PART II.

In my former letters I spoke in a tone of mingled hope and fear as to

the result of our efforts to make Bush-farming succeed without capital,

and without even the means of living comfortably while trying the

experiment.

It is needless to say to those who know anything of Muskoka, that the

misgivings were fully realised, and the hopes proved mere delusions,

and melted away imperceptibly as those airy fabrics too often do. We

were certainly much deceived by the accounts given of Muskoka; after

a four years’ residence I am inclined to think that from the very

first the capabilities of its soil for agricultural purposes have been

greatly exaggerated.

It will require years of extensive clearing, and constant amelioration

of the land by means of manure and other applications, before it will

be capable of bearing heavy grain crops; it is a poor and hungry soil,

light and friable, mostly red sandstone loam and if a settler chances

to find on his lot a small patch of heavy clay loam fit for raising

wheat, the jubilant fuss that is made over it shows that it is not a

common character of the soil.

The only crops at all reliable are oats and potatoes, and even these

are subject to be injured by the frequent summer droughts and by the

clouds of grasshoppers which occasionally sweep over Muskoka like an

Egyptian plague.

For years to come the hard woods on a settler’s lot will be his most

valuable source of profit; and as the railroad advances nearer and

nearer, the demand for these woods for the lumber market will greatly

increase.

But to return to our domestic history. The autumn of 1873 saw the first

breaking-up of our little colony in the final departure from the Bush

of my dear child, Mrs. C----, and her young family. My son-in-law,

Mr. C----, soon found his Bush-farming as wearisome and unprofitable

as we did ourselves. Having formerly taken his degree of B.A. at St.

John’s College, Cambridge, and his wishes having long tended to the

Church as a profession, nothing stood between him and ordination but a

little reading up in classics and theology, which he accomplished with

the assistance of his kind friend the Church of England clergyman at

Bracebridge.

He was ordained by the Bishop of Toronto in October, 1873, and was at

once appointed to a distant parish. The final parting was most painful,

but it was so obviously for the good of the dear ones leaving us that

we tried to repress all selfish regrets, and I, in particular, heartily

thanked God that even a portion of the family had escaped from the

miseries of Bush-life.

Our small community being so greatly lessened in number, the monotony

of our lives was perceptibly increased. None but those who have

experienced it can ever realise the utter weariness and isolation of

Bush-life. The daily recurrence of the same laborious tasks, the want

of time for mental culture, the absence of congenial intercourse with

one’s fellow-creatures, the many hours of unavoidable solitude, the

dreary unbroken silence of the immense forest which closes round the

small clearings like a belt of iron; all these things ere long press

down the most buoyant spirit, and superinduce a kind of dull despair,

from which I have suffered for months at a time.

In conversation once with my daughter-in-law, who was often unavoidably

alone for the whole day, we mutually agreed that there were times when

the sense of loneliness became so dreadful, that had a bear jumped in

at the window, or the house taken fire, or a hurricane blown down the

farm buildings, we should have been tempted to rejoice and to hail the

excitement as a boon.

And yet, strange as it may appear, I dreaded above all things visits

from our neighbours. It is true they seldom came, but when they did,

every one of them would have considered it a want of kindness not

to prolong their visit for many hours. Harassed as I was with never

ceasing anxiety, and much occupied with my correspondence and other

writing, I found such visits an intolerable nuisance, particularly

as after a little friendly talk about household matters, knitting,

etc., where we met as it were on common ground, there was invariably

a prolonged silence, which it required frantic efforts on my part to

break, so as to prevent my guests feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

On these occasions I was generally left with a nervous headache which

lasted me for days.

One well-meaning, but especially noisy and vulgar individual was a

continual terror to me. She more than once said to my eldest son:

“Your pore ma must be that lonesome and dull, that if it warn’t for the

children I would often go and cheer her up a bit.”

My dear boy did his best to save his “pore ma” from such an

infliction, and was thankful that the children presented an obstacle

which fortunately for me was never got over.

In my estimation of the merits and agreeable conversation of our

neighbours I made one great exception. Our nearest neighbour was an

intelligent, well-conducted Englishman, who lived a lonely bachelor

life, which in his rare intervals of rest from hard work he greatly

solaced by reading. We lent him all our best books and English

newspapers, and should have been glad to see him oftener, but he was

so afraid of intruding that he seldom came except to return or change

his books; at such times we had much really pleasant conversation,

and often a stirring discussion on some public topic of the day, or

it might be a particular reign in Cassell’s “English History,” or one

of Shakespeare’s plays, both of which voluminous works he was reading

through.

He had been head clerk in a large shop in Yorkshire, and was slightly

democratic in his opinions, my tendencies being in the opposite

direction; we just differed sufficiently to prevent conversation being

dull. A more intelligent, hard-working, abstemious and trustworthy man

I have seldom known, and we got to consider him quite in the light of

a friend. For three winters, whether we had much or little, Mr. A----g

was our honoured guest on Christmas Day.

