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CANADIAN CRUSOES.
A TALE OF THE RICE LAKE PLAINS
By Catharine Parr Traill
Authoress Of “The Backwoods Of Canada, Etc.”
Edited By Agnes Strickland
Illustrated By Harvey
London:
Arthur Hall, Virtue, & Co.
25, Paternoster Row.
1852.
Dedicated
To The Children Of The Settlers
On
The Rice Lake Plains,
By Their
Faithful Friend And Well-Wisher
THE AUTHORESS.
OAKLANDS, RICE LAKE,
15th Oct 1850
PREFACE
IT will be acknowledged that human sympathy irresistibly responds to any
narrative, founded on truth, which graphically describes the
struggles of isolated human beings to obtain the aliments of life.
The distinctions of pride and rank sink into nought, when the mind
is engaged in the contemplation of the inevitable consequences of the
assaults of the gaunt enemies, cold and hunger. Accidental circumstances
have usually given sufficient experience of their pangs, even to the
most fortunate, to make them own a fellow-feeling with those whom the
chances of shipwreck, war, wandering, or revolutions have cut off from
home and hearth, and the requisite supplies; not only from the
thousand artificial comforts which civilized society classes among the
necessaries of life, but actually from a sufficiency of “daily bread.”
Where is the man, woman, or child who has not sympathized with the poor
seaman before the mast, Alexander Selkirk, typified by the genius of
Defoe as his inimitable Crusoe, whose name (although one by no means
uncommon in middle life in the east of England,) has become synonymous
for all who build and plant in a wilderness, “cut off from humanity’s
reach?” Our insular situation has chiefly drawn the attention of the
inhabitants of Great Britain to casualties by sea, and the deprivations
of individuals wrecked on some desert coast; but it is by no means
generally known that scarcely a summer passes over the colonists
in Canada, without losses of children from the families of settlers
occurring in the vast forests of the backwoods, similar to that on which
the narrative of the Canadian Crusoes is founded. Many persons thus lost
have perished in the wilderness; and it is to impress on the memory
the natural resources of this country, by the aid of interesting the
imagination, that the author of the well-known and popular work, “The
Backwoods of Canada,” has written the following pages.
She has drawn attention, in the course of this volume, to the practical
solution _[FN: See Appendix A; likewise p. 310.]_ of that provoking
enigma, which seems to perplex all anxious wanderers in an unknown land,
namely, that finding themselves, at the end of a day’s toilsome march,
close to the spot from which they set out in the morning, and that this
cruel accident will occur for days in succession. The escape of Captain
O’Brien from his French prison at Verdun, detailed with such spirit in
his lively autobiography, offers remarkable instances of this propensity
of the forlorn wanderer in a strange land. A corresponding incident is
recorded in the narrative of the “Escape of a young French Officer from
the depôt near Peterborough during the Napoleon European war.” He found
himself thrice at night within sight of the walls of the prison from
which he had fled in the morning, after taking fruitless circular walks
of twenty miles. I do not recollect the cause of such lost labour being
explained in either narrative; perhaps the more frequent occurrence of
the disaster in the boundless backwoods of the Canadian colonies, forced
knowledge, dearly bought, on the perceptions of the settlers. Persons
who wander without knowing the features and landmarks of a country,
instinctively turn their faces to the sun, and for that reason always
travel in a circle, infallibly finding themselves at night in the very
spot from which they started in the morning. The resources and natural
productions of the noble colony of Canada are but superficially known.
An intimate acquaintance with its rich vegetable and animal productions
is most effectually made under the high pressure of difficulty and
necessity. Our writer has striven to interest children, or rather young
people approaching the age of adolescence, in the natural history of
this country, simply by showing them how it is possible for children to
make the best of it when thrown into a state of destitution as forlorn
as the wanderers on the Rice Lake Plains. Perhaps those who would
not care for the berry, the root, and the grain, as delineated and
classified technically in books of science, might remember their uses
and properties when thus brought practically before their notice as the
aliments of the famishing fellow-creature, with whom their instinctive
feelings must perforce sympathies. When parents who have left home
comforts and all the ties of gentle kindred for the dear sakes of their
rising families, in order to place them in a more independent position,
it is well if those young minds are prepared with some knowledge of what
they are to find in the adopted country; the animals, the flowers, the
fruits, and even the minuter blessings which a bountiful Creator has
poured forth over that wide land.
