced it very bad, and the whiskey still worse, with which he
washed it down.

I asked for a cup of tea and a slice of bread. But they were out of tea,
and the hop-rising had failed, and there was no bread in the house.
For this disgusting meal we paid at the rate of a quarter of a dollar
a-head.

I was glad when, the horses being again put to, we escaped from the rank
odour of the fried pork, and were once more in the fresh air.

“Well, mister; did not you grudge your money for that bad meat?” said
D----, when we were once more seated in the sleigh. “But in these parts,
the worse the fare the higher the charge.”

“I would not have cared,” said I, “if I could have got a cup of tea.”

“Tea! it's poor trash. I never could drink tea in my life. But I like
coffee, when 'tis boiled till it's quite black. But coffee is not good
without plenty of trimmings.”

“What do you mean by trimmings?”

He laughed. “Good sugar, and sweet cream. Coffee is not worth drinking
without trimmings.”

Often in after years have I recalled the coffee trimmings, when
endeavouring to drink the vile stuff which goes by the name of coffee in
the houses of entertainment in the country.

We had now passed through the narrow strip of clearing which surrounded
the tavern, and again entered upon the woods. It was near sunset, and we
were rapidly descending a steep hill, when one of the traces that
held our sleigh suddenly broke. D---- pulled up in order to repair
the damage. His brother's team was close behind, and our unexpected
stand-still brought the horses upon us before J. D---- could stop them.
I received so violent a blow from the head of one of them, just in the
back of the neck, that for a few minutes I was stunned and insensible.
When I recovered, I was supported in the arms of my husband, over whose
knees I was leaning, and D---- was rubbing my hands and temples with
snow.

“There, Mr. Moodie, she's coming to. I thought she was killed. I have
seen a man before now killed by a blow from a horse's head in the like
manner.” As soon as we could, we resumed our places in the sleigh; but
all enjoyment of our journey, had it been otherwise possible, was gone.

When we reached Peterborough, Moodie wished us to remain at the inn all
night, as we had still eleven miles of our journey to perform, and that
through a blazed forest-road, little travelled, and very much impeded by
fallen trees and other obstacles; but D---- was anxious to get back as
soon as possible to his own home, and he urged us very pathetically to
proceed.

The moon arose during our stay at the inn, and gleamed upon the
straggling frame houses which then formed the now populous and thriving
town of Peterborough. We crossed the wild, rushing, beautiful Otonabee
river by a rude bridge, and soon found ourselves journeying over the
plains or level heights beyond the village, which were thinly wooded
with picturesque groups of oak and pine, and very much resembled a
gentleman's park at home. Far below, to our right (for we were upon the
Smith-town side) we heard the rushing of the river, whose rapid waters
never receive curb from the iron chain of winter. Even while the rocky
banks are coated with ice, and the frost-king suspends from every twig
and branch the most beautiful and fantastic crystals, the black waters
rush foaming along, a thick steam rising constantly above the rapids, as
from a boiling pot. The shores vibrate and tremble beneath the force
of the impetuous flood, as it whirls round cedar-crowned islands and
opposing rocks, and hurries on to pour its tribute into the Rice Lake,
to swell the calm, majestic grandeur of the Trent, till its waters are
lost in the beautiful bay of Quinté, and finally merged in the blue
ocean of Ontario.

The most renowned of our English rivers dwindle into little muddy rills
when compared with the sublimity of the Canadian waters. No language can
adequately express the solemn grandeur of her lake and river scenery;
the glorious islands that float, like visions from fairy land, upon the
bosom of these azure mirrors of her cloudless skies. No dreary breadth
of marshes, covered with flags, hide from our gaze the expanse of
heaven-tinted waters; no foul mud-banks spread their unwholesome
exhalations around. The rocky shores are crowned with the cedar, the
birch, the alder, and soft maple, that dip their long tresses in the
pure stream; from every crevice in the limestone the harebell and
Canadian rose wave their graceful blossoms.

The fiercest droughts of summer may diminish the volume and power of
these romantic streams, but it never leaves their rocky channels bare,
nor checks the mournful music of their dancing waves. Through the
openings in the forest, we now and then caught the silver gleam of the
river tumbling on in moonlight splendour, while the hoarse chiding of
the wind in the lofty pines above us gave a fitting response to the
melancholy cadence of the waters.

The children had fallen asleep. A deep silence pervaded the party. Night
was above us with her mysterious stars. The ancient forest stretched
around us on every side, and a foreboding sadness sunk upon my heart.
Memory was busy with the events of many years. I retraced step by step
the pilgrimage of my past life, until arriving at that passage in its
sombre history, I gazed through tears upon the singularly savage scene
around me, and secretly marvelled, “What brought me here??”

“Providence,” was the answer which the soul gave. “Not for your own
welfare, perhaps, but for the welfare of your children, the unerring
hand of the great Father has led you here. You form a connecting link in
the destinies of many. It is impossible for any human creature to live
for himself alone. It may be your lot to suffer, but others will reap a
benefit from your trials. Look up with confidence to Heaven, and the sun
of hope will yet shed a cheering beam through the forbidden depths of
this tangled wilderness.”

The road became so bad that Mr. D---- was obliged to dismount, and lead
his horses through the more intricate passages. The animals themselves,
weary with their long journey and heavy load, proceeded at foot-fall.
The moon, too, had deserted us, and the only light we had to guide us
through the dim arches of the forest was from the snow and the stars,
which now peered down upon us through the leafless branches of the
trees, with uncommon brilliancy.

“It will be past midnight before we reach your brother's clearing,”
 (where we expected to spend the night,) said D----. “I wish, Mr. Moodie,
we had followed your advice, and staid at Peterborough. How fares it
with you, Mrs. Moodie, and the young ones? It is growing very cold.”

We were now in the heart of a dark cedar swamp, and my mind was haunted
with visions of wolves and bears; but beyond the long, wild howl of
a solitary wolf, no other sound awoke the sepulchral silence of that
dismal looking wood.

“What a gloomy spot,” said I to my husband. “In the old country,
superstition would people it with ghosts.”

“Ghosts! There are no ghosts in Canada!” said Mr. D----. “The country is
too new for ghosts. No Canadian is afeard of ghosts. It is only in old
countries, like your'n, that are full of sin and wickedness, that people
believe in such nonsense. No human habitation has ever been erected in
this wood through which you are passing. Until a very few years ago,
few white persons had ever passed through it; and the Red Man would not
pitch his tent in such a place as this. Now, ghosts, as I understand the
word, are the spirits of bad men, that are not allowed by Providence to
rest in their graves, but, for a punishment, are made to haunt the spots
where their worst deeds were committed. I don't believe in all this;
but, supposing it to be true, bad men must have died here before their
spirits could haunt the place. Now, it is more than probable that no
person ever ended his days in this forest, so that it would be folly to
think of seeing his ghost.”

This theory of Mr. D----'s had the merit of originality, and it is not
improbable that the utter disbelief in supernatural appearances, which
is common to most native-born Canadians, is the result of the same very
reasonable mode of arguing. The unpeopled wastes of Canada must present
the same aspect to the new settler that the world did to our first
parents after their expulsion from the garden of Eden; all the sin which
could defile the spot, or haunt it with the association of departed
evil, is concentrated in their own persons. Bad spirits cannot be
supposed to linger near a place where crime has never been committed.
The belief in ghosts, so prevalent in old countries, must first have had
its foundation in the consciousness of guilt.

After clearing this low, swampy portion of the wood, with much
difficulty, and the frequent application of the axe, to cut away the
fallen timber that impeded our progress, our ears were assailed by a
low, roaring, rushing sound, as of the falling of waters.

“That is Herriot's Falls,” said our guide. “We are within two miles of
our destination.”

Oh, welcome sound! But those two miles appeared more lengthy than the
whole journey. Thick clouds, that threatened a snow-storm, had blotted
out the stars, and we continued to grope our way through a narrow, rocky
path, upon the edge of the river, in almost total darkness. I now felt
the chillness of the midnight hour, and the fatigue of the long journey,
with double force, and envied the servant and children, who had been
sleeping ever since we left Peterborough. We now descended the steep
bank, and prepared to cross the rapids.

Dark as it was, I looked with a feeling of dread upon the foaming waters
as they tumbled over their bed of rocks, their white crests flashing,
life-like, amid the darkness of the night.

“This is an ugly bridge over such a dangerous place,” said D----, as he
stood up in the sleigh and urged his tired team across the miserable,
insecure log-bridge, where darkness and death raged below, and one false
step of his jaded horses would have plunged us into both. I must
confess I drew a freer breath when the bridge was crossed, and D----
congratulated us on our safe arrival in Douro.

We now continued our journey along the left bank of the river, but when
in sight of Mr. S----'s clearing, a large pine-tree, which had newly
fallen across the narrow path, brought the teams to a stand-still. The
mighty trunk which had lately formed one of the stately pillars in the
sylvan temple of Nature, was of too large dimensions to chop in two with
axes; and after half-an-hour's labour, which to me, poor, cold, weary
wight! seemed an age, the males of the party abandoned the task in
despair. To go round it was impossible; its roots were concealed in an
impenetrable wall of cedar-jungle on the right-hand side of the road,
and its huge branches hung over the precipitous bank of the river.

“We must try and make the horses jump over it,” said D----. “We may
get an upset, but there is no help for it; we must either make the
experiment, or stay here all night, and I am too cold and hungry for
that--so here goes.” He urged his horses to leap the log; restraining
their ardour for a moment as the sleigh rested on the top of the
formidable barrier, but so nicely balanced, that the difference of a
straw would almost have overturned the heavily-laden vehicle and its
helpless inmates. We, however, cleared it in safety. He now stopped,
and gave directions to his brother to follow the same plan that he had
adopted; but whether the young man had less coolness, or the horses in
his team were more difficult to manage, I cannot tell: the sleigh, as it
hung poised upon the top of the log, was overturned with a loud crash,
and all my household goods and chattels were scattered over the road.
Alas, for my crockery and stone china! Scarcely one article remained
unbroken.

“Never fret about the china,” said Moodie; “thank God, the man and the
horses are uninjured.”

I should have felt more thankful had the crocks been spared too; for,
like most of my sex, I had a tender regard for china, and I knew that
no fresh supply could be obtained in this part of the world. Leaving
his brother to collect the scattered fragments, D---- proceeded on his
journey. We left the road, and were winding our way over a steep hill,
covered with heaps of brush and fallen timber, and as we reached the
top, a light gleamed cheerily from the windows of a log house, and the
next moment we were at my brother's door.

I thought my journey was at an end; but here I was doomed to fresh
disappointment. His wife was absent on a visit to her friends, and it
had been arranged that we were to stay with my sister, Mrs. T----, and
her husband. With all this I was unacquainted; and I was about to quit
the sleigh and seek the warmth of the fire when I was told that I had
yet further to go. Its cheerful glow was to shed no warmth on me, and,
tired as I was, I actually buried my face and wept upon the neck of a
hound which Moodie had given to Mr. S----, and which sprang up upon the
sleigh to lick my face and hands. This was my first halt in that weary
wilderness, where I endured so many bitter years of toil and sorrow. My
brother-in-law and his family had retired to rest, but they instantly
rose to receive the way-worn travellers; and I never enjoyed more
heartily a warm welcome after a long day of intense fatigue, than I did
that night of my first sojourn in the backwoods.



CHAPTER II.

THE WILDERNESS, AND OUR INDIAN FRIENDS.


The clouds of the preceding night, instead of dissolving into snow,
brought on a rapid thaw. A thaw in the middle of winter is the most
disagreeable change that can be imagined. After several weeks of clear,
bright, bracing, frosty weather, with a serene atmosphere and cloudless
sky, you awake one morning surprised at the change in the temperature;
and, upon looking out of the window, behold the woods obscured by a
murky haze--not so dense as an English November fog, but more black
and lowering--and the heavens shrouded in a uniform covering of
leaden-coloured clouds, deepening into a vivid indigo at the edge of the
horizon. The snow, no longer hard and glittering, has become soft and
spongy, and the foot slips into a wet and insidiously-yielding mass at
every step. From the roof pours down a continuous stream of water,
and the branches of the trees collecting the moisture of the reeking
atmosphere, shower it upon the earth from every dripping twig. The
cheerless and uncomfortable aspect of things without never fails to
produce a corresponding effect upon the minds of those within, and casts
such a damp upon the spirits that it appears to destroy for a time all
sense of enjoyment. Many persons (and myself among the number) are made
aware of the approach of a thunder-storm by an intense pain and weight
about the head; and I have heard numbers of Canadians complain that
a thaw always made them feel bilious and heavy, and greatly depressed
their animal spirits.

I had a great desire to visit our new location, but when I looked out
upon the cheerless waste, I gave up the idea, and contented myself with
hoping for a better day on the morrow; but many morrows came and went
before a frost again hardened the road sufficiently for me to make the
attempt.

The prospect from the windows of my sister's log hut was not very
prepossessing. The small lake in front, which formed such a pretty
object in summer, now looked like an extensive field covered with
snow, hemmed in from the rest of the world by a dark belt of sombre
pine-woods. The clearing round the house was very small, and only just
reclaimed from the wilderness, and the greater part of it covered with
piles of brushwood, to be burned the first dry days of spring. The
charred and blackened stumps on the few acres that had been cleared
during the preceding year were every thing but picturesque; and I
concluded, as I turned, disgusted, from the prospect before me, that
there was very little beauty to be found in the backwoods. But I came to
this decision during a Canadian thaw, be it remembered, when one is wont
to view every object with jaundiced eyes.

Moodie had only been able to secure sixty-six acres of his government
grant upon the Upper Kutchawanook Lake, which, being interpreted, means
in English, the “Lake of the Waterfalls,” a very poetical meaning, which
most Indian names have. He had, however, secured a clergy reserve of two
hundred acres adjoining; and he afterwards purchased a fine lot which
likewise formed a part of the same block, one hundred acres, for £150.
[Footnote: After a lapse of fifteen years, we have been glad to sell
these lots of land, after considerable clearings had been made upon
them, for less than they originally cost us.] This was an enormously
high price for wild land, but the prospect of opening the Trent and
Otonabee for the navigation of steamboats and other small craft, was
at that period a favourite speculation, and its practicability, and the
great advantages to be derived from it, were so widely believed, as
to raise the value of the wild lands along these remote waters to an
enormous price; and settlers in the vicinity were eager to secure lots,
at any sacrifice, along their shores.

Our government grant was upon the lake shore, and Moodie had chosen for
the site of his log house a bank that sloped gradually from the edge of
the water, until it attained to the dignity of a hill. Along the top of
this ridge, the forest-road ran, and midway down the hill, our humble
home, already nearly completed, stood, surrounded by the eternal forest.
A few trees had been cleared in its immediate vicinity, just sufficient
to allow the workmen to proceed, and to prevent the fall of any tree
injuring the building, or the danger of its taking fire during the
process of burning the fallow.

A neighbour had undertaken to build this rude dwelling by contract, and
was to have it ready for us by the first week in the new year. The want
of boards to make the divisions in the apartments alone hindered him
from fulfilling his contract. These had lately been procured, and the
house was to be ready for our reception in the course of a week. Our
trunks and baggage had already been conveyed by Mr. D---- hither; and in
spite of my sister's kindness and hospitality, I longed to find myself
once more settled in a home of my own.

The day after our arrival, I was agreeably surprised by a visit from
Monaghan, whom Moodie had once more taken into his service. The poor
fellow was delighted that his nurse-child, as he always called little
Katie, had not forgotten him, but evinced the most lively satisfaction
at the sight of her dark friend.

Early every morning, Moodie went off to the house; and the first fine
day, my sister undertook to escort me through the wood, to inspect it.
The proposal was joyfully accepted; and although I felt _rather_ timid
when I found myself with only my female companion in the vast forest, I
kept my fears to myself, lest I should be laughed at. This foolish dread
of encountering wild beasts in the woods, I never could wholly shake
off, even after becoming a constant resident in their gloomy depths,
and accustomed to follow the forest-path, alone, or attended with little
children, daily. The cracking of an old bough, or the hooting of
the owl, was enough to fill me with alarm, and try my strength in a
precipitate flight. Often have I stopped and reproached myself for want
of faith in the goodness of Providence, and repeated the text, “The
wicked are afraid when no man pursueth: but the righteous are as bold
as a lion,” as if to shame myself into courage. But it would not do; I
could not overcome the weakness of the flesh. If I had one of my infants
with me, the wish to protect the child from any danger which might beset
my path gave me for a time a fictitious courage; but it was like love
fighting with despair.

It was in vain that my husband assured me that no person had ever been
attacked by wild animals in the woods, that a child might traverse them
even at night in safety; whilst I knew that wild animals existed in
those woods, I could not believe him, and my fears on this head rather
increased than diminished.

The snow had been so greatly decreased by the late thaw, that it had
been converted into a coating of ice, which afforded a dangerous and
slippery footing. My sister, who had resided for nearly twelve months
in the woods, was provided for her walk with Indian moccasins, which
rendered her quite independent; but I stumbled at every step. The sun
shone brightly, the air was clear and invigorating, and, in spite of the
treacherous ground and my foolish fears, I greatly enjoyed my first walk
in the woods. Naturally of a cheerful, hopeful disposition, my sister
was enthusiastic in her admiration of the woods. She drew such a lively
picture of the charms of a summer residence in the forest that I began
to feel greatly interested in her descriptions, and to rejoice that we
too were to be her near neighbours and dwellers in the woods; and this
circumstance not a little reconciled me to the change.

Hoping that my husband would derive an income equal to the one he had
parted with from the investment of the price of his commission in
the steamboat stock, I felt no dread of want. Our legacy of £700 had
afforded us means to purchase land, build our house, and give out a
large portion of land to be cleared, and, with a considerable sum
of money still in hand, our prospects for the future were in no way
discouraging.

When we reached the top of the ridge that overlooked our cot, my sister
stopped, and pointed out a large dwelling among the trees. “There,
S----,” she said, “is your home. When that black cedar swamp is cleared
away, that now hides the lake from us, you will have a very, pretty
view.” My conversation with her had quite altered the aspect of the
country, and predisposed me to view things in the most favourable light.
I found Moodie and Monaghan employed in piling up heaps of bush near the
house, which they intended to burn off by hand previous to firing the
rest of the fallow, to prevent any risk to the building from fire. The
house was made of cedar logs, and presented a superior air of comfort to
most dwellings of the same kind. The dimensions were thirty-six feet
in length, and thirty-two in breadth, which gave us a nice parlour, a
kitchen, and two small bedrooms, which were divided by plank partitions.
Pantry or storeroom there was none; some rough shelves in the kitchen,
and a deal cupboard in a corner of the parlour, being the extent of our
accommodations in that way.

Our servant, Mary Tate, was busy scrubbing out the parlour and bedroom;
but the kitchen, and the sleeping-room off it, were still knee-deep
in chips, and filled with the carpenter's bench and tools, and all our
luggage. Such as it was, it was a palace when compared to Old Satan's
log hut, or the miserable cabin we had wintered in during the severe
winter of 1833, and I regarded it with complacency as my future home.

