Elizabeth H. Walshe

“ What serene skies—what brilliant sunshine—what tropical wealth of verdure! At every pore the rich earth burst forth into fruit and flower. Two months after the grass had been sunk deep beneath the snow, sheets of strawberries were spread in the woods, an extemporized feast.
One might think that the cottage at Cedar Creek had also bloomed under the fair weather; for when July—hottest of Canadian months—came, the dingy wooden walls had assumed a dazzling white, with a roof so grey that the shingles might have been veritable slates. Resemblance to the lime-washed houses of home was Robert's fancy ”

“ Then, the dwellings and navies of nations and generations yet unborn were growing all around in hundreds of leagues of forest; a dread magnificence of shade darkened the face of the earth, amid which the red man reigned supreme. Now, as the passengers of the good brig Ocean Queen gazed upon it three centuries subsequently, the slow axe had chopped away those forests of pine, and the land was smiling with homesteads, and mapped out in fields of rich farm produce: the encroachments [43] of the irresistible white man had metamorphosed the country, and almost blotted out its olden masters. ”

“ Now, to those who have any regrets or sadnesses in the background of memory, the painfullest of all times are these anniversaries. One is forced round face to face with the past and the unalterable, to gaze on it, perchance, through blinding tears. The days return—unchanged: but, oh, to what changed hearts!
Were they not thinking of the Canadian exiles to-day, at home, at dear old Dunore? For nothing better than exiles did the young men feel themselves, this snow-white Christmas morning, in the log-hut among the backwoods, without a friendly face to smile a greeting, except poor Andy's ”

“ What makes that thin incrustation of ice over the trunk and every twig which has been attracting my admiration these three days? It was as if each tree was dressed in a tight-fitting suit of crystal when the sun succeeded in shining a little yesterday.'
'I imagine that the cause was the slight thaw on Monday, and the freezing of the moisture that then covered the bark and branches into a coat of ice. So I only attempt explanations, Miss Linda.'
'Oh, but it is not your fault if they are unsatisfactory, as I own that of the north-west winds and James's Bay was to me; it is the fault of science. ”

“ See! there's the pond at last.'
They had been climbing out of the denser woods, among a younger growth on the face of the slope; and when they turned, the sheet of water was partially visible over the sunken cedar swamp.
'A pond!' exclaimed Arthur; 'why, it must be three miles across to those limestone cliffs. What pretty islets! Such endless varieties of wood and water!'
'I think we Americans are rather given to the diminutive style of parlance,' quoth Mr. Holt. 'We have some justification in the colossal proportion of all the features of nature around us. ”

“ Of course the velocity increases as they rush down the slope; and unless he is a skilful steersman, they may have a grand upset or be embosomed in a drift; however, the toboggin and its freight generally glides like an arrow from the summit, and has received impetus enough to carry it a long distance over the smooth surface of the valley at foot.'
'How first-rate it must be!' exclaimed Arthur. 'But we shall never see a human being in these backwoods;' and over his handsome face came an expression of ennui and weariness which Robert disliked and dreaded. ”

“ A Greenock without commerce or warehouses, a Clyde without wharves or ships, or the possibility of either—what mere travestie effected by a name!
'A nest of Scottish emigrants, I suppose,' said Robert Wynn, as he contemplated 'the town.'
'Yes, and they'll push their place up to something,' replied Sam Holt: 'if pluck and perseverance can do it, they will. Only one enemy can ruin a Scotchman here, and that's the "drap drink." ”

“ Nobody cares to be out of doors, for the air cuts like a knife, and one's garments stiffen like sheet-iron. Linda stands at the window of the little parlour—well she understands now why the hearth was made almost as wide as one side of the room—and looks out on the white world, and on the coppery sun struggling to enlighten the icy heavens, and on that strange phenomenon, the ver glas, gleaming from every tree. ”

“ My opinion is, he don't often get paid in the circulating medium,' said Arthur.
'Of that you may be sure,' rejoined Sam Holt; 'currency here lies more in potash or flour, just as they have salt in Abyssinia. Society seems to be rather mixed at the "Corner." Yonder's a French Canadian, and here's an Indian.'
No glorious red man, attired in savage finery of paint and feathers; no sculptor's ideal form, or novelist's heroic countenance; but a mild-looking person, in an old shooting jacket and red flannel shirt, with a straw hat shading his pale coppery complexion. ”

“ Such tornadoes often crash a road of destruction through the bush for miles; a path narrow in comparison with its length, and reminding the traveller of the explosive fury of some vast projectile. The track of one has been observable for more than forty miles right through the heart of uninhabited forest.
To cross the stupendous barrier seemed impossible to Arthur. There was a tangled chaos of interlaced and withering boughs and trunks; such a chevaux de frise might stop a regiment until some slow sap cut a path through, and he was without axe, or even a large knife. He must work his way round ”