The previous work of my sister, Mrs. Traill, “The Backwoods of Canada,
by the Wife of an Emigrant Officer,” published some years since by Mr.
C. Knight, in his Library of Useful Knowledge, has passed through many
editions, and enjoyed, (anonymous though it was,) too wide a popularity
as a standard work for me to need to dwell on it, further than to say
that the present is written in the same _naïve_, charming style, with
the same modesty and uncomplaining spirit, although much has the sweet
and gentle--author endured, as every English lady must expect to do who
ventures to encounter the lot of a colonist. She has now devoted her
further years of experience as a settler to the information of the
younger class of colonists, to open their minds and interest them in
the productions of that rising country, which will one day prove the
mightiest adjunct of the island empire; our nearest, our soundest
colony, unstained with the corruption of convict population; where
families of gentle blood need fear no real disgrace in their alliance;
where no one need beg, and where any one may dig without being ashamed.
LIST OF ENGRAVINGS.
LOUIS CONFESSING HIS DECEPTION OF CATHARINE
FIRST BREAKFAST, THE
CATHARINE FOUND BY THE OLD DOG
WOLF FINDING THE WOUNDED DOE
HECTOR BRINGING THE INDIAN GIRL
KILLING WILD FOWL
INDIAN WOMAN AT THE DOOR OF THE HUT
CATHARINE CARRIED OFF
INDIANA BEFORE THE BALD EAGLE
INDIANA AT THE STAKE
ATTACK ON THE DEER
RETURN HOME THE
CANADIAN CRUSOES.
CHAPTER I.
“The morning had shot her bright streamers on high,
O’er Canada, opening all pale to the sky;
Still dazzling and white was the robe that she wore,
Except where the ocean wave lash’d on the shore.”
_Jacobite Song._
THERE lies between the Rice Lake and the Ontario, a deep and fertile
valley, surrounded by lofty wood-crowned hills, the heights of which
were clothed chiefly with groves of oak and pine, though the sides of
the hills and the alluvial bottoms gave a variety of noble timber
trees of various kinds, as the maple, beech, hemlock, and others. This
beautiful and highly picturesque valley is watered by many clear
streams of pure refreshing water, from whence the spot has derived its
appropriate appellation of “Cold Springs.” At the time my little
history commences, this now highly cultivated spot was an unbroken
wilderness,--all tut two small farms, where dwelt the only occupiers of
the soil,--which owned no other possessors than the wandering hunting
tribes of wild Indians, to whom the right of the hunting grounds north
of Rice Lake appertained, according to their forest laws.
To those who travel over beaten roads, now partially planted, among
cultivated fields and flowery orchards, and see cleared farms and herds
of cattle and flocks of sheep, the change would be a striking one. I
speak of the time when the neat and flourishing town of Cobourg, now
an important port on the Ontario, was but a village in embryo--if it
contained even a log-house or a block-house it was all that it did, and
the wild and picturesque ground upon which the fast increasing village
of Port Hope is situated, had not yielded one forest tree to the axe
of the settler. No gallant vessel spread her sails to waft the abundant
produce of grain and Canadian stores along the waters of that noble
sheet of water; no steamer had then furrowed its bosom with her iron
wheels, bearing the stream of emigration towards the wilds of our
Northern and Western forests, there to render a lonely trackless desert
a fruitful garden. What will not time and the industry of man, assisted
by the blessing of a merciful God, effect? To him be the glory and
honour; for we are taught, that “without the Lord build the city, their
labour is but lost that build it; without the Lord keep the city, the
watchman waketh but in vain.”
But to my tale. And first it will be necessary to introduce to the
acquaintance of my young readers the founders of our little settlement
at Cold Springs.