While we were standing outside the building, conversing with my husband,
a young gentleman, of the name of Morgan, who had lately purchased land
in that vicinity, went into the kitchen to light his pipe at the stove,
and, with true backwood carelessness, let the hot cinder fall among the
dry chips that strewed the floor. A few minutes after, the whole mass
was in a blaze, and it was not without great difficulty that Moodie
and Mr. R---- succeeded in putting out the fire. Thus were we nearly
deprived of our home before we had taken up our abode in it.

The indifference to the danger of fire in a country where most of the
dwellings are composed of inflammable materials, is truly astonishing.
Accustomed to see enormous fires blazing on every hearth-stone, and to
sleep in front of these fires, his bedding often riddled with holes
made by hot particles of wood flying out during the night, and igniting
beneath his very nose, the sturdy backwoodsman never dreads an enemy in
the element that he is used to regard as his best friend. Yet what
awful accidents, what ruinous calamities arise, out of this criminal
negligence, both to himself and others!

A few days after this adventure, we bade adieu to my sister, and took
possession of our new dwelling and commenced “a life in the woods.”

The first spring we spent in comparative ease and idleness. Our cows
had been left upon our old place during the winter. The ground had to be
cleared before it could receive a crop of any kind, and I had little
to do but to wander by the lake shore, or among the woods, and amuse
myself. These were the halcyon days of the bush. My husband had
purchased a very light cedar canoe, to which he attached a keel a sail;
and most of our leisure hours, directly the snows melted, were spent
upon the water.

These fishing and shooting excursions were delightful. The pure beauty
of the Canadian water, the sombre but august grandeur of the vast forest
that hemmed us in on every side and shut us out from the rest of the
world, soon cast a magic spell upon our spirits, and we began to feel
charmed with the freedom and solitude around us. Every object was new
to us. We felt as if we were the first discoverers of every beautiful
flower and stately tree that attracted our attention, and we gave names
to fantastic rocks and fairy isles, and raised imaginary houses and
bridges on every picturesque spot which we floated past during our
aquatic excursions. I learned the use of the paddle, and became quite a
proficient in the gentle craft.

It was not long before we received visits from the Indians, a people
whose beauty, talents, and good qualities have been somewhat overrated,
and invested with a poetical interest which they scarcely deserve. Their
honesty and love of truth are the finest traits in characters otherwise
dark and unlovely. But these are two God-like attributes, and from them
spring all that is generous and ennobling about them.

There never was a people more sensible of kindness, or more grateful for
any little act of benevolence exercised towards them. We met them with
confidence; our dealings with them were conducted with the strictest
integrity; and they became attached to our persons, and in no single
instance ever destroyed the good opinion we entertained of them.

The tribes that occupy the shores of all these inland waters back of the
great lakes, belong to the Chippewa or Missasagua Indians, perhaps the
least attractive of all these wild people, both with regard to their
physical and mental endowments. The men of this tribe are generally
small of stature, with very coarse and repulsive features. The forehead
is low and retreating, the observing faculties large, the intellectual
ones scarcely developed; the ears large, and standing off from the face;
the eyes looking towards the temples, keen, snake-like, and far apart;
the cheek-bones prominent; the nose long and flat, the nostrils very
round; the jaw-bone projecting, massy, and brutal; the mouth expressing
ferocity and sullen determination; the teeth large, even, and dazzilngly
white. The mouth of the female differs widely in expression from that of
the male; the lips are fuller, the jaw less projecting, and the smile
is simple and agreeable. The women are a merry, light-hearted set, and
their constant laugh and incessant prattle form a strange contrast to
the iron taciturnity of their grim lords.

Now I am upon the subject, I will recapitulate a few traits and sketches
of these people, as they came under my own immediate observation.

A dry cedar swamp, not far from the house, by the lake shore, had been
their usual place of encampment for many years. The whole block of land
was almost entirely covered with maple-trees, and had originally been an
Indian sugar-bush. Although the favourite spot had now passed into the
hands of strangers, they still frequented the place, to make canoes
and baskets, to fish and shoot, and occasionally to follow their old
occupation. Scarcely a week passed away without my being visited by the
dark strangers; and as my husband never allowed them to eat with the
servants, but brought them to his own table, they soon grew friendly
and communicative, and would point to every object that attracted their
attention, asking a thousand questions as to its use, the material of
which it was made, and if we were inclined to exchange it for their
commodities? With a large map of Canada, they were infinitely delighted.
In a moment they recognized every bay and headland in Ontario, and
almost screamed with delight when, following the course of the Trent
with their fingers, they came to their own lake.

How eagerly each pointed out the spot to his fellows; how intently their
black heads were bent down, and their dark eyes fixed upon the map! What
strange, uncouth exclamations of surprise burst from their lips as
they rapidly repeated the Indian names for every lake and river on this
wonderful piece of paper!

The old chief, Peter Nogan, begged hard for the coveted treasure. He
would give “Canoe, venison, duck, fish, for it; and more, by and by.”

I felt sorry that I was unable to gratify his wishes; but the map had
cost upwards of six dollars, and was daily consulted by my husband,
in reference to the names and situations of localities in the
neighbourhood.

I had in my possession a curious Japanese sword, which had been given to
me by an uncle of Tom Wilson's--a strange gift to a young lady; but
it was on account of its curiosity, and had no reference to my warlike
propensities. This sword was broad, and three-sided in the blade, and in
shape resembled a moving snake. The hilt was formed of a hideous carved
image of one of their war-gods; and a more villainous wretch was never
conceived by the most distorted imagination. He was represented in a
sitting attitude, the eagle's claws, that formed his hands, resting
upon his knees; his legs terminated in lion's paws; and his face was a
strange compound of beast and bird--the upper part of his person being
covered with feathers, the lower with long, shaggy hair. The case of
this awful weapon was made of wood, and, in spite of its serpentine
form, fitted it exactly. No trace of a join could be found in this
scabbard, which was of hard wood, and highly polished.

One of my Indian friends found this sword lying upon the book-shelf,
and he hurried to communicate the important discovery to his companions.
Moodie was absent, and they brought it to me to demand an explanation of
the figure that formed the hilt. I told them that it was a weapon that
belonged to a very fierce people who lived in the East, far over the
Great Salt Lake; that they were not Christians, as we were, but said
their prayers to images made of silver, and gold, and ivory, and wood,
and that this was one of them; that before they went into battle they
said their prayers to that hideous thing, which they had made with their
own hands. The Indians were highly amused by this relation, and passed
the sword from one to the other, exclaiming, “A god!--Owgh!--A god!”

But, in spite of these outward demonstrations of contempt, I was sorry
to perceive that this circumstance gave the weapon a great value in
their eyes, and they regarded it with a sort of mysterious awe.

For several days they continued to visit the house, bringing along with
them some fresh companion to look at Mrs. Moodie's _god!_--until,
vexed and annoyed by the delight they manifested at the sight of the
eagle-beaked monster, I refused to gratify their curiosity by not
producing him again.

The manufacture of the sheath, which had caused me much perplexity,
was explained by old Peter in a minute. “'Tis burnt out,” he said.
“Instrument made like sword--heat red-hot--burnt through--polished
outside.”

Had I demanded a whole fleet of canoes for my Japanese sword, I am
certain they would have agreed to the bargain. The Indian possesses
great taste, which is displayed in the carving of his paddles, in the
shape of his canoes, in the elegance and symmetry of his bows, in the
cut of his leggings and moccasins, the sheath of his hunting-knife,
and in all the little ornaments in which he delights. It is almost
impossible for a settler to imitate to perfection an Indian's
cherry-wood paddle. My husband made very creditable attempts, but still
there was something wanting--the elegance of the Indian finish was not
there. If you show them a good print, they invariably point out the most
natural and the best-executed figure in the group. They are particularly
delighted with pictures, examine them long and carefully, and seem to
feel an artist-like pleasure in observing the effect produced by light
and shade.

I had been showing John Nogan, the eldest son of old Peter, some
beautiful coloured engravings of celebrated females; and to my
astonishment he pounced upon the best, and grunted out his admiration in
the most approved Indian fashion. After having looked for a long time at
all the pictures very attentively, he took his dog Sancho upon his
knee, and showed him the pictures, with as much gravity as if the animal
really could have shared in his pleasure. The vanity of these grave men
is highly amusing. They seem perfectly unconscious of it themselves; and
it is exhibited in the most childlike manner.

Peter and his son John were taking tea with us, when we were joined
by my brother Mr. S----. The latter was giving us an account of the
marriage of Peter Jones, the celebrated Indian preacher.

“I cannot think,” he said, “how any lady of propeity and education could
marry such a man as Jones. Why, he's as ugly as Peter here.”

This was said, not with any idea of insulting the red-skin on the score
of his beauty, of which he possessed not the smallest particle, but in
total forgetfulness that our guest understood English. Never shall
I forget the red flash of that fierce, dark eye as it glared upon my
unconscious brother. I would not have received such a fiery glance for
all the wealth that Peter Jones obtained with his Saxon bride. John
Nogan was highly amused by his father's indignation. He hid his face
behind the chief; and though he kept perfectly still, his whole frame
was convulsed with suppressed laughter.

A plainer human being than poor Peter could scarcely be imagined; yet
he certainly deemed himself handsome. I am inclined to think that their
ideas of personal beauty differ very widely from ours. Tom Nogan, the
chief's brother, had a very large, fat ugly squaw for his wife. She
was a mountain of tawny flesh; and, but for the innocent, good-natured
expression, which, like a bright sunbeam penetrating a swarthy cloud,
spread all around a kindly glow, she might have been termed hideous.

This woman they considered very handsome, calling her “a fine
squaw--clever squaw--a much good woman;” though in what her superiority
consisted, I never could discover, often as I visited the wigwam. She
was very dirty, and appeared quite indifferent to the claims of common
decency (in the disposal of the few filthy rags that covered her). She
was, however, very expert in all Indian craft. No Jew could drive a
better bargain than Mrs. Tom; and her urchins, of whom she was the happy
mother of five or six, were as cunning and avaricious as herself. One
day she visited me, bringing along with her a very pretty covered basket
for sale. I asked her what she wanted for it, but could obtain from her
no satisfactory answer. I showed her a small piece of silver. She shook
her head. I tempted her with pork and flour, but she required neither.
I had just given up the idea of dealing with her, in despair, when she
suddenly seized upon me, and, lifting up my gown, pointed exultingly to
my quilted petticoat, clapping her hands, and laughing immoderately.

Another time she led me all over the house, to show me what she wanted
in exchange for _basket_. My patience was well nigh exhausted in
following her from place to place, in her attempt to discover the
coveted article, when, hanging upon a peg in my chamber, she espied a
pair of trowsers belonging to my husband's logging-suit. The riddle
was solved. With a joyful cry she pointed to them, exclaiming “Take
basket.--Give them!” It was with no small difficulty that I rescued the
indispensables from her grasp.

From this woman I learned a story of Indian coolness and courage which
made a deep impression on my mind. One of their squaws, a near relation
of her own, had accompanied her husband on a hunting expedition into the
forest. He had been very successful, and having killed more deer than
they could well carry home, he went to the house of a white man to
dispose of some of it, leaving the squaw to take care of the rest until
his return. She sat carelessly upon the log with his hunting-knife in
her hand, when she heard the breaking of branches near her, and, turning
round, beheld a great bear only a few paces from her.

It was too late to retreat; and seeing that the animal was very hungry,
and determined to come to close quarters, she rose, and placed her back
against a small tree, holding her knife close to her breast, and in a
straight line with the bear. The shaggy monster came on. She remained
motionless, her eyes steadily fixed upon her enemy, and as his huge arms
closed around her, she slowly drove the knife into his heart. The
bear uttered a hideous cry, and sank dead at her feet. When the Indian
returned, he found the courageous woman taking the skin from the carcass
of the formidable brute.

The wolf they hold in great contempt, and scarcely deign to consider him
as an enemy. Peter Nogan assured me that he never was near enough to
one in his life to shoot it; that, except in large companies, and when
greatly pressed by hunger, they rarely attack men. They hold the lynx,
or wolverine, in much dread, as they often spring from trees upon their
prey, fastening upon the throat with their sharp teeth and claws, from
which a person in the dark could scarcely free himself without first
receiving a dangerous wound. The cry of this animal is very terrifying,
resembling the shrieks of a human creature in mortal agony.

My husband was anxious to collect some of the native Indian airs, as
they all sing weil, and have a fine ear for music, but all his efforts
proved abortive. “John,” he said to young Nogan (who played very
creditably on the flute, and had just concluded the popular air of
“Sweet Home”), “cannot you play me one of jour own songs?”

“Yes,--but no good.”

“Leave me to be the judge of that. Cannot you give me a war-song?”

“Yes,--but no good,” with an ominous shake of the head.

“A hunting-song?”

“No fit for white man.”--with an air of contempt.--“No good, no good!”

“Do, John, sing us a love-song,” said I, laughing, “if you have such a
thing in your language.”

“Oh! much love-song--very much--bad--bad--no good for Christian man.
Indian song no good for white ears.” This was very tantalizing, as their
songs sounded very sweet from the lips of their squaws, and I had a
great desire and curiosity to get some of them rendered into English.

To my husband they gave the name of “the musician,” but I have forgotten
the Indian word. It signified the maker of sweet sounds. They listened
with intense delight to the notes of his flute, maintained a breathless
silence during the performance; their dark eyes flashing in fierce light
at a martial strain, or softening with the plaintive and tender.

The affection of Indian parents to their children, and the deference
which they pay to the aged, is a beautiful and touching trait in their
character.

One extremely cold, wintry day, as I was huddled with my little ones
over the stove, the door softly unclosed, and the moccasined foot of
an Indian crossed the floor. I raised my head, for I was too much
accustomed to their sudden appearance at any hour to feel alarmed, and
perceived a tall woman standing silently and respectfully before me,
wrapped in a large blanket. The moment she caught my eye she dropped
the folds of her covering from around her, and laid at my feet the
attenuated figure of a boy, about twelve years of age, who was in the
last stage of consumption.

“Papouse die,” she said, mournfully, clasping her hands against her
breast, and looking down upon the suffering lad with the most heartfelt
expression of maternal love, while large tears trickled down her dark
face. “Moodie's squaw save papouse--poor Indian woman much glad.”

Her child was beyond all human aid. I looked anxiously upon him, and
knew, by the pinched-up features and purple hue of his wasted cheek,
that he had not many hours to live. I could only answer with tears her
agonizing appeal to my skill.

“Try and save him! All die but him.” (She held up five of her fingers.)
“Brought him all the way from Mutta Lake [Footnote: Mud Lake, or Lake
_Shemong_, in Indian.] upon my back, for white squaw to cure.”

“I cannot cure him, my poor friend. He is in God's care; in a few hours
he will be with Him.”

The child was seized with a dreadful fit of coughing, which I expected
every moment would terminate his frail existence. I gave him a
tea-spoonful of currant-jelly, which he took with avidity, but could not
retain a moment on his stomach.

“Papouse die,” murmured the poor woman; “alone--alone! No papouse; the
mother all alone.”

She began re-adjusting the poor sufferer in her blanket. I got her some
food, and begged her to stay and rest herself; but she was too much
distressed to eat, and too restless to remain. She said little, but
her face expressed the keenest anguish; she took up her mournful load,
pressed for a moment his wasted, burning hand in hers, and left the
room.

My heart followed her a long way on her melancholy journey. Think
what this woman's love must have been for that dying son, when she had
carried a lad of his age six miles, through the deep snow upon her back,
on such a day, in the hope of my being able to do him some good. Poor
heartbroken mother! I learned from Joe Muskrat's squaw some days after
that the boy died a few minutes after Elizabeth Iron, his mother, got
home.

They never forget any little act of kindness. One cold night, late in
the fall, my hospitality was demanded by six squaws, and puzzled I was
how to accommodate them all. I at last determined to give them the use
of the parlour floor during the night. Among these women there was one
very old, whose hair was as white as snow. She was the only gray-haired
Indian I ever saw, and on that account I regarded her with peculiar
interest. I knew that she was the wife of a chief, by the scarlet
embroidered leggings, which only the wives and daughters of chiefs are
allowed to wear. The old squaw had a very pleasing countenance, but
I tried in vain to draw her into conversation. She evidently did not
understand me; and the Muskrat squaw, and Betty Cow, were laughing at
my attempts to draw her out. I administered supper to them with my own
hands, and after I had satisfied their wants, (which is no very easy
task, for they have great appetites,) I told our servant to bring in
several spare mattresses and blankets for their use. “Now mind, Jenny,
and give the old squaw the best bed,” I said; “the others are young and
can put up with a little inconvenience.”

The old Indian glanced at me with her keen, bright eye; but I had no
idea that she comprehended what I said. Some weeks after this, as I was
sweeping over my parlour floor, a slight tap drew me to the door. On
opening it I perceived the old squaw, who immediately slipped into my
hand a set of beautifully-embroidered bark trays, fitting one within the
other, and exhibiting the very best sample of the porcupine-quill work.
While I stood wondering what this might mean, the good old creature fell
upon my neck, and kissing me, exclaimed, “You remember old squaw--make
her comfortable! Old squaw no forget you. Keep them for her sake,” and
before I could detain her she ran down the hill with a swiftness which
seemed to bid defiance to years. I never saw this interesting Indian
again, and I concluded that she died during the winter, for she must
have been of a great age.

A friend was staying with us, who wished much to obtain a likeness of
Old Peter. I promised to try and make a sketch of the old man the next
time he paid us a visit. That very afternoon he brought us some ducks
in exchange for pork, and Moodie asked him to stay and take a glass
of whiskey with him and his friend Mr. K----. The old man had arrayed
himself in a new blanket-coat, bound with red, and the seams all
decorated with the same gay material. His leggings and moccasins were
new, and elaborately fringed; and, to cap the climax of the whole, he
had a blue cloth conical cap upon his head, ornamented with a deer's
tail dyed blue, and several cock's feathers. He was evidently very
much taken up with the magnificence of his own appearance, for he often
glanced at himself in a small shaving-glass that hung opposite, with a
look of grave satisfaction. Sitting apart that I might not attract his
observation, I got a tolerably faithful likeness of the old man, which,
after sightly colouring, to show more plainly his Indian finery, I
quietly handed over to Mr. K----. Sly as I thought myself, my occupation
and the object of it had not escaped the keen eye of the old man. He
rose, came behind Mr. K----'s chair, and regarded the picture with
a most affectionate eye. I was afraid that he would be angry at the
liberty I had taken. No such thing! He was as pleased as Punch.

“That Peter?” he grunted. “Give me--put up in wigwam--make dog too!
Owgh! owgh!” and he rubbed his hands together, and chuckled with
delight. Mr. K---- had some difficulty in coaxing the picture from the
old chief; so pleased was he with this rude representation of himself.
He pointed to every particular article of his dress, and dwelt with
peculiar glee on the cap and blue deer's tail.

A few days after this, I was painting a beautiful little snow-bird, that
our man had shot out of a large flock that alighted near the door. I was
so intent upon my task, to which I was putting the finishing strokes,
that I did not observe the stealthy entrance (for they all walk like
cats) of a stern-looking red man, till a slender, dark hand was extended
over my paper to grasp the dead bird from which I was copying, and which
as rapidly transferred it to the side of the painted one, accompanying
the act with the deep guttural note of approbation, the unmusical,
savage “Owgh.”

