George McKinnon Wrong

“ What magnificent sport there is in some of those tiny lakes on the mountain side and what glorious views as one drives thither! To reach Lac à Comporté, for instance, one crosses the brawling Murray, drives up its left bank for a mile or so and then heads straight up the mountain side. Turning back one can see the silver gleam of the small river winding through its narrow valley until lost in the enveloping mountains. From points still higher one looks northwestward upon the mountain crests worn round ages ago, some of them probably never yet trodden by the foot of man. ”

“ It was the course of nature, and always we are foolish to quarrel with nature. A granite monument marks the resting place where the good old man sleeps in the cemetery at Quebec, but some memorial might well stand at Murray Bay, that those who look out upon the majestic river, the blue mountains, the smiling valley should have before them a reminder of the "friendly, honest man" who, a century and a half ago, began to win their heritage from the wilderness. ”

“ A wild path, part of it including steps from rock to rock in the bed of the stream itself, leads to a lovely little cascade where, in white foam, the water falls into a deep dark pool. One hurries to visit it and then, with the evening shadows falling and the narrow gorge becoming sombre, it is wise to hasten back. As one steps out from the wooded path to the shore of the great river the scene is enchanting. ”

“ No other part of our mother earth is more ancient. The Laurentian Mountains reared their heads, it may be, long before life appeared anywhere on this peopled earth; no fossil is found in all their huge mass. In some mighty eruption of fire their strata have been strangely twisted. Since then sea and river, frost and ice, have held high carnival. Huge boulders, alien in formation to the rocks about them, have been dropped high up on the mountain sides by mighty glaciers, and lie to-day, a source of unfailing wonder to the unlearned as to how they came to be there. ”

“ The pace quickens and in a few minutes we stand upon the shore of a lovely little sheet of water with a shore line perhaps three miles long, lying in the mountain hollow. Evening is near and, half an hour later, each fisherman is in a boat paddled softly by a habitant companion. In a thousand places the calm water is disturbed by the trout feeding busily; they often throw themselves quite clear of the water and, when the sport has well begun, at a single cast one occasionally takes a trout on each of his three flies. ”

“ It may be reached by a forest path straight up the mountain side from Pointe au Pic. We go through spruce and birch woods till we reach an opening where we look out northward on rounded mountain tops blue, silent, immeasurable, spreading away, one might almost fancy to the North Pole itself, so endless seems their mass. On beautiful turf through woods, then by a cow path across a bog, the path leads until a bare hill top lies full in view. This is Beulah. Standing there one seems to have the whole world at one's feet. ”

“ At the funeral the six senior Captains in Quebec were his pall bearers and the mourners were fellow officers of the 49th and Quebec friends of his family—well-known names—Caldwell, McCord, Stewart, Hale, Mountain, Dunn and Bowen himself. A great crowd was present. "Never," wrote Bowen to Miss Nairne, "was a funeral at Quebec more generally attended." The death of the young officer was too tragic not to call forth the sympathy of a wide circle. Eulogies were pronounced upon him and they said only what was true—that a soldier, brave, lovable and promising had fallen on the field of honour. ”

“ The smoke of passing steamers floats lazily in the air; they take the deep channel by the south shore and are a dozen miles away. It is usually a silent world that one looks out upon; but when there is a north-east wind great green waves come rolling in upon the sandy shore of the bay and fill the air with their undertone. ”

“ All round rise the mountains, now dark and sombre; a sharp wind is blowing and as one stands alone looking out over the water there comes a sense of chill; for a moment the mountain solitude seems remote, melancholy and friendless: with something like a shiver one turns to the cheerful fire before the tent. Here blankets are spread on sweet scented boughs of sapin; the bed is hard, but not too hard for a tired man and one quickly falls asleep. ”

“ We humbly beseech thee, O Lord, to assist us in keeping our temper and passions under due restraint to reason and to virtue, so as not only to contribute to our internal peace of mind, honour, and reputation in this life, but also to our eternal Comfort and happiness in the life to come; and to defend us, O Lord, from the arts and subtilties which designing men may work against us in order to lead us into evil or idle purposes. ”

“ Working in his brain no doubt were dreams of a feudal domain, of a seigniorial chateau looking out across the great river, of respectful tenants paying annual dues to their lord in labour, kind, and money, of a parish church in which over the seigniorial pew should be displayed his coat of arms. ”

“ The habitant watches their taxation with a parsimonious scrutiny and it is a thankless task to carry on their work.
Municipal interests represent of course only a part of the village's political thought. In provincial politics, federal politics, there is often in Quebec an interest keener even than in other parts of Canada. It would be too much to say that the habitant has a wide outlook on public questions; but the village notary and the village doctor are likely to have political ambitions and rivalry becomes acute; often indeed the curse of the village is the professional politician. ”

“ Though a soldier not a sailor, Tom had now one gunboat and three armed batteaux under his command, and, when writing, he had just arrived at Prescott with the American prisoners taken in the gallant action at Queenston where Brock was killed. His tone is serious and tender. "When the war is over I trust in God we shall all have a happy meeting again at Murray Bay, perhaps never more to part during our stay in this world." It was now his plan that if he should outlive the war he would go to Edinburgh, find a wife and settle himself on his property without loss of time. ”

“ Busy men have leisure there to be idle, to read, to enjoy companionship, to pursue wholesome pleasures. Such a spot has Murray Bay become to many. Their intrusion was not looked upon with favour by those who wished to preserve the old simplicity, but it could not be resisted. More than a hundred years ago Colonel Nairne and Colonel Fraser had parties of guests in the summer that must have made the two manor houses lively enough. ”