Duncan Maxwell was a young Highland soldier, a youth of eighteen, at the
famous battle of Quebec, where, though only a private, he received the
praise of his colonel for his brave conduct. At the close of the battle
Duncan was wounded, and as the hospital was full at the time with sick
and disabled men, he was lodged in the house of a poor French Canadian
widow in the Quebec suburb; here, though a foreigner and an enemy, he
received much kind attention from his excellent hostess and her
family, which consisted of a young man about his own age, and a pretty
black-eyed lass not more than sixteen. The widow Perron was so much
occupied with other-lodgers--for she kept a sort of boarding-house--that
she had not much time to give to Duncan, so that he was left a great
deal to her son Pierre, and a little to Catharine, her daughter.
Duncan Maxwell was a fine, open-tempered, frank lad, and he soon won the
regard of Pierre and his little sister. In spite of the prejudices of
country, and the difference of language and national customs, a steady
and increasing friendship grew up between the young Highlander and the
children of his hostess; therefore it was not without feelings of deep
regret that they heard the news, that the corps to which Duncan
belonged was ordered for embarkation to England, and Duncan was so far
convalescent as to be pronounced quite well enough to join them. Alas
for poor Catharine! she now found that parting with her patient was a
source of the deepest sorrow to her young and guileless heart; nor was
Duncan less moved at the separation from his gentle nurse. It might be
for years, and it might be for ever, he could not tell; but he could not
tear himself away without telling the object of his affections how dear
she was to him, and to whisper a hope that he might yet return one day
to claim her as his bride; and Catharine, weeping and blushing, promised
to wait for that happy day, or to remain single for his sake, while
Pierre promised to watch over his friend’s interests and keep alive
Catharine’s love; for, said he, artlessly, “la belle Catrine is pretty
and lively, and may have many suitors before she sees you again, mon
ami.”
They say the course of true love never did run smooth; but, with the
exception of this great sorrow, the sorrow of separation, the love of
our young Highland soldier and his betrothed knew no other interruption,
for absence served only to strengthen the affection which was founded on
gratitude and esteem.
Two long years passed, however, and the prospect of re-union was yet
distant, when an accident, which disabled Duncan from serving his
country, enabled him to retire with the usual little pension, and return
to Quebec to seek his affianced. Some changes had taken place during
that short period: the widow Perron was dead; Pierre, the gay,
lively-hearted Pierre, was married to the daughter of a lumberer; and
Catharine, who had no relatives in Quebec, had gone up the country with
her brother and his wife, and was living in some little settlement above
Montreal with them.
Thither Duncan, with the constancy of his nature, followed, and shortly
afterwards was married to his faithful Catharine. On one point they had
never differed, both being of the same religion. Pierre had seen a
good deal of the fine country on the shores of the Ontario; he had been
hunting with some friendly Indians between the great waters and the Rice
Lake, and he now thought if Duncan and himself could make up their minds
to a quiet life in the woods, there was not a better spot than the hill
pass between the plains and the big lake to fix themselves upon. Duncan
was of the same opinion when he saw the spot. It was not rugged and bare
like his own Highlands, but softer in character, yet his heart yearned
for the hill country. In those days there was no obstacle to taking
possession of any tract of land in the unsurveyed forests, therefore
Duncan agreed with his brother-in-law to pioneer the way with him, get a
dwelling put up and some ground prepared and “seeded down,” and then to,
return for their wives and settle themselves down at once as farmers.
Others had succeeded, had formed little colonies, and become the heads
of villages in due time; why should not they? And now behold our two
backwoodsmen fairly commencing their arduous life; but it was nothing,
after all, to Pierre, by previous occupation a hardy lumberer, or the
Scottish soldier, accustomed to brave all sorts of hardships in a wild
country, himself a mountaineer, inured to a stormy climate, and scanty
fare, from his earliest youth. But it is not my intention to dwell upon
the trials and difficulties courageously met and battled with by our
settlers and their young wives.
There was in those days a spirit of resistance among the first settlers
on the soil, a spirit to do and bear, that is less commonly met with
now. The spirit of civilization is now so widely diffused, that her
comforts are felt even in the depths of the forest, so that the newly
come emigrant feels comparatively few of the physical evils that were
endured by the older inhabitants.