My guest then seated himself with the utmost gravity in a rocking-chair,
directly fronting me, and made the modest demand that I should paint a
likeness of him, after the following quaint fashion:

“Moodie's squaw know much--make Peter Nogan toder day on papare--make
Jacob to-day--Jacob young--great hunter--give much duck--venison--to
squaw.”

Although I felt rather afraid of my fierce-looking visitor, I
could scarcely keep my gravity; there was such an air of pompous
self-approbation about the Indian, such a sublime look of conceit in his
grave vanity.

“Moodie's squaw cannot do every thing; she cannot paint young men,” said
I, rising, and putting away my drawing materials, upon which he kept his
eye intently fixed, with a hungry, avaricious expression. I thought it
best to place the coveted objects beyond his reach. After sitting for
some time, and watching all my movements, he withdrew, with a sullen,
disappointed air. This man was handsome, but his expression was vile.
Though he often came to the house, I never could reconcile myself to his
countenance.

Late one very dark, stormy night, three Indians begged to be allowed to
sleep by the kitchen stove. The maid was frightened out of her wits at
the sight of these strangers, who were Mohawks from the Indian woods
upon the Bay of Quinté, and they brought along with them a horse and
cutter. The night was so stormy, that, after consulting our man--Jacob
Faithful, as we usually called him--I consented to grant their petition,
although they were quite strangers, and taller and fiercer-looking than
our friends the Missasaguas.

I was putting my children to bed, when the girl came rushing in, out of
breath. “The Lord preserve us, madam, if one of these wild men has not
pulled off his trowsers, and is a-sitting mending them behind the stove!
and what shall I do?”

“Do?-why, stay with me, and leave the poor fellow to finish his work.”

The simple girl had never once thought of this plan of pacifying her
outraged sense of propriety.

Their sense of hearing is so acute that they can distinguish sounds at
an incredible distance, which cannot be detected by a European at all.
I myself witnessed a singular exemplification of this fact. It was
mid-winter; the Indians had pitched their tent, or wigwam, as usual,
in our swamp. All the males were absent on a hunting expedition up the
country, and had left two women behind to take care of the camp and its
contents, Mrs. Tom Nogan and her children, and Susan Moore, a young girl
of fifteen, and the only truly beautiful squaw I ever saw. There
was something interesting about this girl's history, as well as her
appearance. Her father had been drowned during a sudden hurricane,
which swamped his canoe on Stony Lake; and the mother, who witnessed the
accident from the shore, and was near her confinement with this child,
boldly swam out to his assistance. She reached the spot where he sank,
and even succeeded in recovering the body; but it was too late; the man
was dead.

The soul of an Indian that has been drowned is reckoned accursed, and he
is never permitted to join his tribe on the happy hunting-grounds, but
his spirit haunts the lake or river in which he lost his life. His body
is buried on some lonely island, which the Indians never pass without
leaving a small portion of food, tobacco, or ammunition, to supply
his wants; but he is never interred with the rest of his people. His
children are considered unlucky, and few willingly unite them selves to
the females of the family, lest a poition of the father's curse should
be visited on them.

The orphan Indian girl generally kept aloof from the rest, and seemed
so lonely and companionless, that she soon attracted my attention and
sympathy, and a hearty feeling of good-will sprang up between us. Her
features were small and regular, her face oval, and her large, dark,
loving eyes were full of tenderness and sensibility, but as bright and
shy as those of the deer. A rich vermilion glow burnt upon her olive
cheek and lips, and set off the dazzling whiteness of her even and
pearly teeth. She was small of stature, with delicate little hands and
feet, and her figure was elastic and graceful. She was a beautiful child
of nature, and her Indian name signified “the voice of angry waters.”
 Poor girl, she had been a child of grief and tears from her birth! Her
mother was a Mohawk, from whom she, in all probability, derived
her superior personal attractions; for they are very far before the
Missasaguas in this respect.

My friend and neighbour, Emilia S----, the wife of a naval officer, who
lived about a mile distant from me, through the bush, had come to spend
the day with me; and hearing that the Indians were in the swamp, and the
men away, we determined to take a few trifles to the camp, in the way
of presents, and spend an hour in chatting with the squaws.

What a beautiful moonlight night it was, as light as day!--the great
forest sleeping tranquilly beneath the cloudless heavens--not a sound
to disturb the deep repose of nature but the whispering of the breeze,
which, during the most profound calm, creeps through the lofty pine
tops. We bounded down the steep bank to the lake shore. Life is a
blessing, a precious boon indeed, in such an hour, and we felt happy in
the mere consciousness of existence--the glorious privilege of pouring
out the silent adoration of the heart to the Great Father in his
universal temple.

On entering the wigwam, which stood within a few yards of the clearing,
in the middle of a thick group of cedars, we found Mrs. Tom alone with
her elvish children, seated before the great fire that burned in the
centre of the camp; she was busy boiling some bark in an iron spider.
The little boys, in red flannel shirts, which were their only covering,
were tormenting a puppy, which seemed to take their pinching and
pommelling in good part, for it neither attempted to bark nor to bite,
but like the eels in the story, submitted to the infliction because
it was used to it. Mrs. Tom greeted us with a grin of pleasure, and
motioned us to sit down upon a buffalo skin, which, with a courtesy so
natural to the Indians, she had placed near her for our accommodation.

“You are all alone,” said I, glancing round the camp. “Ye'es; Indian
away hunting--Upper Lakes. Come home with much deer.”

“And Susan, where is she?”

“By and by,” (meaning that she was coming). “Gone to fetch water--ice
thick--chop with axe--take long time.”

As she ceased speaking, the old blanket that formed the door of the tent
was withdrawn, and the girl, bearing two pails of water, stood in the
open space, in the white moonlight. The glow of the fire streamed upon
her dark, floating locks, danced in the black, glistening eye, and
gave a deeper blush to the olive cheek! She would have made a beautiful
picture; Sir Joshua Reynolds would have rejoiced in such a model--so
simply graceful and unaffected, the very _beau idéal_ of savage life and
unadorned nature. A smile of recognition passed between us. She put down
her burden beside Mrs. Tom, and noiselessly glided to her seat.

We had scarcely exchanged a few words with our favourite, when the old
squaw, placing her hand against her ear, exclaimed, “Whist! whist!”

“What is it?” cried Emilia and I, starting to our feet, “Is there any
danger?”

“A deer--a deer--in bush!” whispered the squaw, seizing a rifle that
stood in a corner. “I hear sticks crack--a great way off. Stay here!”

A great way off the animal must have been, for though Emilia and I
listened at the open door, an advantage which the squaw did not enjoy,
we could not hear the least sound: all seemed still as death. The squaw
whistled to an old hound, and went out.

“Did you hear any thing, Susan?”

She smiled, and nodded.

“Listen; the dog has found the track.”

The next moment the discharge of a rifle, and the deep baying of the
dog, woke up the sleeping echoes of the woods; and the girl started off
to help the old squaw to bring in the game that she had shot.

The Indians are great imitators, and possess a nice tact in adopting
the customs and manners of those with whom they associate. An Indian is
Nature's gentleman--never familiar, coarse, or vulgar. If he take a
meal with you, he waits to see how you make use of the implements on the
table, and the manner in which you eat, which he imitates with a grave
decorum, as if he had been accustomed to the same usage from childhood.
He never attempts to help himself, or demand more food, but waits
patiently until you perceive what he requires. I was perfectly
astonished at this innate politeness, for it seems natural to all the
Indians with whom I have had any dealings.

There was one old Indian, who belonged to a distant settlement, and only
visited our lakes occasionally on hunting parties. He was a strange,
eccentric, merry old fellow, with a skin like red mahogany, and a wiry,
sinewy frame, that looked as if it could bid defiance to every change
of temperature. Old Snow-storm, for such was his significant name, was
rather too fond of the whiskey-bottle, and when he had taken a drop too
much, he became an unmanageable wild beast. He had a great fancy for my
husband, and never visited the other Indians without extending the same
favour to us. Once upon a time, he broke the nipple of his gun; and
Moodie repaired the injury for him by fixing a new one in its place,
which little kindness quite won the heart of the old man, and he never
came to see us without bringing an offering of fish, ducks, partridges,
or venison, to show his gratitude.

One warm September day, he made his appearance bareheaded, as usual, and
carrying in his hand a great checked bundle.

“Fond of grapes?” said he, putting the said bundle into my hands. “Fine
grapes--brought them from island, for my friend's squaw and papouses.”

Glad of the donation, which I considered quite a prize, I hastened into
the kitchen to untie the grapes and put them into a dish. But imagine
my disappointment, when I found them wrapped up in a soiled shirt, only
recently taken from the back of the owner. I called Moodie, and begged
him to return Snow-storm his garment, and to thank him for the grapes.

The mischievous creature was highly diverted with the circumstance, and
laughed immoderately.

“Snow-storm,” said he, “Mrs. Moodie and the children are obliged to you
for your kindness in bringing them the grapes; but how came you to tie
them up in a dirty shirt?”

“Dirty!” cried the old man, astonished that we should object to the
fruit on that score. “It ought to be clean; it has been washed often
enough. Owgh! You see, Moodie,” he continued, “I have no hat--never wear
hat--want no shade to my eyes--love the sun--see all around me--up and
down--much better widout hat. Could not put grapes in hat--blanket-coat
too large, crush fruit, juice run out. I had noting but my shirt, so
I takes off shirt, and brings grape safe over the water on my back.
Papouse no care for dirty shirt; their _lee-tel bellies have no eyes_.”

In spite of this eloquent harangue, I could not bring myself to use the
grapes, ripe and tempting as they looked, or give them to the children.
Mr. W---- and his wife happening to step in at that moment, fell into
such an ecstacy at the sight of the grapes, that, as they were perfectly
unacquainted with the circumstance of the shirt, I very _generously_
gratified their wishes by presenting them with the contents of the large
dish; and they never ate a bit less sweet for the novel mode in which
they were conveyed to me!

The Indians, under their quiet exterior, possess a deal of humour. They
have significant names for every thing, and a nickname for every one,
and some of the latter are laughably appropriate. A fat, pompous,
ostentatious settler in our neighbourhood they called _Muckakee_, “the
bull-frog.” Another, rather a fine young man, but with a very red face,
they named _Segoskee_, “the rising sun.” Mr. Wood, who had a farm above
ours, was a remarkably slender young man, and to him they gave the
appellation of _Metiz_, “thin stick.” A woman, that occasionally worked
for me, had a disagreeable squint; she was known in Indian by the
name of _Sachábó_, “cross-eye.” A gentleman with a very large nose was
_Choojas_, “big, or ugly nose.” My little Addie, who was a fair, lovely
creature, they viewed with great approbation, and called _Anoonk_, “a
star;” while the rosy Katie was _Nogesigook,_ “the northern lights.” As
to me, I was _Nonocosiqui_, a “humming-bird;” a ridiculous name for
a tall woman, but it was reference to the delight I took in painting
birds. My friend, Emilia, was “blue cloud;” my little Donald, “frozen
face;” young C----, “the red-headed woodpecker,” from the colour of his
hair; my brother, _Chippewa_, and “the bald-headed eagle.” He was an
especial favourite among them.

The Indians are often made a prey of and cheated by the unprincipled
settlers, who think it no crime to overreach a red skin. One anecdote
will fully illustrate this fact. A young squaw, who was near becoming
a mother, stopped at a Smith-town settler's house to rest herself. The
woman of the house, who was Irish, was peeling for dinner some large
white turnips, which her husband had grown in their garden. The Indian
had never seen a turnip before, and the appearance of the firm, white,
juicy root gave her such a keen craving to taste it that she very
earnestly begged for a small piece to eat. She had purchased at
Peterborough a large stone-china bowl, of a very handsome pattern, (or,
perhaps, got it at the store in exchange for a _basket_,) the worth of
which might be half-a-dollar. If the poor squaw longed for the turnip,
the value of which could scarcely reach a copper, the covetous
European had fixed as longing a glance upon the china bowl, and she was
determined to gratify her avaricious desire and obtain it on the most
easy terms. She told the squaw, with some disdain, that her man did not
grow turnips to give away to “Injuns,” but she would sell her one. The
squaw offered her four coppers, all the change she had about her. This
the woman refused with contempt. She then proffered a basket; but that
was not sufficient; nothing would satisfy her but the bowl. The Indian
demurred; but opposition had only increased her craving for the turnip
in a tenfold degree; and, after a short mental struggle, in which the
animal propensity overcame the warnings of prudence, the squaw gave
up the bowl, and received in return _one turnip_. The daughter of this
woman told me this anecdote of her mother as a very clever thing. What
ideas some people have of moral justice!

I have said before that the Indian never forgets a kindness. We had a
thousand proofs of this, when, overtaken by misfortune, and withering
beneath the iron grasp of poverty, we could scarcely obtain bread for
ourselves and our little ones; then it was that the truth of the Eastern
proverb was brought home to our hearts, and the goodness of God fully
manifested towards us, “Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shalt
find it after many days.” During better times we had treated these poor
savages with kindness and liberality, and when dearer friends looked
coldly upon us they never forsook us. For many a good meal I have been
indebted to them, when I had nothing to give in return, when the pantry
was empty, and “the hearth-stone growing cold,” as they term the want of
provisions to cook at it. And their delicacy in conferring these favours
was not the least admirable part of their conduct. John Nogan, who was
much attached to us, would bring a fine bunch of ducks, and drop them
at my feet “for the papouse,” or leave a large muskinonge on the sill
of the door, or place a quarter of venison just within it, and slip away
without saying a word, thinking that receiving a present from a poor
Indian might hurt our feelings, and he would spare us the mortification
of returning thanks.

When an Indian loses one of his children, he must keep a strict fast for
three days, abstaining from food of any kind. A hunter, of the name of
Young, told me a curious story of their rigid observance of this strange
rite.

“They had a chief,” he said, “a few years ago, whom they called
'Handsome Jack'--whether in derision, I cannot tell, for he was one of
the ugliest Indians I ever saw. The scarlet fever got into the camp--a
terrible disease in this country, and doubly terrible to those poor
creatures who don't know how to treat it. His eldest daughter died. The
chief had fasted two days when I met him in the bush. I did not know
what had happened, but I opened my wallet, for I was on a hunting
expedition, and offered him some bread and dried venison. He looked at
me reproachfully.

“Do white men eat bread the first night their papouse is laid in the
earth?”

“I then knew the cause of his depression, and left him.”

On the night of the second day of his fast another child died of the
fever. He had now to accomplish three more days without tasting food. It
was too much even for an Indian. On the evening of the fourth, he was
so pressed by ravenous hunger, that he stole into the woods, caught a
bull-frog, and devoured it alive. He imagined himself alone, but one of
his people, suspecting his intention, had followed him, unperceived,
to the bush. The act he had just committed was a hideous crime in their
eyes, and in a few minutes the camp was in an uproar. The chief fled for
protection to Young's house. When the hunter demanded the cause of his
alarm, he gave for answer, “There are plenty of flies at my house. To
avoid their stings I came to you.”

It required all the eloquence of Mr. Young, who enjoyed much popularity
among them, to reconcile the rebellious tribe to their chief.

They are very skilful in their treatment of wounds, and many diseases.
Their knowledge of the medicinal qualities of their plants and herbs is
very great. They make excellent poultices from the bark of the bass
and the slippery-elm. They use several native plants in their dyeing of
baskets and porcupine quills. The inner bark of the swamp-alder, simply
boiled in water, makes a beautiful red. From the root of the black
briony they obtain a fine salve for sores, and extract a rich yellow
dye. The inner bark of the root of the sumach, roasted, and reduced to
powder, is a good remedy for the ague; a tea-spoonful given between
the hot and cold fit. They scrape the fine white powder from the large
fungus that grows upon the bark of the pine into whiskey, and take it
for violent pains in the stomach. The taste of this powder strongly
reminded me of quinine.

I have read much of the excellence of Indian cookery, but I never could
bring myself to taste any thing prepared in their dirty wigwams. I
remember being highly amused in watching the preparation of a mess,
which might have been called the Indian hotch-potch. It consisted of
a strange mixture of fish, flesh, and fowl, all boiled together in
the same vessel. Ducks, partridges, muskinonge, venison, and muskrats,
formed a part of this delectable compound. These were literally
smothered in onions, potatoes, and turnips, which they had procured from
me. They very hospitably offered me a dishful of the odious mixture,
which the odour of the muskrats rendered every thing but savoury; but I
declined, simply stating that I was not hungry. My little boy tasted it,
but quickly left the camp to conceal the effect it produced upon him.

Their method of broiling fish, however, is excellent. They take a fish,
just fresh out of the water, cut out the entrails, and, without removing
the scales, wash it clean, dry it in a cloth, or in grease, and cover it
all over with clear hot ashes. When the flesh will part from the bone,
they draw it out of the ashes, strip off the skin, and it is fit for the
table of the most fastidious epicure.

The deplorable want of chastity that exists among the Indian women of
this tribe seems to have been more the result of their intercourse with
the settlers in the country than from any previous disposition to this
vice. The jealousy of their husbands has often been exercised in a
terrible manner against the offending squaws; but this has not happened
of late years. The men wink at these derelictions in their wives, and
share with them the price of their shame.

The mixture of European blood adds greatly to the physical beauty of the
half-race, but produces a sad falling off from the original integrity
of the Indian character. The half-caste is generally a lying, vicious
roguel, possessing the worst qualities of both parents in an eminent
degree. We have many of these half-Indians in the penitentiary, for
crimes of the blackest dye.

The skill of the Indian in procuring his game, either by land or water,
has been too well described by better writers than I could ever hope
to be, to need any illustration from my pen, and I will close this
long chapter with a droll anecdote which is told of a gentleman in this
neighbourhood.

The early loss of his hair obliged Mr.---- to procure the substitute
of a wig. This was such a good imitation of nature, that none but his
intimate friends and neighbours were aware of the fact. It happened that
he had had some quarrel with an Indian, which had to be settled in one
of the petty courts. The case was decided in favour of Mr.----, which so
aggrieved the savage, who considered himself the injured party, that
he sprang upon him with a furious yell, tomahawk in hand, with the
intention of depriving him of his scalp. He twisted his hand in the
locks which adorned the cranium of his adversary, when--horror of
horrors!--the treacherous wig came off in his hand, “Owgh! owgh!”
 exclaimed the affrighted savage, flinging it from him, and rushing from
the court as if he had been bitten by a rattlesnake. His sudden exit
was followed by peals of laughter from the crowd, while Mr.---- coolly
picked up his wig, and dryly remarked that it had saved his head.



CHAPTER III.

BURNING THE FALLOW.


It is not my intention to give a regular history of our residence in the
bush, but merely to present to my readers such events as may serve to
illustrate a life in the woods.

The winter and spring of 1834 had passed away. The latter was uncommonly
cold and backward; so much so that we had a very heavy fall of snow upon
the 14th and 15th of May, and several gentlemen drove down to Cobourg in
a sleigh, the snow lying upon the ground to the depth of several inches.

A late, cold spring in Canada is generally succeeded by a burning, hot
summer; and the summer of '34 was the hottest I ever remember. No rain
fell upon the earth for many weeks, till nature drooped and withered
beneath one bright blaze of sunlight; and the ague and fever in the
woods, and the cholera in the large towns and cities, spread death and
sickness through the country.