“ There is no one living for whom the tale has the special interest that attaches to one's ancestors.
I have received help from many but my deepest obligation is to Mr. E.J. Duggan, the present seigneur of Murray Bay, for his great kindness in permitting me to use the letters and papers in the Manor House. I owe much to the Right Honourable Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, who has taught me, in many holiday outings, most of what appreciation I have learned for French Canadian village life, and has corrected errors into which I should otherwise have fallen. ”

“ A mother will sometimes quiet an unruly child by threatening the portentous intervention of the curé.
Yet he is the universal friend. His relation to his people is not merely official; it is affectionate, personal. The confessional makes him familiar with the intimate details of nearly every one's life. On all the joyous and sad crises, at births, marriages, and deaths, he is at hand with sympathy, comfort and support. When he goes on a journey he looks up not merely his own but his parishioners' friends and is welcome everywhere. ”

“ Almost daily, at high water, one may watch small schooners which carry on the St. Lawrence trade head up the bay. They work in close to shore, drop their anchors and wait for the tide to go out. It leaves them high and dry, and tilted sometimes at an angle which suggests that everything within must be topsy-turvy, until the vessel is afloat again. With a strong wind blowing from the north-east the bay is likely to be, at high tide, an extremely lively place for the mariner; a fact which helps perhaps to explain the sinister French name of Malbaie. ”

“ The besiegers began to ply the town with shells, and those who looked out over the ramparts could see in the darkness the flash of guns. Soon began from behind ridges of snow, within eighty yards of the walls of Cape Diamond, the patter of musketry. The Americans were seeking to lead the defenders of Quebec to believe that an assault on the walls of the Upper Town on the side of the Plains of Abraham was imminent and to hold the defence to this point. ”

“ The story of the brave old soldier who peopled this valley, the pathetic tragedy of his successor's fate, add something here to the bloom of nature. It may be that the chief service of the chequered and half-forgotten past when it speaks is to show how vain and transient is all we think and plan,—"what shadows we are and what shadows we pursue." ”

“ At the incident the Commander-in-Chief was very angry. "I never saw the General in such a passion in my life," wrote an officer to Nairne. Mackinnon had surrounded the house in the darkness and both he and his men, as far as is known, had done their best. Though wounded and for a time missing, in the end Mackinnon got back crippled to Isle aux Noix. But he had failed, and whispers soon began that he showed cowardice in the attack; an absurd charge, as Nairne said, for he had given proof of rather too much, than of too little, courage. The accusation gave Nairne infinite trouble. ”

“ The visitors to this beautiful scene gather year by year from places widely separated and form in this remote village a society singularly cosmopolitan. English, French, Americans, Canadians, all mingle here with leisure to meet and play together. For a time far away seems the hard world of competition. Rarely do newspapers arrive until at least the day after publication; the telegraph is used only under urgent necessity; as far as possible business is excluded. The cottages are spacious enough but quite simple, with rooms usually divided off only by boards of pine or spruce. ”

“ The church that towers over the humble cottages of a French Canadian village invariably seems huge. But we need to remember how large are the parishes and how few in number relatively are the churches; it is probable that in English-speaking Canada there are half a dozen churches, or more, to every one in the Province of Quebec. In all Canada, rural and urban, there is probably not a Protestant parish to which are attached as many, or perhaps half as many, people as the five thousand who dwell in the parish of St. Etienne de la Malbaie, one of secondary importance in the Province of Quebec. ”

“ After Nelson succeeded in his attack on the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile Nairne rejoices that his country is supreme on the sea, "By ruling the waves she will rule the wealth of the world not by plunder and conquest but by wisdom and commerce and increasing riches everywhere to the happiness of mankind." On March 20th, 1801, when Austria had just made with France the Peace of Lunéville, Ker writes again to Nairne:
We live in the age of wonders, sudden changes and Revolutions. ”

“ Fishing and hunting are not the sole diversions. As long ago as in 1811, when young Captain Nairne came here fresh from Europe, the boating attracted him and he spent much time on the bay and the river. No doubt the young seigneur was soon skilful in the art of paddling a canoe. In those days there were real Indians and no other canoes than those of birch bark; now these have well-nigh disappeared and, indeed, few visitors at Murray Bay, use any kind of a canoe. The pastime is thought too dangerous for all but the initiated. ”

“ Valley, mountain, river and stream united to make Murray Bay delightful. The little summer community grew. At first visitors lived in the few primitive hotels or in cottages at Pointe au Pic, vacated for the time being by their owners, who found temporary lodgings somewhere,—not infrequently in their own out-buildings. The cottages left something to be desired, and, gradually, the visitors bought land and built houses for themselves: to-day dozens of them dot the western shore of Murray Bay. ”

“ If one is not in too great a hurry it is wise to take the steamer—not the train—at Quebec and travel by it the eighty miles down the St. Lawrence to Malbaie, or Murray Bay, as the English call it, somewhat arrogantly rejecting the old French name used since the pioneer days of Champlain. ”

“ We are getting into the Malbaie country for Isle aux Coudres, an island some six miles long, opposite Baie St. Paul, was formerly linked with Malbaie under one missionary priest. The north shore continues high and rugged. After passing Les Eboulements, a picturesque village, far above us on the mountain side, we round Cap aux Oies, in English, unromantically, Goose Cape, and, far in front, lies a great headland, sloping down to the river in bold curves. ”

“ Well-to-do citizens worked zealously, took their share of sentry duty on the bitterly cold nights, and submitted to the commands of officers in the militia, their inferiors in education and fortune. On the loftiest point of Cape Diamond Carleton erected a mast, thirty feet high, with a sentry box at its top. From this he could command a bird's eye view of the enemy's operations, to a point as distant as Ste. Foy Church. When one of the besiegers asked a loyalist Canadian what the queer-looking object on the pole really was he answered, "It is a wooden horse with a bundle of hay before him." ”