The first seed-wheat that was cast into the ground by Duncan and Pierre,
was brought with infinite trouble a distance of fifty miles in a little
skiff, navigated along the shores of the Ontario by the adventurous
Pierre, and from the nearest landing-place transported on the shoulders
of himself and Duncan to their homestead:--a day of great labour but
great joy it was when they deposited their precious freight in safety
on the shanty floor. They were obliged to make two journeys for the
contents of the little craft. What toil, what privation they endured for
the first two years! and now the fruits of it began slowly to appear.
No two creatures could be more unlike than Pierre and Duncan. The
Highlander, stern, steady, persevering, cautious, always giving ample
reasons for his doing or his not doing. The Canadian, hopeful, lively,
fertile in expedients, and gay as a lark; if one scheme failed another
was sure to present itself. Pierre and Duncan were admirably suited to
be friends and neighbours. The steady perseverance of the Scot helped
to temper the volatile temperament of the Frenchman. They generally
contrived to compass the same end by different means, as two streams
descending from opposite hills will meet in one broad river in the same
valley.
Years passed on; the farm, carefully cultivated, began to yield its
increase, and food and warm clothing were not wanted in the homesteads.
Catharine had become, in course of time, the happy mother of four
healthy children; her sister-in-law had even exceeded her in these
welcome contributions to the population of a new colony. Between the
children of Pierre and Catharine the most charming harmony prevailed;
they grew up as one family, a pattern of affection and early friendship.
Though different in tempers and dispositions, Hector Maxwell, the eldest
son of the Scottish soldier, and his cousin, young Louis Perron, were
greatly attached; they, with the young Catharine and Mathilde, formed
a little coterie of inseparables; their amusements, tastes, pursuits,
occupations, all blended and harmonized delightfully; there were none
of those little envyings and bickerings among them that pave the way to
strife and disunion in after life.
Catharine Maxwell and her cousin Louis were more like brother and sister
than Hector and Catharine, but Mathilde was gentle and dove-like, and
formed a contrast to the gravity of Hector and the vivacity of Louis and
Catharine.
Hector and Louis were fourteen--strong, vigorous, industrious and hardy,
both in constitution and habits. The girls were turned of twelve. It is
not with Mathilde that our story is connected, but with the two lads
and Catharine. With the gaiety and naïveté of the Frenchwoman, Catharine
possessed, when occasion called it into action, a thoughtful and
well-regulated mind, abilities which would well have repaid the care
of mental cultivation; but of book-learning she knew nothing beyond a
little reading, and that but imperfectly, acquired from her father’s
teaching. It was an accomplishment which he had gained when in the army,
having been taught by his colonel’s son, a lad of twelve years of age,
who had taken a great fancy to him, and had at parting given him a
few of his school-books, among which was a Testament, without cover
or title-page. At parting, the young gentleman recommended its daily
perusal to Duncan. Had the gift been a Bible, perhaps the soldier’s
obedience to his priest might have rendered it a dead letter to him,
but as it fortunately happened, he was unconscious of any prohibition
to deter him from becoming acquainted with the truths of the Gospel. He
communicated the power of perusing his books to his children Hector and
Catharine, Duncan and Kenneth, in succession, with a feeling of intense
reverence; even the labour of teaching was regarded as a holy duty in
itself, and was not undertaken without deeply impressing the obligation
he was conferring upon them whenever they were brought to the task. It
was indeed a precious boon, and the children learned to consider it
as the pearl beyond all price in the trials that awaited them in their
eventful career. To her knowledge of religious truths young Catharine
added an intimate acquaintance with the songs and legends of her
father’s romantic country, which was to her even as fairyland; often
would her plaintive ballads and old tales, related in the hut or the
wigwam to her attentive auditors, wile away heavy thoughts; Louis and
Mathilde, her cousins, sometimes wondered how Catharine had acquired
such a store of ballads and wild tales as she could tell.