Moodie had made during the winter a large clearing of twenty acres
around the house. The progress of the workmen had been watched by me
with the keenest interest. Every tree that reached the ground opened
a wider gap in the dark wood, giving us a broader ray of light and a
clearer glimpse of the blue sky. But when the dark cedar swamp fronting
the house fell beneath the strokes of the axe, and we got a first view
of the lake my joy was complete: a new and beautiful object was now
constantly before me, which gave me the greatest pleasure. By night and
day, in sunshine or in storm, water is always the most sublime feature
in a landscape, and no view can be truly grand in which it is wanting.
From a child, it always had the most powerful effect upon my mind, from
the great ocean rolling in majesty, to the tinkling forest rill, hidden
by the flowers and rushes along its banks. Half the solitude of my
forest home vanished when the lake unveiled its bright face to the blue
heavens, and I saw sun and moon and stars and waving trees reflected
there. I would sit for hours at the window as the shades of evening
deepened round me, watching the massy foliage of the forests pictured in
the waters, till fancy transported me back to England, and the songs of
birds and the lowing of cattle were sounding in my ears. It was long,
very long, before I could discipline my mind to learn and practise all
the menial employments which are necessary in a good settler's wife.

The total absence of trees about the doors in all new settlements had
always puzzled me, in a country where the intense heat of summer seems
to demand all the shade that can be procured. My husband had left
several beautiful rock-elms (the most picturesque tree in the country)
near our dwelling, but, alas! the first high gale prostrated all my fine
trees, and left our log cottage entirely exposed to the fierce rays of
the sun. The confusion of an uncleared fallow spread around us on
every side. Huge trunks of trees and piles of brush gave a littered and
uncomfortable appearance to the locality, and as the weather had been
very dry for some weeks, I heard my husband daily talking with his
choppers as to the expediency of firing the fallow. They still urged him
to wait a little longer, until he could get a good breeze to carry the
fire well through the brush.

Business called him suddenly to Toronto, but he left a strict charge
with old Thomas and his sons, who were engaged in the job, by no means
to attempt to burn it off till he returned, as he wished to be upon the
premises himself in case of any danger. He had previously burnt all the
heaps immediately about the doors. While he was absent, old Thomas
and his second son fell sick with the ague, and went home to their own
township, leaving John, a surly, obstinate young man, in charge of the
shanty, where they slept, and kept their tools and provisions. Monaghan
I had sent to fetch up my three cows, as the children were languishing
for milk, and Mary and I remained alone in the house with the little
ones. The day was sultry, and towards noon a strong wind sprang up that
roared in the pine tops like the dashing of distant billows, but without
in the least degree abating the heat. The children were lying listlessly
upon the floor for coolness, and the girl and I were finishing
sun-bonnets, when Mary suddenly exclaimed, “Bless us, mistress, what a
smoke!” I ran immediately to the door, but was not able to distinguish
ten yards before me. The swamp immediately below us was on fire, and the
heavy wind was driving a dense black cloud of smoke directly towards us.

“What can this mean?” I cried, “Who can have set fire to the fallow?”

As I ceased speaking, John Thomas stood pale and trembling before me.
“John, what is the meaning of this fire?”

“Oh, ma'am, I hope you will forgive me; it was I set fire to it, and I
would give all I have in the world if I had not done it.”

“What is the danger?”

“Oh, I'm terribly afeard that we shall all be burnt up,” said the
fellow, beginning to whimper.

“Why did you run such a risk, and your master from home, and no one on
the place to render the least assistance?”

“I did it for the best,” blubbered the lad. “What shall we do?”

“Why, we must get out of it as fast as we can, and leave the house to
its fate.”

“We can't get out,” said the man, in a low, hollow tone, which seemed
the concentration of fear; “I would have got out of it if I could; but
just step to the back door, ma'am, and see.”

I had not felt the least alarm up to this minute; I had never seen a
fallow burnt, but I had heard of it as a thing of such common occurrence
that I had never connected with it any idea of danger. Judge then, my
surprise, my horror, when, on going to the back door, I saw that the
fellow, to make sure of his work, had fired the field in fifty different
places. Behind, before, on every side, we were surrounded by a wall of
fire, burning furiously within a hundred yards of us, and cutting off
all possibility of retreat; for could we have found an opening through
the burning heaps, we could not have seen our way through the dense
canopy of smoke; and, buried as we were in the heart of the forest, no
one could discover our situation till we were beyond the reach of help.
I closed the door, and went back to the parlour. Fear was knocking
loudly at my heart, for our utter helplessness annihilated all hope of
being able to effect our escape--I felt stupefied. The girl sat upon
the floor by the children, who, unconscious of the peril that hung over
them, had both fallen asleep. She was silently weeping; while the fool
who had caused the mischief was crying aloud.

A strange calm succeeded my first alarm; tears and lamentations were
useless; a horrible death was impending over us, and yet I could not
believe that we were to die. I sat down upon the step of the door, and
watched the awful scene in silence. The fire was raging in the cedar
swamp, immediately below the ridge on which the house stood, and it
presented a spectacle truly appalling. From out the dense folds of a
canopy of black smoke, the blackest I ever saw, leaped up continually
red forks of lurid flame as high as the tree tops, igniting the branches
of a group of tall pines that had been left standing for sun-logs. A
deep gloom blotted out the heavens from our sight. The air was filled
with fiery particles, which floated even to the door-step--while the
crackling and roaring of the flames might have been heard at a great
distance. Could we have reached the lake shore, where several canoes
were moored at the landing, by launching out into the water we should
have been in perfect safety; but, to attain this object, it was
necessary to pass through this mimic hell; and not a bird could have
flown over it with unscorched wings. There was no hope in that quarter,
for, could we have escaped the flames, we should have been blinded and
choked by the thick, black, resinous smoke. The fierce wind drove the
flames at the sides and back of the house up the clearing; and our
passage to the road, or to the forest, on the right and left, was
entirely obstructed by a sea of flames. Our only ark of safety was the
house, so long as it remained untouched by the consuming element. I
turned to young Thomas, and asked him, how long he thought that would
be.

“When the fire clears this little ridge in front, ma'am. The Lord have
mercy upon us, then, or we must all go!”

“Cannot _you_, John, try and make your escape, and see what can be done
for us and the poor children?”

My eye fell upon the sleeping angels, locked peacefully in each other's
arms, and my tears flowed for the first time. Mary, the servant-girl,
looked piteously up in my face. The good, faithful creature had not
uttered one word of complaint, but now she faltered forth,

“The dear, precious lambs!--Oh! such a death!”

I threw myself down upon the floor beside them, and pressed them
alternately to my heart, while inwardly I thanked God that they were
asleep, unconscious of danger, and unable by their childish cries to
distract our attention from adopting any plan which might offer to
effect their escape.

The heat soon became suffocating. We were parched with thirst, and there
was not a drop of water in the house, and none to be procured nearer
than the lake. I turned once more to the door, hoping that a passage
might have-been burnt through to the water. I saw nothing but a dense
cloud of fire and smoke--could hear nothing but the crackling and
roaring of flames, which were gaining so fast upon us that I felt their
scorching breath in my face.

“Ah,” thought I--and it was a most bitter thought--“what will my beloved
husband say when he returns and finds that poor Susy and his dear girls
have perished in this miserable manner? But God can save us yet.”

The thought had scarcely found a voice in my heart before the wind rose
to a hurricane, scattering the flames on all sides into a tempest of
burning billows. I buried my head in my apron, for I thought that our
time was come, and that all was lost, when a most terrific crash of
thunder burst over our heads, and, like the breaking of a water-spout,
down came the rushing torrent of rain which had been pent up for so
many weeks. In a few minutes the chip-yard was all afloat, and the
fire effectually checked. The storm which, unnoticed by us, had been
gathering all day, and which was the only one of any note we had that
summer, continued to rage all night, and before morning had quite
subdued the cruel enemy, whose approach we had viewed with such dread.

The imminent danger in which we had been placed struck me more forcibly
after it was past than at the time, and both the girl and myself sank
upon our knees, and lifted up our hearts in humble thanksgiving to
that God who had saved us by an act of His Providence from an awful and
sudden death. When all hope from human assistance was lost, His hand
was mercifully stretched forth, making His strength more perfectly
manifested in our weakness:--

  “He is their stay when earthly help is lost,
   The light and anchor of the tempest-toss'd.”

There was one person, unknown to us, who had watched the progress of
that rash blaze, and had even brought his canoe to the landing, in the
hope of getting us off. This was an Irish pensioner named Dunn, who had
cleared a few acres on his government grant, and had built a shanty on
the opposite shore of the lake.

“Faith, madam! an' I thought the captain was stark, staring mad to fire
his fellow on such a windy day, and that blowing right from the lake to
the house. When Old Wittals came in and towld us that the masther was
not to the fore, but only one lad, an' the wife an' the chilther at
home,--thinks I, there's no time to be lost, or the crathurs will be
burnt up intirely. We started instanther, but, by Jove! We were too
late. The swamp was all in a blaze when we got to the landing, and you
might as well have tried to get to heaven by passing through the other
place.”

This was the eloquent harangue with which the honest creature informed
me the next morning of the efforts he had made to save us, and the
interest he had felt in our critical situation. I felt comforted for
my past anxiety, by knowing that one human being, however humble, had
sympathized in our probable fate; while the providential manner in which
we had been rescued will ever remain a theme of wonder and gratitude.

The next evening brought the return of my husband, who listened to the
tale of our escape with a pale and disturbed countenance; not a little
thankful to find his wife and children still in the land of the living.
For a long time after the burning of that fallow, it haunted me in my
dreams. I would awake with a start, imagining myself fighting with the
flames, and endeavouring to carry my little children through them to the
top of the clearing, when invariably their garments and my own took fire
just as I was within reach of a place of safety.



CHAPTER IV.

OUR LOGGING-BEE.


  There was a man in our town,
  In our town, in our town--
  There was a man in our town,
  He made a logging-bee;

    And he bought lots of whiskey,
    To make the loggers frisky--
    To make the loggers frisky
      At his logging bee

  The Devil sat on a log heap,
  A log heap, a log heap--
  A red hot burning log heap--
  A-grinning at the bee;

    And there was lots of swearing,
    Of boasting and of daring,
    Of fighting and of tearing,
      At that logging bee

J. W. D. M.


A logging-bee followed the burning of the fallow, as a matter of course.
In the bush, where hands are few, and labour commands an enormous rate
of wages, these gatherings are considered indispensable, and much
has been written in their praise; but, to me, they present the most
disgusting picture of a bush life. They are noisy, riotous, drunken
meetings, often terminating in violent quarrels, sometimes even in
bloodshed. Accidents of the most serious nature often occur, and very
little work is done, when we consider the number of hands employed, and
the great consumption of food and liquor. I am certain, in our case, had
we hired with the money expended in providing for the bee, two or three
industrious, hard-working men, we should have got through twice as mueh
work, and have had it done well, and have been the gainers in the end.

People in the woods have a craze for giving and going to bees, and run
to them with as much eagerness as a peasant runs to a race-course or a
fair; plenty of strong drink and excitement making the chief attraction
of the bee. In raising a house or barn, a bee may be looked upon as a
necessary evil, but these gatherings are generally conducted in a more
orderly manner than those for logging. Fewer hands are required; and
they are generally under the control of the carpenter who puts up the
frame, and if they get drunk during the raising they are liable to meet
with very serious accidents.

Thirty-two men, gentle and simple, were invited to our bee, and the maid
and I were engaged for two days preceding the important one, in baking
and cooking for the entertainment of our guests. When I looked at the
quantity of food we had prepared, I thought that it never could be all
eaten, even by thirty-two men. It was a burning-hot day towards the end
of July, when our loggers began to come in, and the “gee!” and “ha!” of
the oxen resounded on every side. There was my brother S----, with his
frank English face, a host in himself; Lieutenant ---- in his blouse,
wide white trowsers, and red sash, his broad straw hat shading a dark
manly face that would have been a splendid property for a bandit chief;
the four gay, reckless, idle sons of ----, famous at any spree, but
incapable of the least mental or physical exertion, who considered
hunting and fishing as the sole aim and object of life. These young men
rendered very little assistance themselves, and their example deterred
others who were inclined to work.

There were the two R----s, who came to work and to make others work; my
good brother-in-law, who had volunteered to be the Grog Bos, and a host
of other settlers, among whom I recognized Moodie's old acquaintance,
Dan Simpson, with his lank red hair and long freckled face: the Youngs,
the hunters, with their round, black, curly heads and rich Irish brogue;
poor C----, with his long, spare, consumptive figure, and thin, sickly
face. Poor fellow, he has long since been gathered to his rest!

There was the ruffian squatter P----, from Clear Lake,--the dread of all
honest men; the brutal M----, who treated oxen as if they had been logs,
by beating them with handspikes; and there was Old Wittals, with his low
forehead and long nose, a living witness of the truth of phrenology,
if his large organ of acquisitiveness and his want of conscientiousness
could be taken in evidence. Yet in spite of his derelictions from
honesty, he was a hard-working, good-natured man, who, if he cheated
you in a bargain, or took away some useful article in mistake from your
homestead, never wronged his employer in his day's work.

He was a curious sample of cunning and simplicity--quite a character
in his way--and the largest eater I ever chanced to know. From this
ravenous propensity, for he eat his food like a famished wolf, he had
obtained the singular name of “Wittals.” During the first year of his
settlement in the bush, with a very large family to provide for, he had
been often in want of food. One day he came to my brother, with a very
long face.

“'Fore God! Mr. S---, I'm no beggar, but I'd be obliged to you for a
loaf of bread. I declare to you on my honour that I have not had a bit
of wittals to dewour for two whole days.”

He came to the right person with his petition. Mr. S---- with a liberal
hand relieved his wants, but he entailed upon him the name of “Old
Wittals,” as part payment. His daughter, who was a very pretty girl, had
stolen a march upon him into the wood, with a lad whom he by no
means regarded with a favourable eye. When she returned, the old man
confronted her and her lover with this threat, which I suppose he
considered “the most awful” punishment that he could devise.

“March into the house, Madam 'Ria (Maria); and if ever I catch you with
that scamp again, I'll tie you up to a stump all day, and give you no
wittals.”

I was greatly amused by overhearing a dialogue between Old Wittals and
one of his youngest sons, a sharp, Yankeefied-looking boy, who had lost
one of his eyes, but the remaining orb looked as if it could see all
ways at once.

“I say, Sol, how came you to tell that tarnation tearing lie to Mr.
S---- yesterday? Didn't you expect that you'd catch a good wallopping
for the like of that? Lying may be excusable in a man, but 'tis a
terrible bad habit in a boy.”

“Lor', father, that worn't a lie. I told Mr. S----, our cow worn't in
his peas. Nor more she wor; she was in his wheat.”

“But she was in the peas all night, boy.”

“That wor nothing to me; she worn't in just then. Sure I won't get a
licking for that?”

“No, no, you are a good boy; but mind what I tell you, and don't bring
me into a scrape with any of your real lies.”

Prevarication, the worst of falsehoods, was a virtue in his eyes. So
much for the old man's morality.

Monaghan was in his glory, prepared to work or fight, whichever should
come uppermost; and there was old Thomas and his sons, the contractors
for the clearing, to expedite whose movements the bee was called. Old
Thomas was a very ambitious man in his way. Though he did not know A
from B, he took it into his head that he had received a call from Heaven
to convert the heathen in the wilderness; and every Sunday he held a
meeting in our logger's shanty, for the purpose of awakening sinners,
and bringing over “Injun pagans” to the true faith. His method of
accomplishing this object was very ingenious. He got his wife, Peggy--or
“my Paggy,” as he called her--to read aloud for him a text from the
Bible, until he knew it by heart; and he had, as he said truly, “a good
remembrancer,” and never heard a striking sermon but he retained the
most important passages, and retailed them secondhand to his bush
audience.

I must say that I was not a little surprised at the old man's eloquence
when I went one Sunday over to the shanty to hear him preach. Several
wild young fellows had come on purpose to make fun of him; but his
discourse, which was upon the text, “We shall all meet before the
judgment-seat of Christ,” was rather too serious a subject to turn into
a jest, with even old Thomas for the preacher. All went on very
well until the old man gave out a hymn, and led off in such a loud,
discordant voice, that my little Katie, who was standing between her
father's knees, looked suddenly up, and said, “Mamma, what a noise old
Thomas makes!” This remark led to a much greater noise, and the young
men, unable to restrain their long-suppressed laughter, ran tumultuously
from the shanty. I could have whipped the little elf; but small blame
could be attached to a child of two years old, who had never heard a
preacher, especially such a preacher as the old back woodsman, in
her life. Poor man! he was perfectly unconscious of the cause of the
disturbance, and remarked to us, after the service was over,

“Well, ma'am, did not we get on famously? Now, worn't that a _bootiful_
discourse?”

“It was, indeed; much better than I expected.”

“Yes, yes; I knew it would please you. It had quite an effect on those
wild fellows. A few more such sermons will teach them good behaviour.
Ah! the bush is a bad place for young men. The farther in the bush,
say I, the farther from God, and the nearer to hell. I told that wicked
Captain I---- of Dummer so the other Sunday; 'an',' says he, 'if you
don't hold your confounded jaw, you old fool, I'll kick you there.' Now,
ma'am, now, sir, was not that bad manners in a gentleman, to use such
_appropriate epitaphs_ to a humble servant of God, like I?”

And thus the old man ran on for an hour, dilating upon his own merits
and the sins of his neighbours.

There was John R----, from Smith-town, the most notorious swearer in the
district; a man who esteemed himself clever, nor did he want for natural
talent, but he had converted his mouth into such a sink of iniquity that
it corrupted the whole man, and all the weak and thoughtless of his own
sex who admitted him into their company. I had tried to convince John
R---- (for he often frequented the house under the pretence of borrowing
books) of the great crime that he was constantly committing, and of the
injurious effect it must produce upon his own family, but the mental
disease had taken too deep a root to be so easily cured. Like a person
labouring under some foul disease, he contaminated all he touched.
Such men seem to make an ambitious display of their bad habits in
such scenes, and if they afford a little help, they are sure to get
intoxicated and make a row. There was my friend, old Ned Dunn, who had
been so anxious to get us out of the burning fallow. There was a whole
group of Dummer Pines: Levi, the little wiry, witty poacher; Cornish
Bill, the honest-hearted old peasant, with his stalwart figure and
uncouth dialect; and David and Ned--all good men and true; and Malachi
Chroak, a queer, withered-up, monkey-man, that seemed like some
mischievous elf, flitting from heap to heap to make work and fun for the
rest; and many others were at that bee who have since found a rest
in the wilderness: Adam T----, H----, J. M----, H. N---- These, at
different times, lost their lives in those bright waters in which,
on such occasions as these, they used to sport and frolic to refresh
themselves during the noonday heat. Alas! how many, who were then young
and in their prime, that river and its lakes have swept away!

Our men worked well until dinner-time, when, after washing in the lake,
they all sat down to the rude board which I had prepared for them,
loaded with the best fare that could be procured in the bush. Pea-soup,
legs of pork, venison, eel, and raspberry pies, garnished with plenty of
potatoes, and whiskey to wash them down, besides a large iron kettle of
tea. To pour out the latter, and dispense it round, devolved upon me. My
brother and his friends, who were all temperance men, and consequently
the best workers in the field, kept me and the maid actively employed in
replenishing their cups.