“ The few feet of garden railed off in front are filled with bushes of the fragrant Canadian wild-rose; yellow [251] violets, lobelias, and tiger-lilies, transplanted thither from the forest glades, appear to flourish. The brothers had resolved that Linda should not miss her flower-beds and their gentle care even in bush-life.
For the rest, the clearing looks wild enough, notwithstanding all civilising endeavours. That mighty wall of trees has not been pushed back far, and the débris of the human assault, lying on the soil in vast wooden lengths, seems ponderous even to discouragement. ”

“ His forefathers' instincts are rampant in him. Ina, have we any chance of a moose?'
The trapper shook his grisly head. 'Only on the hard wood ridges all winter,' he answered; 'they "yard" whar maples grows, for they live on the tops and bark. Bariboos come down here, mostly.'
What these were, Arthur had soon an opportunity of knowing. Ina kindled into a different being when the hunting instinct came over him. Every sense was on the alert.
The hunters had drawn white shirts over their clothes, to disguise their approach through the snow from the far-seeing deer which they were to stalk. ”

“ Looming giants by moonlight are reduced to very ordinary obstacles by daylight; and the set of desponding thoughts which had weighed upon the young man as he contemplated the inky river and darkling country, seemed now to belong to another phase of being. Despondent! with the wide free world to work in, and its best prizes lying beside the goal, ready for capture by the steady heart and active hand. Robert felt almost as if that shadowy home in the forest were already built, already peopled with the dear old faces he had left behind. ”

“ Arthur, through superior knowledge not touching his, was highly amused by the grimaces of the others. Indeed, the captain had swallowed a huge gulp of it before he realized fully its strange flavour, and then could but sputter and scour his moustache and lips with his handkerchief. Mr. Bunting looked on with exemplary gravity.
'Thar! I told th' ole woman that spruce beer ain't so good as usual this brewin'.'
'Good! the vilest compound. A fir-tree steeped in a stagnant pool!' exclaimed the irate captain, with considerable warmth of colouring. ”

“ The whole system of social government was a reproduction, in the nineteenth century, of the France of the fifteenth.
Mr. Holt was somewhat cooled when his party had reached the citadel, through streets so steep that the drive to their summit seemed a feat of horsemanship. Here was the great rock whence Jacques Cartier, first of European eyes, viewed the mighty river in the time of our Henry VIII., now bristling with fortifications which branch away in angles round the Upper Town, crowned with a battery of thirty-two pounders, whose black muzzles command the peaceful shipping below. ”

“ Our pines also help in the fragrance you perceive.'
'Robert, I know that the red patches burning steadily yonder are the stumps you showed me; but the half circular rings of fire, I don't understand them.'
'The niggers round the trunks of some trees,' explained Robert. 'That's a means we use for burning through timber, and so saving axe-work. Do you notice the moving light in the distance, on the lake? It comes from a pine-torch fixed in the bow of a canoe, by which an Indian is spearing fish.'
'Oh, have you Indians here? how delightful! I have always so longed to see a real live red man. ”

“ The population had swelled somewhat since our first introduction to this little pioneer settlement. The number of wooden huts mottling the cleared space between the forest and the river edge, clustering, like bees round their queen, about the saw and grist mill, had increased during the last two years by some half-score—a slow rate of progression, as villages grow in Canada; but the 'Corner' had a position unfavourable to development. An aguish climate will make inhabitants sheer off speedily to healthier localities. ”

“ What has exterminated the salmon in nearly all rivers west of Quebec? dams like this, which a fish could no more ascend than he could walk on dry land. But I hope to see parliamentary enactments which shall render this a felony, sir,—a felony, if I can. It is robbery and murder both together, sir.'
Mr. Hiram Holt walked rapidly to his sleigh, wrapped himself again in the copious furs, and left the storekeeper staring after the swift gliding cutter, and wondering more than ever who he was. ”

“ It was hardly to be realized that these were the besotted habitans, the unimprovable race, the blotch on the fair face of Canadian civilisation; these happy-looking, simple-minded people. Hiram Holt was a slanderer. Full an hour passed before the Wynns could get away from the embarrassing hospitalities and politeness of the good villagers, who shook hands all round at parting in most affectionate style. As for Andy, much to his own discomfort, he was kissed by his host. ”

“ Every subject of conversation introduced for the morning was tinged by that fairy legend, which tinged Linda's countenance also, rose-colour. Mr. Wynn the elder was slightly mystified; for the topics of promotion by purchase in the army, and the emigration of half-pay officers, seemed to have no leading reference to the above world-famed story.
The dear old gentleman! he did the honours of his small wooden cottage at Cedar Creek as finely as if it had been his own ancestral mansion of Dunore. ”

“ Cape Clear is left behind, and the lonely Fassnet lighthouse; the Ocean Queen is coming to the blue water, and the long solemn swell raises and sinks her with pendulum-like regularity.
'Ah, then, Masther Robert, an' we're done wid the poor ould counthry for good an' all!' Andy Callaghan's big bony hands are clasped in a tremor of emotion that would do honour to a picturesque Italian exile. 'The beautiful ould counthry, as has the greenest grass that ever grew, an' the clearest water that ever ran, an' the purtiest girls in the wide world! ”