It was a lovely sunny day in the flowery month of June; Canada had not
only doffed that “dazzling white robe” mentioned in the songs of her
Jacobite emigrants, but had assumed the beauties of her loveliest
season, the last week in May and the first three of June being parallel
to the English May, full of buds and flowers and fair promise of
ripening fruits. The high sloping hills surrounding the fertile vale
of Cold Springs were clothed with the blossoms of the gorgeous scarlet
enchroma, or painted-cup; the large pure white blossoms of the lily-like
trillium; the delicate and fragile lilac geranium, whose graceful
flowers woo the hand of the flower-gatherer only to fade almost within
his grasp; the golden cyprepedium, or mocassin flower, so singular, so
lovely in its colour and formation, waved heavily its yellow blossoms as
the breeze shook the stems; and there, mingling with a thousand various
floral beauties, the azure lupine claimed its place, shedding almost a
heavenly tint upon the earth. Thousands of roses were blooming on the
more level ground, sending forth their rich fragrance, mixed with the
delicate scent of the feathery ceanothus, (New Jersey tea.) The vivid
greenness of the young leaves of the forest, the tender tint of the
springing corn, were contrasted with the deep dark fringe of waving
pines on the hills, and the yet darker shade of the spruce and balsams
on the borders of the creeks, for so our Canadian forest rills are
universally termed. The bright glancing wings of the summer red-bird,
the crimson-headed woodpecker, the gay blue-bird, and noisy but splendid
plumed jay, might be seen among the branches; the air was filled with
beauteous sights and soft murmuring melodies. Under the shade of the
luxuriant hop-vines, that covered the rustic porch in front of the
little dwelling, the light step of Catharine Maxwell might be heard
mixed with the drowsy whirring of the big wheel, as she passed to and
fro guiding the thread of yarn in its course: and now she sang snatches
of old mountain songs, such as she had learned from her father; and now,
with livelier air, hummed some gay French tune to the household melody
of her spinning wheel, as she advanced and retreated with her thread,
unconscious of the laughing black eye that was watching her movements
from among the embowering foliage that shielded her from the morning
sun.
“Come, ma belle cousine,” for so Louis delighted to call her. “Hector
and I are waiting for you to go with us to the ‘Beaver Meadow.’ The
cattle have strayed, and we think we shall find them there. The day is
delicious, the very flowers look as if they wanted to be admired
and plucked, and we shall find early strawberries on the old Indian
clearing.”
Catharine cast a longing look abroad, but said, “I fear, Louis, I cannot
go to-day, for see, I have all these rolls of wool to spin up, and my
yarn to wind off the reel and twist; and then, my mother is away.”
“Yes, I left her with mamma.” replied Louis, “and she said she would be
home shortly, so her absence need not stay you. She said you could take
a basket and try and bring home some berries for sick Louise. Hector is
sure he knows a spot where we shall get some fine ones, ripe and red.”
As he spoke Louis whisked away the big wheel to one end of the porch,
gathered up the hanks of yarn and tossed them into the open wicker
basket, and the next minute the large, coarse, flapped straw hat, that
hung upon the peg in the porch, was stuck not very gracefully on the
top of Catharine’s head and tied beneath her chin, with a merry rattling
laugh, which drowned effectually the small lecture that Catharine began
to utter, by way of reproving the light-hearted boy.
“But where is Mathilde?”
“Sitting like a dear good girl, as she is, with sick Louise’s head on
her lap, and would not disturb the poor sick thing for all the fruit and
flowers in Canada. Marie cried sadly to go with us, but I promised her
and petite Louise lots of flowers and berries if we get them, and the
dear children were as happy as queens when I left them.”
“But stay, cousin, you are sure my mother gave her consent to my going?
We shall be away chief part of the day. You know it is a long walk to
the Beaver Meadow and back again,” said Catharine, hesitating as Louis
took her hand to lead her out from the porch.
“Yes, yes, ma belle,” said the giddy boy, quickly; “so come along, for
Hector is waiting at the barn; but stay, we shall be hungry before
we return, so let us have some cakes and butter, and do not forget a
tin-cup for water.”
Nothing doubting, Catharine, with buoyant spirits, set about her little
preparations, which were soon completed; but just as she was leaving the
little garden enclosure, she ran back to kiss Kenneth and Duncan, her
young brothers. In the farm yard she found Hector with his axe on his
shoulder. “What are you taking the axe for, Hector? you will find it
heavy to carry,” said his sister.
“In the first place, I have to cut a stick of blue-beech to make a broom
for sweeping the house, sister of mine; and that is for your use, Miss
Kate; and in the next place, I have to find, if possible, a piece of
rock elm or hiccory for axe handles; so now you have the reason why I
take the axe with me.”
