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 barn-yard 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 that 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
a 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 ground-hog, 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 close of 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
that 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 villanous
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 jump 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 waggons 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 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 our
driver, after he had seen to the accommodation of his teams.
“Pritters[1] and pork, sir. Nothing else to be had in the woods.
Thank God, we have enough of that!”
[1] Vulgar Canadian for potatoes.
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 Quinte,
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 hare-bell 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 forbidding depths of this tangled wilderness.”
The road now 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 afear'd 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
standstill.
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 about 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-in-law'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.
THE OTONABEE
Dark, rushing, foaming river!
I love the solemn sound
That shakes thy shores around,
And hoarsely murmurs, ever,
As thy waters onward bound,
Like a rash, unbridled steed
Flying madly on its course;
That shakes with thundering force
The vale and trembling mead.
So thy billows downward sweep,
Nor rock nor tree can stay
Their fierce, impetuous way;
Now in eddies whirling deep,
Now in rapids white with spray.
I love thee, lonely river!
Thy hollow restless roar,
Thy cedar-girded shore;
The rocky isles that sever,
The waves that round them pour.
Katchawanook[1] basks in light,
But thy currents woo the shade
By the lofty pine-trees made,
That cast a gloom like night,
Ere day's last glories fade.
Thy solitary voice
The same bold anthem sung
When Nature's frame was young.
No longer shall rejoice
The woods where erst it rung!
Lament, lament, wild river!
A hand is on thy mane[2]
That will bind thee in a chain
No force of thine can sever.
Thy furious headlong tide,
In murmurs soft and low,
Is destined yet to glide
To meet the lake below;
And many a bark shall ride
Securely on thy breast,
To waft across the main
Rich stores of golden grain
From the valleys of the West.
[1] The Indian name for one of the many expansions of this beautiful
river.
[2] Alluding to the projected improvements on the Trent, of which
the Otonabee is a continuation. Fifteen years have passed away
since this little poem was written; but the Otonabee still rushes
on in its own wild strength. Some idea of the rapidity of this
river may be formed from the fact that heavy rafts of timber are
floated down from Herriot's Falls, a distance of nine miles from
Peterborough, in less than an hour. The shores are bold and rocky,
and abound in beautiful and picturesque views.