John Price-Brown

“ So she threw back her head and with a gentle laugh exclaimed:
"Oh, my dear doctor, you don't know how much we shall miss you!"
"Mon Dieu, Miss Maud! That is very well. But you know what I mean. When I go away I can't return for a year at least. It is the time, the absence, that I think of. Won't you give me a chance at all? You know how I love you."
"You have your chance now, Doctor—founding a fort—establishing a settlement—perhaps building a city. That should be enough for any man to face." ”

“ It is a strange life to lead. Three weeks since we left Halifax, and only once inside a house during all that time. Just think of it. Camping in the woods among the hills every night no matter how it snows or how it freezes. Still, as long as it has to be, the woods are better than an open plain; and the denser, the kinder, for they break the cold winds from the icy northland. There is always a big fire before each shanty when we retire for the night; but after you get into bed, the soughing of the winds through the trees of the forest sounds very weird. ”

“ In front of the cottage on this special morning, Helen was busily arranging her little garden. Harold had dug the ground for her and planted the seeds she had brought from England. She was examining the little shoots that had already appeared very tenderly, as a link to the far-away beyond the sea.
"Good morning, Mrs. Manning," said Sir George Head as he approached. "Your little flower beds are full of promise."
"My fear is that the sun will burn the plants before they have a chance to develop," said Helen; "the English climate is so different." ”

“ The terrible reality of the slaying of a thousand men in a night may be one thing; but the presence of a single thread of sunshine which enthralls you and penetrates your whole being is another."
"You are very poetic as well as practical, Major Morris, and I think you are right," said Maud, determined not to understand him. "What you say of the soldiers is terribly sad; but about the sunshine, we have many threads of sunshine here. I was born in Halifax and never even crossed the ocean; but from all I hear we have five times as much sunshine in Nova Scotia as you have in England." ”

“ Through interminable forest of spruce, pine and hemlock; through scraggy underwood, through clumps of tamarack poles, through dense cedar hedges; in and out among boulders of rock hard as adamant, jutting crags and angry precipices, over mounds of granite and shelving plates of limestone; over hill and down dale, the men of the 100th slowly made their way. Cutting down brushwood among rocky masses, made a narrow lane through which soldiers, two abreast, could force a tortuous march; but to make sleigh roads for teams to transport goods for settlement and garrison was a more difficult matter. ”

“ Looks well in winter, what must it be in summer?"
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the Doctor, whose expletives were always in French, "if yonder is not a schooner frozen fast in the ice."
"Yes, and by my father's ghost, there's a man on her deck taking stock of us," cried Cummings.
At this moment the men gave a loud cheer, which was answered by a whoop from the owner of the boat.
"The unexpected always happens," said Sir George; "who could imagine that we should find a brig here? Captain, send down Bond and Hardman to tell the man I would like to converse with him." ”

“ After the battle, however, she went to the prow of the boat with Harold, in time to see the clipper's heels gradually disappearing.
"Are you glad it is over?" he asked, as he slipped his arm around her.
"I suppose I should be," was her answer, fixing her eyes on the distant frigate, "but I don't know that I am. It was audacious for a little thing like that to attack a big war vessel like the North King. They have killed some of our men, too; a pity you didn't give them a thrashing. Perhaps you couldn't?"
"Why, Helen, what a fighter you are!" ”

“ Rushing up the gangway again to the upper deck, he met Captain Osborne of the ship and his own Colonel coming down.
"You look alarmed, Harold!" cried Sir George. "Ammunition all right?"
"Yes, sir," he stammered, "but I am looking for my wife. She went on deck at nine bells, and I've not seen her since."
"Oh, she's safe somewhere," was the reassuring answer. "You could not lose a woman on the North King."
"You might lose one off, though, in a storm like this," said the captain, chaffing the young benedict. "I've known more than one woman to drop overboard—and men by the dozen." ”

“ Oh! where is the Doctor?"
But Beaumont had heard, and with long strides was hastening to the spot. Though unconscious, the man was not dead. A big shingle tree in falling had brought down a slanting spruce, pinning Teddy down in the snow without killing him outright. When the Doctor arrived the men were trying clumsily to extricate him.
"Sacré," screamed the Doctor. "Stop, I say! There's only one chance to save him. The log must be cut. Bateese, you are the man. Swing your axe for your life. Now, all take hold and lift the tree bodily till he cuts it loose." ”

“ The sensation is horrible, and the only relief is stillness. Even the motion of the sleigh affects me, no matter how quietly I sit. During those long drives along the Madawaska River the feeling was sometimes terrifying. I stood it while I could. At last Harold spoke to Sir George, and he promised, if I could endure it till we arrived at Roche Lake, to have a shanty built for me in which I could rest until able to finish the journey. The reason he chose Roche Lake was because we would there leave the smooth surface of the ice for heavier marching through the forest. ”

“ I suspect you are right," was his answer, as she went off in a little ripple of laughter, her cheeks aglow with color. "It must be the sunlight that freshens your beauty and puts that damask upon your skin."
"Now you flatter. But 'pon my word it is a good thing. It makes you brown as a berry in March, red as a rose in June, and blue as a plum in November." ”

“ And the Frenchman's infectious laughter was joined in by both Helen and Harold as they scudded to the jingle of the sleigh-bells merrily along the road.
In a couple of hours the riders had left the heavy sledges and the soldiers far behind. They had passed the clearings. Open fields became less frequent, and the stretches of forest more continuous. Sir George had inquired minutely into the nature and difficulties of the road; and although he believed that the march for days would be outside of the war arena, he had sent forward a strong scouting party to reconnoitre. ”

“ The great drawbacks are the depths of snow to be shovelled away or tramped down, and the wearisome windings of the river.
"Harold tells me that a hundred miles as the crow flies on the Madawaska would be two hundred by the windings of the stream.
"But my ague is coming back. I must stop my scribbling, and will start it again to-morrow. It is so lonely out here in the woods that writing is like talking to an old friend. Oh, those wretched little imps! There they are again! You infernal bug-a-boos! You think you frighten me, do you? Oh, I wish Harold was here, but he can't be until night! ”

“ He fondly imagined that old England was the Queen of the Seas, and that her homes were the freest, the fairest, the loveliest in the wide world, and he dreamed of wooing and winning a fair damsel with flashing eyes, generous impulses, daring heart, and making her the wife of his bosom, the goddess of his love, the mistress of his home in the mansion and groves of his forefathers. ”

“ How good-natured and volatile these French-Canadians are! The loss of her two babies seem to be entirely forgotten in the joy of travelling out west with her husband. Outside we can hear the axes of Bateese and another driver chopping firewood for our camp. Harold, as well as Bond and Hardman, are all away with the Colonel and his men cutting a new road in and out among the granite boulders through the woods. They will be back to-night to remain with their wives until the morning. It seems an awfully funny arrangement—four married men with their wives to sleep together in a single shanty. ”

“ You have worked with a will, and we have every reason to be satisfied with what we have accomplished. Right through the summer we have had comfortable quarters to live and sleep in, and now through the management of Captain Payne, after six months of working and waiting, we open our garrison—our little stone castle—of which every one of us is proud. Here we have a home for the officers of our troops, and the upper storey, when supplied with arms and ammunition, will enable us to defend our harbor against any foe who may dare to invade us. ”