The children now left the clearing, and struck into one of the deep
defiles that lay between the hills, and cheerfully they laughed and sung
and chattered, as they sped on their pleasant path; nor were they both
to exchange the glowing sunshine for the sober gloom of the forest
shade. What handfuls of flowers of all hues, red, blue, yellow and
white, were gathered only to be gazed at, carried for a while, then cast
aside for others fresher and fairer. And now they came to cool rills
that flowed, softly murmuring, among mossy limestone, or blocks of red
or grey granite, wending their way beneath twisted roots and fallen
trees; and often Catharine lingered to watch the eddying dimples of
the clear water, to note the tiny bright fragments of quartz or
crystallized limestone that formed a shining pavement below the stream;
and often she paused to watch the angry movements of the red squirrel,
as, with feathery tail erect, and sharp scolding note, he crossed
their woodland path, and swiftly darting up the rugged bark of some
neighbouring pine or hemlock, bade the intruders on his quiet haunts
defiance; yet so bold in his indignation, he scarcely condescended to
ascend beyond their reach.
The long-continued hollow tapping of the large red-headed woodpecker, or
the singular subterranean sound caused by the drumming of the partridge,
striking his wings upon his breast to woo his gentle mate, and the
soft whispering note of the little tree-creeper, as it flitted from
one hemlock to another, collecting its food between the fissures of the
bark, were among the few sounds that broke the noontide stillness of the
woods; but to all such sights and sounds the lively Catharine and
her cousin were not indifferent. And often they wondered, that Hector
gravely pursued his onward way, and seldom lingered as they did to mark
the bright colours of the flowers, or the bright sparkling of the forest
rill.
“What makes Hec so grave?” said Catharine to her companion, as they
seated themselves upon a mossy trunk, to await his coming up, for they
had giddily chased each other till they had far outrun him.
“Hector, sweet coz, is thinking perhaps of how many bushels of corn or
wheat this land would grow if cleared, or he may be examining the soil
or the trees, or is looking for his stick of blue-beech for your broom,
or the hiccory for his axe handle, and never heeding such nonsense as
woodpeckers and squirrels, and lilies and moss and ferns, for Hector is
not a giddy thing like his cousin Louis, or--”
“His sister Kate,” interrupted Catharine, merrily; “but when shall we
come to the Beaver Meadow?”
“Patience, ma belle, all in good time. Hark, was not that the ox-bell?
No; Hector whistling.” And soon they heard the heavy stroke of his
axe ringing among the trees, for he had found the blue-beech, and was
cutting it to leave on the path, that he might take it home on their
return; he had also marked some hiccory of a nice size for his axe
handles, to bring home at some future time.
The children had walked several miles, and were not sorry to sit down
and rest till Hector joined them. He was well pleased with his success,
and declared he felt no fatigue. “As soon as we reach the old Indian
clearing, we shall find strawberries,” he said, “and a fresh cold
spring, and then we will have our dinners.”
“Come, Hector,--come, Louis,” said Catharine, jumping up, “I long to
be gathering the strawberries; and see, my flowers are faded, so I
will throw them away, and the basket shall be filled with fresh fruit
instead, and we must not forget petite Marie and sick Louise, or dear
Mathilde. Ah, how I wish she were here at this minute! But here is the
opening to the Beaver Meadow.”
And the sunlight was seen streaming through the opening trees as they
approached the cleared space, which some called the “Indian clearing,”
but is now more generally known as the little Beaver Meadow. It was
a pleasant spot, green, and surrounded with light bowery trees and
flowering shrubs, of a different growth from those that belong to the
dense forest. Here the children found, on the hilly ground above, fine
ripe strawberries, the earliest they had seen that year, and soon all
weariness was forgotten while pursuing the delightful occupation of
gathering the tempting fruit; and when they had refreshed themselves,
and filled the basket with leaves and fruit, they slaked their thirst
from the stream, which wound its way among the bushes. Catharine
neglected not to reach down flowery bunches of the fragrant white-thorn
and of the high-bush cranberry, then radiant with nodding umbels of
snowy blossoms, or to wreath the handle of the little basket with the
graceful trailing runners of the lovely twin-flowered plant, the Linnæa
borealis, which she always said reminded her of the twins, Louise and
Marie, her little cousins. And now the day began to wear away, for they
had lingered long in the little clearing; they had wandered from the
path by which they entered it; and had neglected, in their eagerness to
look for the strawberries, to notice any particular mark by which they
might regain it. Just when they began to think of returning, Louis
noticed a beaten path, where there seemed recent prints of cattle hoofs
on a soft spongy soil beyond the creek.