The dinner passed off tolerably well; some of the lower order of the
Irish settlers were pretty far gone, but they committed no outrage upon
our feelings by either swearing or bad language, a few harmless jokes
alone circulating among them.

Some one was funning Old Wittals for having eaten seven large cabbages
at Mr. T----'s bee, a few days previous. His son, Sol, thought himself,
as in duty bound, to take up the cudgel for his father.

“Now, I guess that's a lie, anyhow. Fayther was sick that day, and I
tell you he only ate five.”

This announcement was followed by such an explosion of mirth that the
boy looked fiercely round him, as if he could scarcely believe the fact
that the whole party were laughing at him.

Malachi Chroak, who was good-naturedly drunk, had discovered an old
pair of cracked bellows in a corner, which he placed under his arm,
and applying his mouth to the pipe, and working his elbows to and fro,
pretended that he was playing upon the bagpipes, every now and then
letting the wind escape in a shrill squeak from this novel instrument.

“Arrah, ladies and jintlemen, do jist turn your swate little eyes upon
me whilst I play for your iddifications the last illigant tune which my
owld grandmother taught me. Och hone! 'tis a thousand pities that such
musical owld crathurs should be suffered to die, at all at all, to be
poked away into a dirthy dark hole, when their canthles shud be burnin'
a-top of a bushel, givin' light to the house. An' then it is she that
was the illigant dancer, stepping out so lively and frisky, just so.”

And here he minced to and fro, affecting the airs of a fine lady. The
supposititious bagpipe gave an uncertain, ominous howl, and he flung it
down, and started back with a ludicrous expression of alarm.

“Alive, is it ye are? Ye croaking owld divil, is that the tune you
taught your son?

  “Och! my owld granny taught me, but now she is dead.
  That a dhrop of nate whiskey is good for the head;
  It would make a man spake when jist ready to dhie,
  If you doubt it--my boys!--I'd advise you to thry.

  “Och! my owld granny sleeps with her head on a stone,--
  'Now, Malach, don't throuble the gals when I'm gone!'
  I thried to obey her; but, och, I am shure,
  There's no sorrow on earth that the angels can't cure.

  “Och! I took her advice--I'm a bachelor still;
  And I dance, and I play, with such excellent skill,
            (_Taking up the bellows, and beginning to dance._)
  That the dear little crathurs are striving in vain
  Which first shall my hand or my fortin' obtain.”

“Malach!” shouted a laughing group. “How was it that the old lady taught
you to go a-courting?

“Arrah, that's a sacret! I don't let out owld granny's sacrets,” said
Malachi, gracefully waving his head to and fro to the squeaking of the
bellows; then, suddenly tossing back the long, dangling, black elf-locks
that curled down the sides of his lank, yellow cheeks, and winking
knowingly with his comical little deep-seated black eyes, he burst out
again--

  “Wid the blarney I'd win the most dainty proud dame,
   No gal can resist the soft sonnd of that same;
   Wid the blarney, my boys--if you doubt it, go thry--
   But hand here the bottle, my whistle is dhry.”

The men went back to the field, leaving Malachi to amuse those who
remained in the house; and we certainly did laugh our fill at his odd
capers and conceits.

Then he would insist upon marrying our maid. There could be no
refusal--have her he would. The girl, to keep him quiet, laughingly
promised that she would take him for her husband. This did not satisfy
him. She must take her oath upon the Bible to that effect. Mary
pretended that there was no bible in the house, but he found an old
spelling-book upon a shelf in the kitchen, and upon it he made her
swear, and called upon me to bear witness to her oath, that she was now
his betrothed, and he would go next day with her to the “praist.” Poor
Mary had reason to repent her frolic, for he stuck close to her the
whole evening, tormenting her to fulfil her contract. After the sun went
down, the logging-band came in to supper, which was all ready for them.
Those who remained sober ate the meal in peace, and quietly returned to
their own homes; while the vicious and the drunken staid to brawl and
fight.

After having placed the supper on the table, I was so tired with the
noise, and heat, and fatigue of the day, that I went to bed, leaving to
Mary and my husband the care of the guests.

We were obliged to endure a second and a third repetition of this odious
scene, before sixteen acres of land were rendered fit for the reception
of our fall crop of wheat.

My hatred to these tumultuous, disorderly meetings was not in the least
decreased by my husband being twice seriously hurt while attending them.
After the second injury he received, he seldom went to them himself, but
sent his oxen and servant in his place. In these odious gatherings,
the sober, moral, and industrious man is more likely to suffer than the
drunken and profane, as during the delirium of drink these men expose
others to danger as well as themselves.

The conduct of many of the settlers, who considered themselves
gentlemen, and would have been very much affronted to have been called
otherwise, was often more reprehensible than that of the poor Irish
emigrants, to whom they should have set an example of order and
sobriety. The behaviour of these young men drew upon them the severe but
just censures of the poorer class, whom they regarded in every way as
their inferiors.

“That blackguard calls himself a gentleman. In what respect is he
better than us?” was an observation too frequently made use of at these
gatherings. To see a bad man in the very worst point of view, follow him
to a bee; be he profane, licentious, quarrelsome, or a rogue, all his
native wickedness will be fully developed there.

Just after the last of these logging-bees, we had to part with our good
servant Mary, and just at a time when it was the heaviest loss to me.
Her father, who had been a dairy man in the north of Ireland, an honest,
industrious man, had brought out upwards of one hundred pounds to
this country. With more wisdom than is generally exercised by Irish
emigrants, instead of sinking all his means in buying a bush farm he
hired a very good farm in Cavan, stocked it with cattle, and returned
to his old avocation. The services of his daughter, who was an excellent
dairymaid, were required to take the management of the cows; and her
brother brought a wagon and horses all the way from the front to take
her home.

This event was perfectly unexpected, and left me without a moment's
notice to provide myself with another servant, at a time when servants
were not to be had, and I was perfectly unable to do the least thing. My
little Addie was sick almost to death with the summer complaint, and the
eldest still too young to take care of herself.

This was but the beginning of trouble.

Ague and lake fever had attacked our new settlement. The men in the
shanty were all down with it; and my husband was confined to his bed
on each alternate day, unable to raise hand or foot, and raving in the
delirium of the fever.

In my sister and brother's families, scarcely a healthy person remained
to attend upon the sick; and at Herriot's Falls, nine persons were
stretched upon the floor of one log cabin, unable to help themselves or
one another. After much difficulty, and only by offering enormous
wages, I succeeded in procuring a nurse to attend upon me during my
confinement. The woman had not been a day in the house before she was
attacked by the same fever. In the midst of this confusion, and with
my precious little Addie lying insensible on a pillow at the foot of my
bed--expected every moment to breathe her last sigh,--on the night of
the 26th of August, the boy I had so ardently coveted was born. The next
day, Old Pine carried his wife (my nurse) away upon his back, and I
was left to struggle through, in the best manner I could, with a sick
husband, a sick child, and a new-born babe.

It was a melancholy season, one of severe mental and bodily suffering.
Those who have drawn such agreeable pictures of a residence in the
backwoods never dwell upon the periods of sickness, when, far from
medical advice, and often, as in my case, deprived of the assistance of
friends by adverse circumstances, you are left to languish, unattended,
upon the couch of pain. The day that my husband was free of the fit, he
did what he eould for me and his poor sick babes, but, ill as he was, he
was obliged to sow the wheat to enable the man to proceed with the drag,
and was therefore necessarily absent in the field the greater part of
the day.

I was very ill, yet for hours at a time I had no friendly voice to cheer
me, to proffer me a drink of cold water, or to attend to the poor babe;
and worse, still worse, there was no one to help that pale, marble
child, who lay so cold and still, with half-closed violet eye, as if
death had already chilled her young heart in his iron grasp.

There was not a breath of air in our close, burning bed-closet; and
the weather was sultry beyond all that I have since experienced. How I
wished that I could be transported to an hospital at home, to enjoy the
common care that in such places is bestowed upon the sick! Bitter tears
flowed continually from my eyes over those young children. I had asked
of Heaven a son, and there he lay helpless by the side of his almost
equally helpless mother, who could not lift him up in her arms, or still
his cries; while the pale, fair angel, with her golden curls, who had
lately been the admiration of all who saw her, no longer recognized
my voice, or was conscious of my presence. I felt that I could almost
resign the long and eagerly hoped-for son, to win one more smile from
that sweet, suffering creature. Often did I weep myself to sleep, and
wake to weep again with renewed anguish.

And my poor little Katie, herself under three years of age, how
patiently she bore the loss of my care, and every comfort! How earnestly
the dear thing strove to help me! She would sit on my sick-bed, and hold
my hand, and ask me to look at her and speak to her; would inquire why
Addie slept so long, and when she would awake again. Those innocent
questions went like arrows to my heart. Lieutenant ----, the husband of
my dear Emilia, at length heard of my situation. His inestimable wife
was from home, nursing her sick mother; but he sent his maid-servant
up every day for a couple of hours, and the kind girl despatched a
messenger nine miles through the woods to Dummer, to fetch her younger
sister, a child of twelve ears old.

Oh, how grateful I felt for these signal mercies! for my situation for
nearly a week was one of the most pitiable that could be imagined. The
sickness was so prevalent that help was not to be obtained for money;
and without the assistance of that little girl, young as she was, it is
more than probable that neither myself nor my children would ever have
risen from that bed of sickness.

The conduct of our man Jacob, during this trying period, was marked with
the greatest kindness and consideration. On the days that his master was
confined to his bed with the fever, he used to place a vessel of cold
water and a cup by his bedside, and then put his honest English face
in at my door to know if he could make a cup of tea, or toast a bit of
bread for the mistress, before he went into the field.

Katie was indebted to him for all her meals. He baked, and cooked,
and churned, milked the cows, and made up the butter, as well and as
carefully as the best female servant could have done. As to poor John
Monaghan, he was down with the fever in the shanty, where four other men
were all ill the same terrible complaint.

I was obliged to leave my bed and endeavour to attend to the wants of my
young family long before I was really able. When I made my first attempt
to reach the parlour I was so weak, that, at every step, I felt as if I
should pitch forward to the ground, which seemed to undulate beneath my
feet like the floor of a cabin in a storm at sea. My husband continued
to suffer for many weeks with the ague; and when he was convalescent,
all the children, even the poor babe, were seized with it; nor did it
leave us until late in the spring of 1835.



CHAPTER V.

A TRIP TO STONY LAKE


My husband had long promised me a trip to Stony Lake, and in the summer
of 1835, before the harvest commenced, he gave Mr. Y----, who kept the
mill at the rapids below Clear Lake, notice of our intention, and the
worthy old man and his family made due preparation for our reception.
The little girls were to accompany us.

We were to start at sunrise, to avoid the heat of the day, to go up
as far as Mr. Y----'s in our canoe, re-embark with his sons above
the rapids in birch-bark canoes, go as far up the lake as we could
accomplish by daylight, and return at night; the weather being very
warm, and the moon at full. Before six o'clock we were all seated in the
little craft, which spread her white sail to a foaming breeze, and sped
merrily over the blue waters. The lake on which our clearing stood was
about a mile and a half in length, and about three quarters of a mile in
breadth; a mere pond, when compared with the Bay of Quinté, Ontario, and
the inland seas of Canada. But it was _our_ lake, and, consequently,
it had ten thousand beauties in our eyes, which would scarcely have
attracted the observation of a stranger.

At the head of the Kutchawanook, the lake is divided by a long neck of
land, that forms a small bay on the right-hand side, and a very brisk
rapid on the left. The banks are formed of large masses of limestone;
and the cardinal-flower and the tiger-lily seem to have taken an
especial fancy to this spot, and to vie with each other in the display
of their gorgeous colours.

It is an excellent place for fishing; the water is very deep close to
the rocky pavement that forms the bank, and it has a pebbly bottom.
Many a magic hour, at rosy dawn, or evening gray, have I spent with
my husband on this romantic spot; our canoe fastened to a bush, and
ourselves intent upon ensnaring the black bass, a fish of excellent
flavour that abounds in this place.

Our paddles soon carried us past the narrows, and through the rapid
water, the children sitting quietly at the bottom of the boat,
enchanted with all they heard and saw, begging papa to stop and gather
water-lilies, or to catch one of the splendid butterflies that hovered
over us; and often the little Addie darted her white hand into the water
to grasp at the shadow of the gorgeous insects as they skimmed along the
waves.

After passing the rapids, the river widened into another small lake,
perfectly round in form, and having in its centre a tiny green island,
in the midst of which stood, like a shattered monument of bygone storms,
one blasted, black ash-tree.

The Indians call this lake Bessikákoon, but I do not know the exact
meaning of the word. Some say that it means “the Indian's grave;”
 others, “the lake of the one island.” It is certain that an Indian
girl is buried beneath that blighted tree; but I never could learn the
particulars of her story, and perhaps there was no tale connected with
it. She might have fallen a victim to disease during the wanderings of
her tribe, and been buried on that spot; or she might have been drowned,
which would account for her having been buried away from the rest of her
people.

This little lake lies in the heart of the wilderness. There is but one
clearing upon its shores, and that had been made by lumberers many years
before; the place abounded with red cedar. A second growth of young
timber had grown up in this spot, which was covered also with raspberry
bushes--several hundred acres being entirely overgrown with this
delicious berry.

It was here annually that we used to come in large picnic parties, to
collect this valuable fruit for our winter preserves, in defiance of
black-flies, mosquitoes, snakes, and even bears; all which have been
encountered by berry-pickers upon this spot, as busy and as active as
themselves, gathering an ample repast from Nature's bounteous lap.

And, oh! what beautiful wild shrubs and flowers grew up in that
neglected spot! Some of the happiest hours I spent in the bush
are connected with reminiscences of “Irving's shanty,” for so the
raspberry-grounds were called. The clearing could not be seen from the
shore. You had to scramble through a cedar swamp to reach the sloping
ground which produced the berries.

The mill at the Clear Lake rapids was about three miles distant from our
own clearing; and after stemming another rapid, and passing between
two beautiful wooded islands, the canoe rounded a point, and the rude
structure was before us.

A wilder and more romantic spot than that which the old hunter had
chosen for his homestead in the wilderness could scarcely be imagined.
The waters of Clear Lake here empty themselves through a narrow, deep,
rocky channel, not exceeding a quarter of a mile in length, and tumble
over a limestone bridge of ten or twelve feet in height, which extends
from one bank of the river to the other. The shores on either side are
very steep, and the large oak-trees which have anchored their roots
in every crevice of the rock, throw their fantastic arms far over the
foaming waterfall, the deep green of their massy foliage forming a
beautiful contrast with the white, flashing waters that foam over the
shoot at least fifty feet below the brow of the limestone rock. By a
flight of steps cut in the banks we ascended to the platform above the
river on which Mr. Y----'s house stood.

It was a large, rough-looking, log building, surrounded by barns and
sheds of the same primitive material. The porch before the door was
covered with hops, and the room of general resort, into which it
immediately opened, was of large dimensions, the huge fire-place forming
the most striking feature. On the hearth-stone, hot as was the weather,
blazed a great fire, encumbered with all sorts of culinary apparatus,
which, I am inclined to think, had been called into requisition for our
sole benefit and accommodation.

The good folks had breakfasted long before we started from home, but
they would not hear of our proceeding to Stony Lake until after we had
dined. It was only eight o'clock, A. M., and we had still four hours to
dinner, which gave us ample leisure to listen to the old man's stories,
ramble round the premises, and observe all the striking features of the
place.

Mr. Y---- was a Catholic, and the son of a respectable farmer from the
south of Ireland. Some few years before, he had emigrated with a large
family of seven sons and two daughters, and being fond of field sports,
and greatly taken with the beauty of the locality in which he had
pitched his tent in the wilderness, he determined to raise a mill upon
the dam which Nature had provided at his hands, and wait patiently
until the increasing immigration should settle the township of Smith and
Douro, render the property valuable, and bring plenty of grist to the
mill. He was not far wrong in his calculations; and though, for the
first few years, he subsisted entirely by hunting, fishing, and raising
what potatoes and wheat he required for his own family, on the most
fertile spots he could find on his barren lot, very little corn passed
through the mill.

At the time we visited his place, he was driving a thriving trade, and
all the wheat that was grown in the neighbourhood was brought by water
to be ground at Y----'s mill. He had lost his wife a few years after
coming to the country; but his two daughters, Betty and Norah, were
excellent housewives, and amply supplied her loss. From these amiable
women we received a most kind and hearty welcome, and every comfort
and luxury within their reach. They appeared a most happy and contented
family. The sons--a fine, hardy, independent set of fellows--were
regarded by the old man with pride and affection. Many were his
anecdotes of their prowes in hunting and fishing. His method of giving
them an aversion to strong drink while very young amused me greatly, but
it is not every child that could have stood the test of his experiment.

“When they were little chaps, from five to six years of age, I made them
very drunk,” he said; “so drunk that it brought on severe headache and
sickness, and this so disgusted them with liquor, that they never could
abide the sight of it again. I have only one drunkard among the seven;
and he was such a weak, puling crathur, that I dared not play the same
game with him, lest it should kill him. 'Tis his nature, I suppose, and
he can't help it; but the truth is, that to make up for the sobriety of
all the rest, he is killing himself with drink.”

Norah gave us an account of her catching a deer that had got into the
enclosure the day before.

“I went out,” she said, “early in the morning, to milk the cows, and I
saw a fine young buck struggling to get through a pale of the fence,
in which having entangled his head and horns, I knew, by the desperate
efforts he was making to push aside the rails, that if I was not quick
in getting hold of him, he would soon be gone.”

“And did you dare to touch him?”

“If I had had Mat's gun I would have shot him, but he would have made
his escape long before I could run to the house for that, so I went
boldly up to him and got him by the hind legs; and though he kicked and
struggled dreadfully, I held on till Mat heard me call, and ran to
my help, and cut his throat with his hunting-knife. So you see,”
 she continued, with a good-natured laugh, “I can beat our hunters
hollow--they hunt the deer, but I can catch a buck with my hands.”

While we were chatting away, great were the preparations making by Miss
Betty and a very handsome American woman, who had recently come thither
as a help. One little bare-footed garsoon was shelling peas in an Indian
basket, another was stringing currants into a yellow pie-dish, and a
third was sent to the rapids with his rod and line, to procure a dish of
fresh fish to add to the long list of bush dainties that were preparing
for our dinner. It was in vain that I begged our kind entertainers not
to put themselves to the least trouble on our account, telling them that
we were now used to the woods, and contented with any thing; they
were determined to exhaust all their stores to furnish forth the
entertainment. Nor can it be wondered at, that, with so many dishes to
cook, and pies and custards to bake, instead of dining at twelve, it
was past two o'clock before we were conducted to the dinner-table. I was
vexed and disappointed at the delay, as I wanted to see all I could of
the spot we were about to visit before night and darkness compelled us
to return.

