The Log House by the Lake, A Tale of Canada, by William H G Kingston.
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A well-to-do English family, with inherited wealth, find that this
situation is challenged in the law-courts. They lose the case, and, as
with Marryat's "Settlers in Canada" in a similar situation, decide to
emigrate to Canada. This they do, and have enough money to settle
there, but not in a grand house: it is only the Log House by the Lake.
There are various adventures with sailing and canoeing on the lake, but
when the winter comes on, the lake freezes over, and the boys get
themselves into a dangerous predicament, from which they only just
escape.
Unlike with the Marryat story, the decision by the court was valid but
the cousin who won the case was a useless administrator of his fortune,
and lost it all through bad advice and dishonest acquaintances.
What do the family do about it? Read the book, or listen to it, and find
out. It's a short book, only three hours to read, and there's a
surprise ending for you!
One oddity about the book is that throughout it conversations are merged
into single paragraphs. This made it a little hard to get the
paragraphing correct in our rendition, but we think we have got it
almost right now.
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