“Come, Hector,” said he gaily, “this is lucky; we are on the cattle
path; no fear but it will lead us directly home, and that by a nearer
track.”
Hector was undecided about following it, he fancied it bent too much
towards the setting sun; but his cousin overruled his objection. “And is
not this our own creek?” he said: “I have often heard my father say it
had its rise somewhere about this old clearing.”
Hector now thought Louis might be right, and they boldly followed the
path among the poplars and thorns and bushes that clothed its banks,
surprised to see how open the ground became, and how swift and clear the
stream swept onward.
“Oh, this dear creek,” cried the delighted Catharine, “how pretty it is!
I shall often follow its course after this; no doubt it has its source
from our own Cold Springs.”
And so they cheerfully pursued their way, till the sun, sinking behind
the range of westerly hills, soon left them in gloom; but they anxiously
hurried forward when the stream wound its noisy way among steep stony
banks, clothed scantily with pines and a few scattered silver-barked
poplars. And now they became bewildered by two paths leading in opposite
directions; one upward among the rocky hills, the other through the
opening gorge of a deep ravine.
Here, overcome with fatigue, Catharine seated herself on a large block
of granite, near a great bushy pine that grew beside the path by
the ravine, unable to proceed, and Hector, with a grave and troubled
countenance, stood beside her, looking round with an air of great
perplexity. Louis, seating himself at Catharine’s feet, surveyed the
deep gloomy valley before them, and sighed heavily. The conviction had
now forcibly struck him that they had mistaken the path altogether. The
very aspect of the country was different; the growth of the trees, the
flow of the stream, all indicated a change of soil and scene. Darkness
was fast drawing its impenetrable veil around them; a few stars were
stealing out, and gleaming down as if with pitying glance upon the young
wanderers; but they could not light up their pathway, or point their
homeward track. The only sound, save the lulling murmur of the rippling
stream below, was the plaintive note of the whip-poor-will, from a
gnarled oak that grew near them, and the harsh grating scream of the
night hawk, darting about in the higher regions of the air, pursuing
its noisy congeners, or swooping down with that peculiar hollow rushing
sound, as of a person blowing into some empty vessel, when it seizes
with wide-extended bill its insect prey.
Hector was the first to break the silence. “Cousin Louis, we were wrong
in following the course of the stream; I fear we shall never find our
way back to-night.”
Louis made no reply; his sad and subdued air failed not to attract the
attention of his cousins. “Why, Louis, how is this? you are not used to
be cast down by difficulties,” said Hector, as he marked something like
tears glistening in the dark eyes of his cousin.
Louis’s heart was full, he did not reply, but cast a troubled glance
upon the weary Catharine, who leaned heavily against the tree beneath
which she sat.
“It is not,” resumed Hector, “that I mind passing a summer’s night under
such a sky as this, and with such a dry grassy bed below me; but I do
not think it is good for Catharine to sleep on the bare ground in
the night dews,--and then they will be so anxious at home about our
absence.”
Louis burst into tears, and sobbed out,--“And it is all my doing that
she came out with us; I deceived her, and my aunt will be angry and much
alarmed, for she did not know of her going at all. Dear Catharine, good
cousin Hector, pray forgive me!” But Catharine was weeping too much to
reply to his passionate entreaties, and Hector, who never swerved from
the truth, for which he had almost a stern reverence, hardly repressed
his indignation at what appeared to him a most culpable act of deceit on
the part of Louis.