The feast was spread in a large outhouse, the table being formed of
two broad deal boards laid together, and supported by rude carpenter's
stools. A white linen cloth, a relic of better days, concealed these
arrangements. The board was covered with an indescribable variety of
roast and boiled, of fish, flesh, and fowl. My readers should see a
table laid out in a wealthy Canadian farmer's house before they can have
any idea of the profusion displayed in the entertainment of two visitors
and their young children. Besides venison, pork, chickens, ducks, and
fish of several kinds, cooked in a variety of ways, there was a number
of pumpkin, raspberry, cherry, and currant pies, with fresh butter and
green cheese (as the new cream-cheese is called), molasses, preserves,
and pickled cucumbers, besides tea and coffee--the latter, be it known,
I had watched the American woman boiling in the _frying-pan_. It was a
black-looking compound, and I did not attempt to discuss its merits. The
vessel in which it had been prepared had prejudiced me, and rendered me
very skeptical on that score.

We were all very hungry, having tasted nothing since five o'clock in the
morning, and contrived, out of the variety of good things before us, to
make an excellent dinner.

I was glad, however, when we rose to prosecute our intended trip up the
lake. The old man, whose heart was now thoroughly warmed with whiskey,
declared that he meant to make one of the party, and Betty, too, was to
accompany us; her sister Norah kindly staying behind to take care of
the children. We followed a path along the top of the high ridge of
limestone rock, until we had passed the falls and the rapids above, when
we found Pat and Mat Y---- waiting for us on the shore below, in two
beautiful new birch-bark canoes, which they had purchased the day before
from the Indians.

Miss Betty, Mat, and myself, were safely stowed into one, while the old
miller and his son Pat, and my husband, embarked in the other, and our
steersmen pushed off into the middle of the deep and silent stream; the
shadow of the tall woods, towering so many feet above us, casting
an inky hue upon the waters. The scene was very imposing, and after
paddling for a few minutes in shade and silence, we suddenly emerged
into light and sunshine, and Clear Lake, which gets its name from the
unrivalled brightness of its waters, spread out its azure mirror before
us. The Indians regard this sheet of water with peculiar reverence. It
abounds in the finest sorts of fish, the salmon-trout, the delicious
white fish, muskenongé, and black and white bass. There is no island
in this lake, no rice beds, nor stick nor stone, to break its tranquil
beauty, and, at the time we visited it, there was but one clearing upon
its shores.

The log hut of the squatter P----, commanding a beautiful prospect up
and down the lake, stood upon a bold slope fronting the water; all the
rest was unbroken forest. We had proceeded about a mile on our
pleasant voyage, when our attention was attracted by a singular natural
phenomenon, which Mat Y---- called the battery. On the right-hand side
of the shore rose a steep, perpendicular wall of limestone, that had the
appearance of having been laid by the hand of man, so smooth and even
was its surface. After attaining a height of about fifty feet, a natural
platform of eight or ten yards broke the perpendicular line of the
rock, when another wall, like the first, rose to a considerable height,
terminating in a second and third platform of the same description.

Fire, at some distant period, had run over these singularly beautiful
terraces, and a second growth of poplars and balm-of-gileads relieved,
by their tender green and light, airy foliage, the sombre indigo tint of
the heavy pines that nodded like the plumes of a funeral-hearse over
the fair young dwellers on the rock. The water is forty feet deep at
the base of this precipice, which is washed by the waves. After we had
passed the battery, Mat Y---- turned to me and said, “That is a famous
place for bears; many a bear have I shot among those rocks.”

This led to a long discussion on the wild beasts of the country.

“I do not think that there is much danger to be apprehended from them,”
 said he; “but I once had an ugly adventure with a wolf two winters ago,
on this lake.”

I was all curiosity to hear the story, which sounded doubly interesting
told on the very spot, and while gliding over those lovely waters.

“We were lumbering at the head of Stony Lake, about eight miles from
here, my four brothers, myself, and several other hands. The winter was
long and severe; although it was the first week in March, there was not
the least appearance of a thaw, and the ice on these lakes was as
firm as ever. I had been sent home to fetch a yoke of oxen to draw the
saw-logs down to the water, our chopping being all completed, and the
logs ready for rafting.

“I did not think it necessary to encumber myself with my rifle, and was,
therefore, provided with no weapon of defence but the long gad I used
to urge on the cattle. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when
I rounded Sandy Point, that long point which is about a mile ahead of us
on the left shore, when I first discovered that I was followed, but at
a great distance, by a large wolf. At first, I thought little of the
circumstance, beyond a passing wish that I had brought my gun. I knew
that he would not attack me before dark, and it was still two long hours
to sundown; so I whistled, and urged on my oxen and soon forgot the
wolf--when, on stopping to repair a little damage to the peg of the
yoke, I was surprised to find him close at my heels. I turned, and ran
towards him, shouting as loud as I could, when he slunk back, but showed
no inclination to make off. Knowing that he must have companions near,
by his boldness, I shouted as loud as I could, hoping that my cries
might be heard by my brothers, who would imagine that the oxen had got
into the ice, and would come to my assistance. I was now winding my way
through the islands in Stony Lake; the sun was setting red before me,
and I had still three miles of my journey to accomplish. The wolf had
become so impudent that I kept him off by pelting him with snowballs;
and once he came so near that I struck him with the gad. I now began
to be seriously alarmed, and from time to time shouted with all my
strength; and you may imagine my joy when these cries were answered by
the report of a gun. My brothers had heard me, and the discharge of a
gun, for a moment, seemed to daunt the wolf. He uttered a long howl,
which was answered by the cries of a large pack of the dirty brutes from
the wood. It was only just light enough to distinguish objects, and I
had to stop and face my enemy, to keep him at bay.

“I saw the skeleton forms of half-a-dozen more of them slinking among
the bushes that skirted a low island; and tired and cold, I gave myself
and the oxen up for lost, when I felt the ice tremble on which I stood,
and heard men running at a distance. 'Fire your guns!' I cried out, as
loud as I could. My order was obeyed, and such a yelling and howling
immediately filled the whole forest as would have chilled your very
heart. The thievish varmints instantly fled away into the bush.

“I never felt the least fear of wolves until that night; but when they
meet in large bands, like cowardly dogs, they trust to their numbers,
and grow fierce. If you meet with one wolf, you may be certain that the
whole pack are at no great distance.”

We were fast approaching Sandy Point a long white ridge of sand, running
half across the lake, and though only covered with scattered groups of
scrubby trees and brush, it effectually screened Stony Lake from our
view. There were so many beautiful flowers peeping through the dwarf,
green bushes, that, wishing to inspect them nearer, Mat kindly ran the
canoe ashore, and told me that he would show me a pretty spot, where an
Indian, who had been drowned during a storm off that point, was buried.
I immediately recalled the story of Susan Moore's father, but Mat
thought that he was interred upon one of the islands farther up.

“It is strange,” he said, “that they are such bad swimmers. The Indian,
though unrivalled by us whites in the use of the paddle, is an animal
that does not take readily to the water, and those among them who can
swim seldom use it as a recreation.”

Pushing our way through the bushes, we came to a small opening in
the underwood, so thickly grown over with wild Canadian roses in full
blossom, that the air was impregnated with a delightful odour. In the
centre of this bed of sweets rose the humble mound that protected
the bones of the red man from the ravenous jaws of the wolf and the
wild-cat. It was completely covered with stones, and from among the
crevices had sprung a tuft of blue harebells, waving as wild and free
as if they grew among the bonny red heather on the glorious hills of the
North, or shook their tiny bells to the breeze on the broom-encircled
commons of England.

The harebell had always from a child been with me a favourite flower;
and the first sight of it in Canada, growing upon that lonely grave, so
flooded my soul with remembrances of the past, that, in spite of myself,
the tears poured freely from my eyes. There are moments when it is
impossible to repress those outgushings of the heart--

  “Those flood-gates of the soul that sever.
  In passion's tide to part for ever.”

If Mat and his sister wondered at my tears, they must have suspected
the cause, for they walked to a little distance, and left me to the
indulgence of my feelings. I gathered those flowers, and placed them
in my bosom, and kept them for many a day; they had become holy, when
connected with sacred home recollections, and the never-dying affections
of the heart which the sight of them recalled.

A shout from our companions in the other canoe made us retrace our steps
to the shore. They had already rounded the point, and were wondering at
our absence. Oh, what a magnificent scene of wild and lonely grandeur
burst upon us as we swept round the little peninsula, and the whole
majesty of Stony Lake broke upon us at once; another Lake of the
Thousand Isles, in miniature, and in the heart of the wilderness!
Imagine a large sheet of water, some fifteen miles in breadth and
twenty-five in length, taken up by islands of every size and shape, from
the lofty naked rock of red granite to the rounded hill, covered with
oak-leaves to its summit; while others were level with the waters, and
of a rich emerald green, only fringed with a growth of aquatic shrubs
and flowers. Never did my eyes rest on a more lovely or beautiful scene.
Not a vestige of man, or of his works was there. The setting sun,
that cast such a gorgeous flood of light upon this exquisite panorama,
bringing out some of these lofty islands in strong relief, and casting
others into intense shade, shed no cheery beam upon church spire or
cottage pane. We beheld the landscape, savage and grand in its primeval
beauty.

As we floated among the channels between these rocky picturesque isles,
I asked Mat how many of them there were.

“I never could succeed,” he said, “in counting them all.”

One Sunday, Pat and I spent a whole day in going from one to the other,
to try and make out how many there were, but we could only count up to
one hundred and forty before we gave up the task in despair. There are
a great many of them; more than any one would think--and, what is very
singular, the channel between them is very deep, sometimes above forty
feet, which accounts for the few rapids to be found in this lake. It is
a glorious place for hunting; and the waters undisturbed by steamboats,
abound in all sorts of fish.

“Most of these islands are covered with huckleberries; white
grapes, high and low-bush cranberries, blackberries, wild cherries,
gooseberries, and several sorts of wild currants grow here in profusion.
There is one island among these groups (but I never could light upon the
identical one) where the Indians yearly gather their wampum-grass. They
come here to collect the best birch bark for their canoes, and to
gather wild onions. In short, from the game, fish, and fruit, which they
collect among the islands of this lake, they chiefly depend for their
subsistence. They are very jealous of the settlers in the country
coming to hunt and fish here, and tell many stories of wild beasts and
rattlesnakes that abound along its shores; but I, who have frequented
the lake for years, was never disturbed by any thing, beyond the
adventure with the wolf, which I have already told you. The banks of
this lake are all steep and rocky, and the land along the shore is
barren, and totally unfit for cultivation.

“Had we time to run up a few miles further, I could have showed you some
places well worth a journey to look at; but the sun is already down, and
it will be dark before we get back to the mill.”

The other canoe now floated alongside, and Pat agreed with his brother
that it was high time to return. With reluctance I turned from this
strangely fascinating scene. As we passed under one bold rocky island,
Mat said, laughingly, “That is Mount Rascal.”

“How did it obtain that name?”

“Oh, we were out here berrying, with our good priest Mr. B----. This
island promised so fair, that we landed upon it, and, after searching
for an hour, we returned to the boat without a single berry, upon which
Mr. B---- named it 'Mount Rascal.'”

The island was so beautiful, it did not deserve the name, and I
christened it “Oak Hill,” from the abundance of oak-trees which clothed
its steep sides. The wood of this oak is so heavy and hard that it will
not float in the water, and it is in great request for the runners of
lumber-sleighs, which have to pass over very bad roads.

The breeze, which had rendered our sail up the lakes so expeditious
and refreshing, had stiffened into a pretty high wind, which was dead
against us all the way down. Betty now knelt in the bow and assisted
her brother, squaw fashion, in paddling the canoe; but, in spite of all
their united exertions, it was past ten o'clock before we reached the
mill. The good Norah was waiting tea for us. She had given the children
their supper four hours ago, and the little creatures, tired with using
their feet all day, were sound asleep upon her bed.

After supper, several Irish songs were sung, while Pat played upon the
fiddle, and Betty and Mat enlivened the company with an Irish jig.

It was midnight when the children were placed on my cloak at the bottom
of the canoe, and we bade adieu to this hospitable family. The wind
being dead against us, we were obliged to dispense with the sail, and
take to our paddles. The moonlight was as bright as day, the air warm
and balmy; and the aromatic, resinous smell exuded by the heat from the
balm-of-gilead and the pine-trees, in the forest, added greatly to our
sense of enjoyment as we floated past scenes so wild and lonely--isles
that assumed a mysterious look and character in that witching hour.
In moments like these, I ceased to regret my separation from my native
land; and, filled with the love of Nature, my heart forgot for the time
the love of home. The very spirit of peace seemed to brood over the
waters, which were broken into a thousand ripples of light by every
breeze that stirred the rice blossoms, or whispered through the
shivering aspen-trees. The far-off roar of the rapids, softened by
distance, and the long, mournful cry of the night-owl, alone broke the
silence of the night. Amid these lonely wilds the soul draws nearer
to God, and is filled to overflowing by the overwhelming sense of His
presence.

It was two o'clock in the morning when we fastened the canoe to the
landing, and Moodie carried up the children to the house. I found
the girl still up with my boy, who had been very restless during our
absence. My heart reproached me, as I caught him to my breast, for
leaving him so long; in a few minutes he was consoled for past sorrows,
and sleeping sweetly in my arms.



CHAPTER VI.

DISAPPOINTED HOPES.


The summer of '35 was very wet; a circumstance so unusual on Canada
that I have seen no season like it during my sojourn in the country. Our
wheat crop promised to be both excellent and abundant; and the clearing
and seeding sixteen acres, one way or another, had cost us more than
fifty pounds; still, we hoped to realize something handsome by the sale
of the produce; and, as far as appearances went, all looked fair. The
rain commenced about a week before the crop was fit for the sickle, and
from that time until nearly the end of September was a mere succession
of thunder showers; days of intense heat, succeeded by floods of rain.
Our fine crop shared the fate of all other fine crops in the country; it
was totally spoiled; the wheat grew in the sheaf, and we could scarcely
save enough to supply us with bad, sticky bread; the rest was exchanged
at the distillery for whiskey, which was the only produce which could be
obtained for it. The storekeepers would not look at it, or give either
money or goods for such a damaged article.

My husband and I had worked hard in the field; it was the first time
I had ever tried my hand at field-labour, but our ready money was
exhausted, and the steamboat stock had not paid us one farthing; we
could not hire, and there was no help for it. I had a hard struggle with
my pride before I would consent to render the least assistance on the
farm, but reflection convinced me that I was wrong--that Providence had
placed me in a situation where I was called upon to work--that it was
not only my duty to obey that call, but to exert myself to the utmost to
assist my husband, and help to maintain my family.

Ah, glorious poverty! thou art a hard taskmaster, but in thy
soul-ennobling school, I have received more god-like lessons, have
learned more sublime truths, than ever I acquired in the smooth highways
of the world! The independent in soul can rise above the seeming
disgrace of poverty, and hold fast their integrity, in defiance of
the world and its selfish and unwise maxims. To them, no labour is too
great, no trial too severe; they will unflinchingly exert every faculty
of mind and body, before they will submit to become a burden to others.

The misfortunes that now crowded upon us were the result of no
misconduct or extravagance on our part, but arose out of circumstances
which we could not avert nor control. Finding too late the error into
which we had fallen, in suffering ourselves to be cajoled and plundered
out of our property by interested speculators, we braced our minds
to bear the worst, and determined to meet our difficulties calmly and
firmly, nor suffer our spirits to sink under calamities which energy and
industry might eventually repair. Having once come to this resolution,
we cheerfully shared together the labours of the field. One in heart and
purpose, we dared remain true to ourselves, true to our high destiny as
immortal creatures, in our conflict with temporal and physical wants. We
found that manual toil, however distasteful to those unaccustomed to it,
was not after all such a dreadful hardship; that the wilderness was
not without its rose, the hard face of poverty without its smile. If
we occasionally suffered severe pain, we as often experienced great
pleasure, and I have contemplated a well-hoed ridge of potatoes on that
bush farm,--with as much delight as in years long past I had experienced
in examining a fine painting in some well-appointed drawing-room.

I can now look back with calm thankfulness on that long period of trial
and exertion--with thankfulness that the dark clouds that hung over us,
threatening to blot us from existence, when they did burst upon us, were
full of blessings. When our situation appeared perfectly desperate, then
were we on the threshold of a new state of things, which was born out of
that very distress.

In order more fully to illustrate the necessity of a perfect and
childlike reliance upon the mercies of God--who, I most firmly believe,
never deserts those who have placed their trust in Him--I will give a
brief sketch of our lives during the years 1836 and 1837.

Still confidently expecting to realize an income, however small, from
the steamboat stock, we had involved ourselves considerably in debt, in
order to pay our servants and obtain the common necessaries of life; and
we owed a large sum to two Englishmen in Dummer, for clearing ten more
acres upon the farm. Our utter inability to meet these demands weighed
very heavily upon my husband's mind. All superfluities in the way of
groceries were now given up, and we were compelled to rest satisfied
upon the produce of the farm. Milk, bread, and potatoes, during the
summer became our chief, and often, for months, our only fare. As to tea
and sugar, they were luxuries we would not think of, although I missed
the tea very much; we rang the changes upon peppermint and sage, taking
the one herb at our breakfast, the other at our tea, until I found an
excellent substitute for both in the root of the dandelion.

The first year we came to this country, I met with an account of
dandelion coffee, published in the _New York Albion_, given by a Dr.
Harrison, of Edinburgh, who earnestly recommended it as an article of
general use.

“It possesses,” he says, “all the fine flavour and exhilarating
properties of coffee, without any of its deleterious effects. The plant
being of a soporific nature, the coffee made from it when drank at night
produces a tendency to sleep, instead of exciting wakefulness, and
may be safely used as a cheap and wholesome substitute for the Arabian
berry, being equal in substance and flavour to the best Mocha coffee.”

I was much struck with this paragraph at the time, and for several years
felt a great inclination to try the Doctor's coffee; but something
or other always came in the way, and it was put off till another
opportunity. During the fall of '35, I was assisting my husband in
taking up a crop of potatoes in the field, and observing a vast number
of fine dandelion roots among the potatoes, it brought the dandelion
coffee back to my memory, and I determined to try some for our supper.
Without saying anything to my husband, I threw aside some of the
roots, and when we left work, collecting a sufficient quantity for, the
experiment, I carefully washed the roots quite clean, without depriving
them of the fine brown skin which covers them, and which contains the
aromatic flavour, which so nearly resembles coffee that it is difficult
to distinguish it from it while roasting. I cut my roots into small
pieces, the size of a kidney-bean, and roasted them on an iron
baking-pan in the stove-oven, until they were as brown and crisp as
coffee. I then ground and transferred a small cupful of the powder to
the coffee-pot, pouring upon it scalding water, and boiling it for a few
minutes briskly over the fire. The result was beyond my expectations.
The coffee proved excellent--far superior to the common coffee we
procured at the stores.

To persons residing in the bush, and to whom tea and coffee are very
expensive articles of luxury, the knowledge of this valuable property
in a plant, scattered so abundantly through their fields, would prove
highly beneficial. For years we used no other article; and my Indian
friends who frequented the house gladly adopted the root, and made me
show them the whole process of manufacturing it into coffee.

Experience taught me that the root of the dandelion is not so good, when
applied to this purpose, in the spring as it is in the fall. I tried
it in the spring, but the juice of the plant, having contributed to the
production of leaves and flowers, was weak, and destitute of the fine
bitter flavour so peculiar to coffee. The time of gathering in the
potato crop is the best suited for collecting and drying the roots of
the dandelion; and as they always abound in the same hills, both may
be accomplished at the same time. Those who want to keep a quantity for
winter use may wash and cut up the roots, and dry them on boards in the
sun. They will keep for years, and can be roasted when required.