The sight of her cousin’s grief and self-abasement touched the tender
heart of Catharine, for she was kind and dove-like in her disposition,
and loved Louis, with all his faults. Had it not been for the painful
consciousness of the grief their unusual absence would occasion at home,
Catharine would have thought nothing of their present adventure; but she
could not endure the idea of her high-principled father taxing her with
deceiving her kind indulgent mother and him: it was this humiliating
thought which wounded the proud heart of Hector, causing him to upbraid
his cousin in somewhat harsh terms for his want of truthfulness,
and steeled him against the bitter grief that wrung the heart of the
penitent Louis, who, leaning his wet cheek on the shoulder of the kinder
Catharine, sobbed as if his heart would break, heedless of her soothing
words and affectionate endeavours to console him.
“Dear Hector,” she said, turning her soft, pleading eyes on the stem
face of her brother, “you must not be so very angry with poor Louis;
remember it was to please me, and give me the enjoyment of a day of
liberty with you and himself in the woods, among the flowers and trees
and birds, that he committed this fault.”
“Catharine, Louis spoke an untruth and acted deceitfully, and look at
the consequences,--we shall have forfeited our parents’ confidence, and
may have some days of painful privation to endure before we regain our
home, if we ever do find our way back to Cold Springs,” replied Hector.
“It is the grief and anxiety our dear parents will endure this night,”
answered Catharine, “that distresses my mind; but,” she added in more
cheerful tones, “let us not despair, no doubt to-morrow we shall be able
to retrace our steps.”
With the young there is ever a magical spell in that little word
_to-morrow_,--it is a point which they pursue as fast as it recedes from
them; sad indeed is the young heart that does not look forward with hope
to the morrow!
The cloud still hung on Hector’s brow, till Catharine gaily exclaimed,
“Come, Hector! come, Louis! we must not stand idling thus; we must think
of providing some shelter for the night; it is not good to rest upon the
bare ground exposed to the night dews.--See, here is a nice hut, half
made,” pointing to a large upturned root which some fierce whirlwind had
hurled from the lofty bank into the gorge of the dark glen.
“Now you must make haste, and lop off a few pine boughs, and stick them
into the ground, or even lean them against the roots of this old oak,
and there, you see, will be a capital house to shelter us. To work, to
work, you idle boys, or poor wee Katty must turn squaw and build her own
wigwam,” she playfully added, taking up the axe which rested against the
feathery pine beneath which Hector was leaning. Now, Catharine cared
as little as her brother and cousin about passing a warm summer’s night
under the shade of the forest trees, for she was both hardy and healthy;
but her woman’s heart taught her that the surest means of reconciling
the cousins would be by mutually interesting them in the same
object,--and she was right. In endeavouring to provide for the comfort
of their dear companion, all angry feelings were forgotten by Hector,
while active employment chased away Louis’s melancholy.
Unlike the tall, straight, naked trunks of the pines of the forest,
those of the plains are adorned with branches often to the very ground,
varying in form and height, and often presenting most picturesque
groups, or rising singly among scattered groves of the silver-barked
poplar or graceful birch-trees; the dark, mossy greenness of the stately
pine contrasting finely with the light waving foliage of its slender
graceful companions.
Hector, with his axe, soon lopped boughs from one of the adjacent pines,
which Louis sharpened with his knife, and with Catharine’s assistance
drove into the ground, arranging them in such a way as to make the
upturned oak, with its roots and the earth which adhered to them, form
the back part of the hut, which, when completed, formed by no means
a contemptible shelter. Catharine then cut fern and deer grass with
Louis’s _couteau-de-chasse_, which he always carried in a sheath at his
girdle, and spread two beds, one, parted off by dry boughs and bark,
for herself in the interior of the wigwam, and one for her brother and
cousin nearer the entrance. When all was finished to her satisfaction,
she called the two boys, and, according to the custom of her parents,
joined them in the lifting up of their hands as an evening sacrifice of
praise and thanksgiving. Nor were these simple-hearted children backward
in imploring help and protection from the Most High. They earnestly
prayed that no dangerous creature might come near to molest them during
the hours of darkness and helplessness, no evil spirit visit them, no
unholy or wicked thoughts intrude into their minds; but that holy angels
and heavenly thoughts might hover over them, and fill their hearts with
the peace of God which passeth all understanding.--And the prayer of the
poor wanderers was heard, for they slept that night in peace, unharmed
in the vast solitude. So passed their first night on the Plains.