Few of our colonists are acquainted with the many uses to which this
neglected but most valuable plant may be applied. I will point out a
few which have come under my own observation, convinced as I am that the
time will come when this hardy weed, with its golden flowers and curious
seed-vessels, which form a constant plaything to the little children
rolling about and luxuriating among the grass, in the sunny month of
May, will be transplanted into our gardens, and tended with due
care. The dandelion planted in trenches, and blanched to a beautiful
cream-colour with straw, makes an excellent salad, quite equal to
endive, and is more hardy and requires less care.

In many parts of the United States, particularly in new districts where
vegetables are scarce, it is used early in the spring, and boiled with
pork as a substitute for cabbage. During our residence in the bush
we found it, in the early part of May, a great addition to the
dinner-table. In the township of Dummer, the settlers boil the tops, and
add hops to the liquor, which they ferment, and from which they obtain
excellent beer. I have never tasted this simple beverage, but I have
been told by those who use it that it is equal to the table-beer used at
home.

Necessity has truly been termed the mother of invention, for I contrived
to manufacture a variety of dishes almost out of nothing, while living
in her school. When entirely destitute of animal food, the different
variety of squirrels supplied us with pies, stews, and roasts. Our barn
stood at the top of the hill near the bush, and in a trap set for such
“small deer,” we often caught from ten to twelve a-day.

The flesh of the black squirrel is equal to that of the rabbit, and the
red, and even the little chissmunk, is palatable when nicely cooked. But
from the lake, during the summer, we derived the larger portion of our
food. The children called this piece of water “Mamma's pantry,” and
many a good meal has the munificent Father given to his poor dependent
children from its well-stored depths. Moodie and I used to rise by
daybreak, and fish for an hour after sunrise, when we returned, he to
the field, and I to dress the little ones, clean up the house, assist
with the milk, and prepare the breakfast.

Oh, how I enjoyed these excursions on the lake! The very idea of our
dinner depending upon our success, added double zest to our sport.

One morning we started as usual before sunrise; a thick mist still hung
like a fine veil upon the water when we pushed off, and anchored at our
accustomed place. Just as the sun rose, and the haze parted and drew up
like a golden sheet of transparent gauze, through which the dark woods
loomed out like giants, a noble buck dashed into the water, followed by
four Indian hounds.

We then discovered a canoe, full of Indians, just below the rapids, and
another not many yards from us, that had been concealed by the fog.
It was a noble sight, that gallant deer exerting all his energy, and
stemming the water with such matchless grace, his branching horns held
proudly aloft, his broad nostrils distended, and his fine eye fixed
intently upon the opposite shore. Several rifle-balls whizzed past him,
the dogs followed hard upon his track, but my very heart leaped for joy
when, in spite of all his foes, his glossy hoofs spurned the opposite
bank and he plunged headlong into the forest.

My beloved partner was most skilful in trolling for bass and muskinongé.
His line he generally fastened to the paddle, and the motion of the oar
gave a life-like vibration to the queer-looking mice and dragon-flies
I used to manufacture from squirrel fur, or scarlet and white cloth, to
tempt the finny wanderers of the wave.

When too busy himself to fish for our meals, little Katie and I ventured
out alone in the canoe, which we anchored in any promising fishing spot,
by fastening a harrow tooth to a piece of rope, and letting it drop from
the side of the little vessel. By the time she was five years old, my
little mermaid could both steer and paddle the light vessel, and catch
small fish, which were useful for soup.

During the winter of '36, we experienced many privations. The ruffian
squatter P----, from Clear Lake, drove from the barn a fine young bull
we were rearing, and for several weeks all trace of the animal was lost.
We had almost forgotten the existence of poor Whiskey, when a neighbour
called and told Moodie that his yearling was at P----'s, and that he
would advise him to get it back as soon as possible. Moodie had to
take some wheat to Y----'s mill, and as the squatter lived only a mile
further, he called at his house; and there, sure enough, he found the
lost animal. With the greatest difficulty he succeeded in regaining his
property, but not without many threats of vengeance from the parties who
had stolen it. To these he paid no regard; but a few days after, six fat
hogs, on which we depended for all our winter store of animal food, were
driven into the lake, and destroyed. The death of these animals deprived
us of three barrels of pork, and half starved us through the winter.
That winter of '36, how heavily it wore away! The grown flour, frosted
potatoes, and scant quantity of animal food rendered us all weak, and
the children suffered much from the ague.

One day, just before the snow fell, Moodie had gone to Peterborough for
letters; our servant was sick in bed with the ague, and I was nursing my
little boy, Dunbar, who was shaking with the cold fit of his miserable
fever, when Jacob put his honest, round, rosy face in at the door.

“Give me the master's gun, ma'am; there's a big buck feeding on the
rice-bed near the island.”

I took down the gun, saying, “Jacob, you have no chance; there is but
one charge of buck-shot in the house.”

“One chance is better nor none,” said Jacob, as he commenced loading the
gun. “Who knows what may happen to oie. Mayhap oie may chance to kill
'un; and you and the measter and the wee bairns may have zummut zavory
for zupper yet.”

Away walked Jacob with Hoodie's “Manton” over his shoulder. A few
minutes after, I heard the report of the gun, but never expected to see
anything of the game; when Jacob suddenly bounced into the room, half
wild with delight.

“Thae beast iz dead az a door-nail. Zure, how the measter will laugh
when he zees the fine buck that oie a' zhot.”

“And have you really shot him?”

“Come and zee! Tis worth your while to walk down to the landing to look
at 'un.”

Jacob got a rope, and I followed him to the landing, where, sure enough,
lay a fine buck, fastened in tow of the canoe. Jacob soon secured him by
the hind legs to the rope he had brought; and, with our united efforts,
we at last succeeded in dragging our prize home. All the time he was
engaged in taking off the skin, Jacob was anticipating the feast that we
were to have; and the good fellow chuckled with delight when he hung the
carcass quite close to the kitchen door, that his “measter” might run
against it when he came home at night. This event actually took place.
When Moodie opened the door, he struck his head against the dead deer.

“What have you got here?”

“A fine buck, zur,” said Jacob, bringing forward the light, and holding
it up in such a manner that all the merits of the prize could be seen at
a glance.

“A fine one, indeed! How did we come by it?”

“It was zhot by oie,” said Jacob, rubbing his hands in a sort of
ecstacy. “Thae beast iz the first oie ever zhot in my life. He! he! he!”

“You shot that fine deer, Jacob?--and there was only one charge in the
gun! Well done; you must have taken a good aim.”

“Why, zur, oie took no aim at all. Oie just pointed the gun at the deer,
and zhut my oeys an let fly at 'un. 'Twas Providence kill'd 'un, not
oie.”

“I believe you,” said Moodie; “Providence has hitherto watched over us
and kept us from actual starvation.”

The flesh of the deer, and the good broth that I was able to obtain from
it, greatly assisted in restoring our sick to health; but long before
that severe winter terminated we were again out of food. Mrs. ---- had
given to Katie, in the fall, a very pretty little pig, which she
had named Spot. The animal was a great favourite with Jacob and the
children, and he always received his food from their hands at the door
and followed them all over the place like a dog. We had a noble hound
called Hector, between whom and the pet pig there existed the most
tender friendship. Spot always shared with Hector the hollow log which
served him for a kennel, and we often laughed to see Hector lead Spot
round the clearing by his ear. After bearing the want of animal food
until our souls sickened at the bad potatoes and grown flour bread, we
began--that is the eldest of the family--to cast very hungry eyes upon
Spot; but no one liked to propose having him killed. At last Jacob spoke
his mind upon the subject.

“Oi've heard, zur, that the Jews never eat pork; but we Christians dooz,
and are right glad ov the chance. Now, zur, oi've been thinking that'tis
no manner ov use our keeping that beast Spot. If he wor a zow, now,
there might be zome zenze in the thing; and we all feel weak for a
morzel of meat. S'poze I kill him? He won't make a bad piece of pork.”

Moodie seconded the move; and, in spite of the tears and prayers of
Katie, her uncouth pet was sacrificed to the general wants of the
family; but there were two members of the house who disdained to eat a
morsel of the victim; poor Katie and the dog Hector. At the self-denial
of the first I did not at all wonder, for she was a child full of
sensibility and warm affections, but the attachment of the brute
creature to his old playmate filled us all with surprise. Jacob first
drew our attention to the strange fact.

“That dog,” he said, as we were passing through the kitchen while he was
at dinner, “do teach uz Christians a lesson how to treat our friends.
Why, zur, he'll not eat a morzel of Spot. Oie have tried and tempted him
in all manner ov ways, and he only do zneer and turn up his nose when
oie hould him a bit to taste.” He offered the animal a rib of the fresh
pork as he finished speaking, and the dog turned away with an expression
of aversion, and on a repetition of the act, walked from the table.
Human affection could scarcely have surpassed the love felt by this poor
animal for his playfellow. His attachment to Spot, that could overcome
the pangs of hunger--for, like the rest of us, he was half starved--must
have been strong indeed.

Jacob's attachment to us, in its simplicity and fidelity, greatly
resembled that of the dog; and sometimes, like the dog, he would push
himself in where he was not wanted, and gratuitously give his advice,
and make remarks which were not required.

Mr. K----, from Cork, was asking Moodie many questions about the
partridges of the country; and, among other things, he wanted to know
by what token you were able to discover their favourite haunts. Before
Moodie could answer this last query a voice responded, through a large
crack in the boarded wall which separated us from the kitchen, “They
always bides where they's drum.” This announcement was received with a
burst of laughter that greatly disconcerted the natural philosopher in
the kitchen.

On the 21st of May of this year, my second son, Donald, was born. The
poor fellow came in hard times. The cows had not calved, and our bill
of fare, now minus the deer and Spot, only consisted of bad potatoes and
still worse bread. I was rendered so weak by want of proper nourishment
that my dear husband, for my sake, overcame his aversion to borrowing,
and procured a quarter of mutton from a friend. This, with kindly
presents from neighbours--often as badly off as ourselves--a loin of
a young bear, and a basket, containing a loaf of bread, some tea, some
fresh butter, and oatmeal, went far to save my life.

Shortly after my recovery, Jacob--the faithful, good Jacob was obliged
to leave us, for we could no longer afford to pay wages. What was owing
to him had to be settled by sacrificing our best cow, and a great many
valuable articles of clothing from my husband's wardrobe. Nothing is
more distressing than being obliged to part with articles of dress
which you know that you cannot replace. Almost all my clothes had been
appropriated to the payment of wages, or to obtain garments for the
children, excepting my wedding-dress, and the beautiful baby-linen
which had been made by the hands of dear and affectionate friends for
my first-born. These were now exchanged for coarse, warm flannels,
to shield her from the cold. Moodie and Jacob had chopped eight acres
during the winter, but these had to be burnt off and logged-up before we
could put in a crop of wheat for the ensuing fall. Had we been able to
retain this industrious, kindly English lad, this would have been soon
accomplished; but his wages, at the rate of thirty pounds per annum,
were now utterly beyond our means.

Jacob had formed an attachment to my pretty maid, Mary Pine, and
before going to the Southern States, to join an uncle who resided in
Louisville, an opulent tradesman, who had promised to teach him his
business, Jacob thought it as well to declare himself. The declaration
took place on a log of wood near the back door, and from my chamber
window I could both hear and see the parties, without being myself
observed. Mary was seated very demurely at one end of the log, twisting
the strings of her checked apron, and the loving Jacob was busily
whittling the other extremity of their rustic seat. There was a long
silence. Mary stole a look at Jacob, and he heaved a tremendous sigh,
something between a yawn and a groan. “Meary,” he said, “I must go.”

“I knew that afore,” returned the girl.

“I had zummat to zay to you, Meary. Do you think you will miss oie?”
 (looking very affectionately, and twitching nearer.)

“What put that into your head, Jacob?” This was said very demurely.

“Oie thowt, maybe, Meary, that your feelings might be zummat loike my
own. I feel zore about the heart, Meary, and it's all com' of parting
with you. Don't you feel queerish, too?”

“Can't say that I do, Jacob. I shall soon see you again,” (pulling
violently at her apron-string.)

“Meary, oi'm afeard you don't feel like oie.”

“P'r'aps not--women can't feel like men. I'm sorry that you are going,
Jacob, for you have been very kind and obliging, and I wish you well.”

“Meary,” cried Jacob, growing desperate at her coyness, and getting
quite close up to her, “will you marry oie? Say yeez or noa.”

This was coming close to the point. Mary drew farther from him, and
turned her head away.

“Meary,” said Jacob, seizing upon the hand that held the apron-string,
“do you think you can better yoursel'? If not--why, oie'm your man. Now,
do just turn about your head and answer oie.”

The girl turned round, and gave him a quick, shy glance, then burst out
into a simpering laugh.

“Meary, will you take oie?” (jogging her elbow.)

“I will,” cried the girl, jumping up from the log, and running into the
house.

“Well, that bargain's made,” said the lover, rubbing his hands; “and
now, oie'll go and bid measter and missus good-buoy.”

The poor fellow's eyes were full of tears, for the children, who loved
him very much, clung, crying, about his knees. “God bless yees all,”
 sobbed the kind-hearted creature. “Doan't forget Jacob, for he'll neaver
forget you. Goodbuoy!”

Then turning to Mary, he threw his arms round her neck, and bestowed
upon her fair cheek the most audible kiss I ever heard.

“And doan't you forget me, Meary. In two years oie will be back to marry
you; and maybe oie may come back a rich man.”

Mary, who was an exceedingly pretty girl, shed some tears at the
parting; but in a few days, she was as gay as ever, and listening
with great attention to the praises bestowed upon her beauty by an old
bachelor, who was her senior by five-and-twenty years. But then he had
a good farm, a saddle mare, and plenty of stock, and was reputed to have
saved money. The saddle mare seemed to have great weight in old Ralph
T----h's wooing; and I used laughingly to remind Mary of her absent
lover, and beg her not to marry Ralph T----h's mare.



CHAPTER VII.

THE LITTLE STUMPY MAN.


Before I dismiss for ever the troubles and sorrows of 1836, I would fain
introduce to the notice of my readers some of the odd characters with
whom we became acquainted during that period. The first that starts
vividly to my recollection is the picture of a short, stumpy, thick-set
man--a British sailor, too--who came to stay one night under our roof,
and took quiet possession of his quarters for nine months, and whom we
were obliged to tolerate from the simple fact that we could not get rid
of him.

During the fall, Moodie had met this individual (whom I will call
Mr. Malcolm) in the mail-coach going up to Toronto. Amused with his
eccentric and blunt manners, and finding him a shrewd, clever fellow in
conversation, Moodie told him that if ever he came into his part of the
world he should be glad to renew their acquaintance. And so they parted,
with mutual good-will, as men often part who have travelled a long
journey in good fellowship together, without thinking it probable they
should ever meet again.

The sugar season had just commenced with the spring thaw; Jacob had
tapped a few trees in order to obtain sap to make molasses for the
children, when his plans were frustrated by the illness of my husband,
who was again attacked with the ague. Towards the close of a wet, sloppy
night, while Jacob was in the wood, chopping, and our servant gone to
my sister, who was ill, to help to wash, as I was busy baking bread for
tea, my attention was aroused by a violent knocking at the door, and
the furious barking of our dog, Hector. I ran to open it, when I found
Hector's teeth clenched in the trowsers of a little, dark, thick-set
man, who said in a gruff voice,

“Call off; our dog. What the devil do you keep such an infernal brute
about the house for? Is it to bite people who come to see you?”

Hector was the best-behaved, best-tempered animal in the world; he
might have been called a gentlemanly dog. So little was there of the
unmannerly puppy in his behaviour, that I was perfectly astonished at
his ungracious conduct. I caught him by the collar, and not without some
difficulty, succeeded in dragging him off.

“Is Captain Moodie within?” said the stranger.

“He is, sir. But he is ill in bed--too ill to be seen.”

“Tell him a friend,” (he laid a strong stress upon the last word,) “a
particular friend must speak to him.”

I now turned my eyes to the face of the speaker with some curiosity. I
had taken him for a mechanic, from his dirty, slovenly appearance; and
his physiognomy was so unpleasant that I did not credit his assertion
that he was a friend of my husband, for I was certain that no man who
possessed such a forbidding aspect could be regarded by Moodie as a
friend. I was about to deliver his message, but the moment I let go
Hector's collar, the dog was at him again.

“Don't strike him with your stick,” I cried, throwing my arms over the
faithful creature. “He is a powerful animal, and if you provoke him, he
will kill you.”

I at last succeeded in coaxing Hector into the girl's room, where I shut
him up, while the stranger came into the kitchen, and walked to the fire
to dry his wet clothes.

I immediately went into the parlour, where Moodie was lying upon a bed
near the stove, to deliver the stranger's message; but before I could
say a word, he dashed in after me, and going up to the bed held out
his broad, coarse hand, with, “How are you, Mr. Moodie. You see I have
accepted your kind invitation sooner than either you or I expected. If
you will give me house-room for the night I shall be obliged to you.”

This was said in a low, mysterious voice: and Moodie, who was still
struggling with the hot fit of his disorder, and whose senses were not
a little confused, stared at him with a look of vague bewilderment. The
countenance of the stranger grew dark.

“You cannot have forgotten me--my name is Malcolm.”

“Yes, yes; I remember you now,” said the invalid, holding out his
burning, feverish hand. “To my home, such as it is, you are welcome.”

I stood by in wondering astonishment, looking from one to the other, as
I had no recollection of ever hearing my husband mention the name of the
stranger; but as he had invited him to share our hospitality, I did
my best to make him welcome, though in what manner he was to be
accommodated puzzled me not a little. I placed the arm-chair by the
fire, and told him that I would prepare tea for him as soon as I could.

“It may be as well to tell you, Mrs. Moodie,” said he sulkily, for he
was evidently displeased by my husband's want of recognition on his
first entrance, “that I have had no dinner.”

I sighed to myself, for I well knew that our larder boasted of no
dainties; and from the animal expression of our guest's face. I rightly
judged that he was fond of good living.

By the time I had fried a rasher of salt pork, and made a pot of
dandelion coffee, the bread I had been preparing was baked; but grown
flour will not make light bread, and it was unusually heavy. For the
first time I felt heartily ashamed of our humble fare. I was sure that
he for whom it was provided was not one to pass it over in benevolent
silence. “He might be a gentleman,” I thought, “but he does not look
like one;” and a confused idea of who he was, and where Moodie had met
with him, began to float through my mind. I did not like the appearance
of the man, but I consoled myself that he was only to stay for one
night, and I could give up my bed for that one night, and sleep on a bed
on the floor by my sick husband. When I re-entered the parlour to cover
the table, I found Moodie fallen asleep, and Mr. Malcolm reading. As I
placed the tea-things on the table, he raised his head, and regarded
me with a gloomy stare. He was a strange-looking creature; his features
were tolerably regular, his complexion dark, with a good colour, his
very broad and round head was covered with a perfect mass of close,
black, curling hair, which, in growth, texture, and hue, resembled
the wiry, curly hide of a water-dog. His eyes and mouth were both
well-shaped, but gave, by their sinister expression, an odious and
doubtful meaning to the whole of his physiognomy. The eyes were cold,
insolent, and cruel, and as green as the eyes of a cat. The mouth
bespoke a sullen, determined, and sneering disposition, as if it
belonged to one brutally obstinate, one who could not by any gentle
means be persuaded from his purpose. Such a man in a passion, would have
been a terrible wild beast; but the current of his feelings seemed to
flow in a deep sluggish channel, rather than in a violent or impetuous
one; and, like William Penn, when he reconnoitred his unwelcome visitors
through the keyhole of the door, I looked at my strange guest, and liked
him not. Perhaps my distant and constrained manner made him painfully
aware of the fact, for I am certain that, from that first hour of our
acquaintance, a deep-rooted antipathy existed between us, which time
seemed rather to strengthen than diminish.

He ate of his meal sparingly, and with evident disgust; the only remarks
which dropped from him were:

“You make bad bread in the bush. Strange, that you can't keep your
potatoes from the frost! I should have thought that you could have had
things more comfortable in the woods.”

“We have been very unfortunate,” I said, “since we came to the woods. I
am sorry that you should be obliged to share the poverty of the land.
It would have given me much pleasure could I have set before you a more
comfortable meal.”

“Oh, don't mention it. So that I get good pork and potatoes I shall be
contented.”

What did these words imply?--an extension of his visit? I hoped that I
was mistaken; but before I could lose any time in conjecture my husband
awoke. The fit had left him, and he rose and dressed himself, and was
soon chatting cheerfully with his guest.

Mr. Malcolm now informed him that he was hiding from, the sheriff of the
N---- district's officers, and that it would be conferring upon him
a great favour if he would allow him to remain at his house for a few
weeks.

“To tell you the truth, Malcolm,” said Moodie, “we are so badly off that
we can scarcely find food for ourselves and the children. It is out
of our power to make you comfortable, or to keep an additional hand,
without he is willing to render some little help on the farm. If you can
do this, I will endeavour to get a few necessaries on credit, to make
your stay more agreeable.”

To this proposition Malcolm readily assented, not only because it
released him from all sense of obligation but because it gave him a
privilege to grumble.

Finding that his stay might extend to an indefinite period, I got
Jacob to construct a rude bedstead out of two large chests that had
transported some of our goods across the Atlantic, and which he put up
in a corner of the parlour. This I provided with a small hair-mattress,
and furnished with what bedding I could spare.

For the first fortnight of his sojourn, our guest did nothing but lie
upon that bed, and read, and smoke, and drink whiskey and water from
morning until night. By degrees he let out part of his history; but
there was a mystery about him which he took good care never to clear up.
He was the son of an officer in the navy, who had not only attained a
very high rank in the service, but, for his gallant conduct, had been
made a Knight-Companion of the Bath.

He had himself served his time as a midshipman on board his father's
flag-ship, but had left the navy and accepted a commission in the
Buenos-Ayrean service during the political struggles in that province;
he had commanded a sort of privateer under the government, to whom, by
his own account, he had rendered many very signal services. Why he
left South America and came to Canada he kept a profound secret. He had
indulged in very vicious and dissipated courses since he came to the
province, and by his own account had spent upwards of four thousand
pounds, in a manner not over creditable to himself. Finding that his
friends would answer his bills no longer, he took possession of a grant
of land obtained through his father's interest, up in Hersey, a barren
township on the shores of Stony Lake; and, after putting up his shanty,
and expending all his remaining means, he found that he did not possess
one acre out of the whole four hundred that would yield a crop of
potatoes. He was now considerably in debt, and the lands, such as they
were, had been seized, with all his effects, by the sheriff, and a
warrant was out for his own apprehension, which he contrived to elude
during his sojourn with us. Money he had none; and, beyond the dirty
fearnought blue seaman's jacket which he wore, a pair of trowsers of
the coarse cloth of the country, an old black vest that had seen better
days, and two blue-checked shirts, clothes he had none. He shaved but
once a week, never combed his hair, and never washed himself. A dirtier
or more slovenly creature never before was dignified by the title of
a gentleman. He was, however, a man of good education, of excellent
abilities, and possessed a bitter, sarcastic knowledge of the world; but
he was selfish and unprincipled in the highest degree.

His shrewd observations and great conversational powers had first
attracted my husband's attention, and, as men seldom show their bad
qualities on a journey, he thought him a blunt, good fellow, who had
travelled a great deal, and could render himself a very agreeable
companion by a graphic relation of his adventures. He could be all this,
when he chose to relax from his sullen, morose mood; and, much as I
disliked him, I have listened with interest for hours to his droll
descriptions of South American life and manners.

Naturally indolent, and a constitutional grumbler, it was with the
greatest difficulty that Moodie could get him to do any thing beyond
bringing a few pails of water from the swamp for the use of the house,
and he has often passed me carrying water up from the lake without
offering to relieve me of the burden. Mary, the betrothed of Jacob,
called him a perfect beast; but he, returning good for evil, considered
_her_ a very pretty girl, and paid her so many uncouth attentions that
he roused the jealousy of honest Jake, who vowed that he would give him
a good “loomping” if he only dared to lay a finger upon his sweetheart.
With Jacob to back her, Mary treated the “zea-bear,” as Jacob termed
him, with vast disdain, and was so saucy to him that, forgetting his
admiration, he declared he would like to serve her as the Indians had
done a scolding woman in South America. They attacked her house during
the absence of her husband, cut out her tongue, and nailed it to the
door, by way of knocker; and he thought that all women who could not
keep a civil tongue in their head should be served in the same manner.

“And what should be done to men who swear and use ondacent language?”
 quoth Mary, indignantly. “Their tongues should be slit, and given to the
dogs. Faugh! You are such a nasty fellow that I don't think Hector would
eat your tongue.”

“I'll kill that beast,” muttered Malcolm, as he walked away.

I remonstrated with him on the impropriety of bandying words with our
servants. “You see,” I said, “the disrespect with which they treat you;
and if they presume upon your familiarity, to speak to our guest in this
contemptuous manner, they will soon extend the same conduct to us.”

“But, Mrs. Moodie, you should reprove them.”

“I cannot, sir, while you continue, by taking liberties with the girl,
and swearing at the man, to provoke them to retaliation.”

“Swearing! What harm is there in swearing? A sailor cannot live without
oaths.”

“But a gentleman might. Mr. Malcolm. I should be sorry to consider you
in any other light.”

“Ah, you are such a prude--so methodistical--you make no allowance
for circumstances! Surely, in the woods we may dispense with the
hypocritical, conventional forms of society, and speak and act as we
please.”

“So you seem to think; but you see the result.”

“I have never been used to the society of ladies, and cannot fashion my
words to please them; and I won't, that's more!” he muttered to himself,
as he strode off to Moodie in the field. I wished from my very heart
that he was once more on the deck of his piratical South American craft.

One night he insisted on going out in the canoe to spear muskinongé with
Moodie. The evening turned out very chill and foggy, and, before twelve,
they returned, with only one fish, and half frozen with cold. Malcolm
had got twinges of rheumatism, and he fussed, and sulked, and swore, and
quarrelled with every body and every thing, until Moodie, who was highly
amused by his petulance, advised him to go to his bed, and pray for the
happy restoration of his temper.

“Temper!” he cried, “I don't believe there's a good-tempered person in
the world. It's all hypocrisy! I never had a good temper! My mother
was an ill-tempered woman, and ruled my father, who was a confoundedly
severe, domineering man. I was born in an ill temper. I was an
ill-tempered child; I grew up an ill-tempered man. I feel worse than ill
tempered now, and when I die it will be in an ill temper.”

“Well,” quoth I, “Moodie has made you a tumbler of hot punch, which may
help to drive out the cold and the ill temper, and cure the rheumatism.”

“Ay; your husband's a good fellow, and worth two of you, Mrs. Moodie.
He makes some allowance for the weakness of Human nature, and can excuse
even my ill temper.”

I did not choose to bandy words with him, and the next day the
unfortunate creature was shaking with the ague. A more intractable,
outrageous, _im_-patient I never had the ill fortune to nurse. During
the cold fit, he did nothing but swear at the cold, and wished himself
roasting; and during the fever, he swore at the heat, and wished that he
was sitting, in no other garment than his shirt, on the north side of
an iceberg. And when the fit at last left him, he got up, and ate such
quantities of fat pork, and drank so much whiskey-punch, that you would
have imagined he had just arrived from a long journey, and had not
tasted food for a couple of days.

He would not believe that fishing in the cold night-air upon the water
had made him ill, but raved that it was all my fault for having laid my
baby down on his bed while it was shaking with the ague.

Yet, if there were the least tenderness mixed up in his iron nature,
it was the affection he displayed for that young child. Dunbar was just
twenty months old, with bright, dark eyes, dimpled cheeks, and soft,
flowing, golden hair, which fell round his infant face in rich curls.
The merry, confiding little creature formed such a contrast to his own
surly, unyielding temper, that, perhaps, that very circumstance made the
bond of union between them. When in the house, the little boy was seldom
out of his arms, and whatever were Malcolm's faults, he had none in
the eyes of the child, who used to cling around his neck, and kiss his
rough, unshaven cheeks with the greatest fondness.

“If I could afford it, Moodie,” he said one day to my husband, “I should
like to marry. I want some one upon whom I could vent my affections.”
 And wanting that some one in the form of woman, he contented himself
with venting them upon the child.

As the spring advanced, and after Jacob left us, he seemed ashamed of
sitting in the house doing nothing, and therefore undertook to make us
a garden, or “to make garden,” as the Canadians term preparing a few
vegetables for the season. I procured the necessary seeds, and watched
with no small surprise the industry with which our strange visitor
commenced operations. He repaired the broken fence, dug the ground with
the greatest care, and laid it out with a skill and neatness of which
I had believed him perfectly incapable. In less than three weeks, the
whole plot presented a very pleasing prospect, and he was really elated
by his success.

“At any rate,” said he, “we shall no longer be starved on bad flour and
potatoes. We shall have peas, and beans, and beets, and carrots, and
cabbage in abundance; besides the plot I have reserved for cucumbers and
melons.”

“Ah,” thought I, “does he, indeed, mean to stay with us until the melons
are ripe?” and my heart died within me, for he not only was a great
additional expense, but he gave a great deal of additional trouble, and
entirely robbed us of all privacy, as our very parlour was converted
into a bedroom for his accommodation; besides that, a man of his
singularly dirty habits made a very disagreeable inmate.

The only redeeming point in his character, in my eyes, was his love for
Dunbar. I could not entirely hate a man who was so fondly attached to my
child. To the two little girls he was very cross, and often chased them
from him with blows. He had, too, an odious way of finding fault with
every thing. I never could cook to please him; and he tried in the
most malicious way to induce Moodie to join in his complaints. All his
schemes to make strife between us, however, failed, and were generally
visited upon himself. In no way did he ever seek to render me the least
assistance. Shortly after Jacob left us, Mary Price was offered higher
wages by a family at Peterborough, and for some time I was left with
four little children, and without a servant. Moodie always milked the
cows, because I never could overcome my fear of cattle; and though I
had occasionally milked when there was no one else in the way, it was in
fear and trembling.

Moodie had to go down to Peterborough; but before he went, he begged
Malcolm to bring me what water and wood I required, and to stand by
the cattle while I milked the cows, and he would himself be home before
night. He started at six in the morning, and I got the pail to go and
milk. Malcolm was lying upon his bed, reading.

“Mr. Malcolm, will you be so kind as to go with me to the fields for a
few minutes while I milk?”

“Yes!” (then, with a sulky frown,)--“but I want to finish what I am
reading.”

“I will not detain you long.”

“Oh, no! I suppose about an hour. You are a shocking bad milker.”

“True; I never went near a cow until I came to this country; and I have
never been able to overcome my fear of them.”

“More shame for you! A farmer's wife, and afraid of a cow! Why, these
little children would laugh at you.”

I did not reply, nor would I ask him again. I walked slowly to the
field, and my indignation made me forget my fear. I had just finished
milking, and with a brimming pail was preparing to climb the fence
and return to the house, when a very wild ox we had came running with
headlong speed from the wood. All my fears were alive again in a moment.
I snatched up the pail, and, instead of climbing the fence and getting
to the house, I ran with all the speed I could command down the steep
hill towards the lake shore, my feet caught in a root of the many stumps
in the path, and I fell to the ground, my pail rolling many yards ahead
of me. Every drop of my milk was spilt upon the grass. The ox passed
on. I gathered myself up and returned home. Malcolm was very fond of new
milk, and he came to me at the door.

“Hi! hi!--Where's the milk?”

“No milk for the poor children to-day,” said I, showing him the inside
of the pail, with a sorrowful shake of the head, for it was no small
loss to them and me.

“How the devil's that? So you were afraid to milk the cows. Come away,
and I will keep off the buggaboos.”

“I did milk them--no thanks to your kindness, Mr. Malcolm--but--”

“But what?”

“The ox frightened me, and I fell and spilt all the milk.”

“Whew! Now don't go and tell your husband that it was all my fault; if
you had had a little patience, I would have come when you asked me, but
I don't choose to be dictated to, and I won't be made a slave by you or
any one else.”

“Then why do you stay, sir, where you consider yourself so treated?”
 said I. “We are all obliged to work to obtain bread; we give you the
best share--surely the return we ask for it is but small.”

“You make me feel my obligations to you when you ask me to do any thing;
if you left it to my better feelings we should get on better.”

“Perhaps you are right. I will never ask you to do any thing for me in
future.”

“Oh, now, that's all mock humility. In spite of the tears in your eyes,
you are as angry with me as ever; but don't go to make mischief between
me and Moodie. If you'll say nothing about my refusing to go with you,
I'll milk the cows for you myself to-night.”

“And can you milk?” said I, with some curiosity.

“Milk! Yes; and if I were not so confoundedly low-spirited and ----
lazy, I could do a thousand other things too. But now, don't say a word
about it to Moodie.”

I made no promise; but my respect for him was not increased by his
cowardly fear of reproof from Moodie, who treated him with a kindness
and consideration which he did not deserve. The afternoon turned out
very wet, and I was sorry that I should be troubled with his company all
day in the house. I was making a shirt for Moodie from some cotton that
had been sent me from home, and he placed himself by the side of the
stove, just opposite, and continued to regard me for a long time with
his usual sullen stare. I really felt half afraid of him.

“Don't you think me mad?” said he. “I have a brother deranged; he got
a stroke of the sun in India, and lost his senses in consequence; but
sometimes I think it runs in the family.”

What answer could I give to this speech, but mere evasive commonplace?

“You won't say what you really think,” he continued; “I know you hate
me, and that makes me dislike you. Now what would you say if I told
you I had committed a murder, and that it was the recollection of that
circumstance that made me at times so restless and unhappy?”

I looked up in his face, not knowing what to believe.

“'Tis fact,” said he, nodding his head; and I hoped that he would not go
mad, like his brother, and kill me.

“Come, I'll tell you all about it; I know the world would laugh at me
for calling such an act _murder_; and yet I have been such a miserable
man ever since, that I _feel_ it was.

“There was a noted leader among the rebel Buenos-Ayreans, whom the
government wanted much to get hold of. He was a fine, dashing, handsome
fellow; I had often seen him, but we never came to close quarters. One
night, I was lying wrapped up in my poncho at the bottom of my boat,
which was rocking in the surf, waiting for two of my men, who were gone
on shore. There came to the shore, this man and one of his people, and
they stood so near the boat, which I suppose they thought empty, that I
could distinctly hear their conversation. I suppose it was the devil who
tempted me to put a bullet through that man's heart. He was an enemy to
the flag under which I fought, but he was no enemy to me--I had no right
to become his executioner; but still the desire to kill him, for the
mere deviltry of the thing, came so strongly upon me that I no longer
tried to resist it. I rose slowly upon my knees; the moon was shining
very bright at the time, both he and his companion were too earnestly
engaged to see me, and I deliberately shot him through the body. He fell
with a heavy groan back into the water; but I caught the last look he
threw up to the moonlight skies before his eyes glazed in death. Oh,
that look!--so full of despair, of unutterable anguish; it haunts me
yet--it will haunt me for ever. I would not have cared if I had killed
him in strife--but in cold blood, and he so unsuspicious of his doom!
Yes, it was murder; I know by this constant tugging at my heart that it
was murder. What do you say to it?”

“I should think as you do, Mr. Malcolm. It is a terrible thing to take
away the life of a fellow-creature without the least provocation.”

“Ah! I knew you would blame me; but he was an enemy after all; I had a
right to kill him; I was hired by the government under whom I served to
kill him: and who shall condemn me?”

“No one more than your own heart.”

“It is not the heart, but the brain, that must decide in questions of
right and wrong,” said he. “I acted from impulse, and shot the man; had
I reasoned upon it for five minutes, that man would be living now. But
what's done cannot be undone. Did I ever show you the work I wrote upon
South America?”

“Are you an author,” said I, incredulously.

“To be sure I am. Murray offered me £100 for my manuscript, but I would
not take it. Shall I read to you some passages from it?”

I am sorry to say that his behaviour in the morning was uppermost in my
thoughts, and I had no repugnance in refusing.

“No, don't trouble yourself. I have the dinner to cook, and the children
to attend to, which will cause a constant interruption; you had better
defer it to some other time.”

“I shan't ask you to listen to me again,” said he, with a look of
offended vanity; but he went to his trunk, and brought out a large MS.,
written on foolscap, which he commenced reading to himself with an air
of great self-importance, glancing from time to time at me, and smiling
disdainfully. Oh, how glad I was when the door opened, and the return of
Moodie broke up this painful _tête-à-tête_.

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. The very next day, Mr.
Malcolm made his appearance before me wrapped in a great-coat belonging
to my husband, which literally came down to his heels. At this strange
apparition, I fell a-laughing.

“For God's sake, Mrs. Moodie, lend me a pair of inexpressibles. I
have met with an accident in crossing the fence, and mine are torn to
shreds--gone to the devil entirely.”

“Well, don't swear. I'll see what can be done for you.”

I brought him a new pair of fine, drab-coloured kerseymere trowsers that
had never been worn. Although he was eloquent in his thanks, I had no
idea that he meant to keep them for his sole individual use from that
day thenceforth. But after all, what was the man to do? He had no
trousers, and no money, and he could not take to the woods. Certainly
his loss was not our gain. It was the old proverb reversed. The season
for putting in the potatoes had now arrived. Malcolm volunteered to cut
the sets, which was easy work that could be done in the house, and over
which he could lounge and smoke; but Moodie told him that he must take
his share in the field, that I had already sets enough saved to plant
half-an-acre, and would have more prepared by the time they were
required. With many growls and shrugs, he felt obliged to comply; and
he performed his part pretty well, the execrations bestowed upon the
mosquitoes and black-flies forming a sort of safety-valve to let off the
concentrated venom of his temper. When he came in to dinner, he held out
his hands to me.

“Look at these hands.”

“They are blistered with the hoe.”

“Look at my face.”

“You are terribly disfigured by the black-flies. But Moodie suffers just
as much, and says nothing.”

“Bah!--The only consolation one feels for such annoyances is to
complain. Oh, the woods!--the cursed woods!--how I wish I were out of
them.” The day was very warm, but in the afternoon I was surprised by a
visit from an old maiden lady, a friend of mine from C--. She had walked
up with a Mr. Crowe, f

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