One great solace of our lives was the number of letters we received

from the “old country,” but even these were at times the cause of

slight annoyance to my ever-sensitive feelings. All my dear friends and

relations, after warm condolences on the disappointments we at first

met with, would persist in assuring me that the _worst_ being over, we

were sure to gain ground, and meet with more success for the future.

From whence they gathered their consolatory hopes on our behalf it is

impossible for me to say, certainly not from my letters home, which,

in spite of all my efforts, invariably fell into a melancholy, not to

say a grumbling tone. _I_ knew too well that, however bad things might

be, the _worst_ was yet to come, and with a pardonable exaggeration of

feeling under peculiar circumstances, often said to myself:

“And in the lowest deep, a lower deep,

Still threatening to devour me, opens wide.”

The autumn and winter of 1873 passed away with no more remarkable event

than our first patch of fall wheat being sown, from which, in a burst

of temporary enthusiasm, we actually expected to have sufficient flour

for the wants of at least _one_ winter. 1874 having dawned upon us, we

by no means slackened in our efforts to improve the land and make it

profitable; but we found that although our expenses increased, our

means did not. The more land we cleared, the more the want of money

became apparent to crop and cultivate it, the labour of one individual

being quite insufficient for the purpose.

To remedy this want, my son resolved to do what was a common practice

in the settlement--go out to work for his neighbours, receiving from

them return work, instead of any other payment. Our only difficulty

in this matter was the having to provide sufficient food, even of the

plainest kind, for hungry men engaged in logging; but even this we

managed during the first half of the year. 1874 seemed to be a year of

general want in our settlement; for when my son came home from his day

of outside toil, our usual question was, “Well, dear, what did you have

for dinner?” To which the reply mostly was, “Oh! bread-and-treacle and

tea,” or “porridge and potatoes,” etc. And this in the houses of the

better class of settlers, who were noted for putting the best they had

before any neighbours working for them. In fact, there was so little

of the circulating medium in the place, that all buying and selling

was conducted in the most primitive style of barter. A settler having

hay, corn, or cattle to sell, was obliged to take other commodities in

exchange; and more than once, when we wanted some indispensable work

done, my son, finding that we could in no way provide a money payment,

would look over his tools or farm implements, and sometimes even his

clothes, and part with whatever could possibly be spared.

I have mentioned our fall wheat sown in the autumn of 1873. Alas for

all human expectations! The crop was pronounced to be a magnificent

one by experienced judges; but when it came to be threshed, every

grain was found to be wizened, shrivelled, and discoloured, and fit for

nothing but to feed poultry. The crop had been winter-killed; that is,

frozen and thawed so often before the snow finally covered it, that it

was quite spoiled. We suffered at intervals this year more severely

from the want of money than we had ever done; and had even long spells

of hunger and want, which I trust have prepared us all to feel during

the remainder of our lives a more full and perfect sympathy with our

destitute fellow-creatures. In vain did we hope and wait, like Mr.

Micawber, for “something to turn up;” nothing did turn up, but fresh

troubles and increased fatigues.

Had it not been for the exceeding kindness of our friendly lawyer in

London, and of a very dear friend of my early years (himself a lawyer),

who sent us occasional assistance, we must have sunk under our wants

and miseries. I did my very best to keep the “wolf from the door” by

my literary efforts, and met with much kindness and consideration;

but after unceasing industry, long continued, got to know that a few

articles inserted at intervals in a fashionable American magazine,

however much they might be liked and approved of, would do but little

towards relieving the wants of a family. I became at last quite

discouraged; for so much material was rejected and returned upon my

hands, that I was fain to conclude that some frightful spell of dulness

had fallen upon my once lively pen.

The work of this year appeared to us all to be harder than ever, and my

eldest son’s health and strength were evidently on the decline. It is

true that nearly every day he did the work of two men, as, in addition

to the cultivation of the land, he had to chop all the fire-wood for

daily use, to draw the water, and to do various jobs more or less

fatiguing to insure anything like comfort to the family. He became so

attenuated and cadaverous-looking, that we often told him that he would

make his fortune on any stage as the lean apothecary in “Romeo and

Juliet.”

It was with scarcely-suppressed anguish that, night after night, we

saw him so fatigued and worn-out as to be hardly able to perform his

customary ablutions and toilet before sitting down to the reading and

writing with which he invariably concluded the day, and which was the

only employment which linked us all to our happier life in former days.

Indeed, both my sons, in spite of hard work and scanty fare, managed to

give a few brief moments to study, and both at intervals wrote a few

articles for our local paper, which at least showed an aptitude for

higher pursuits than Bush-farming. Both my sons at times worked for and

with each other, which was a most pleasant arrangement.

At this time my youngest son was going through, on his own farm, the

same struggles as ourselves, and was, I am bound to say, in every

respect as hard-working and energetic as his elder brother. His family

was fast increasing, as he had now two little boys, in addition to

the one of whom we had charge; and before the end of the year, he was

thankful to accept the situation of schoolmaster at Allunsville, which

added forty pounds a year to his slender means.

On one occasion, when he was working on our land with his brother, and

when four other men were giving my son return-work, and were logging a

large piece of ground near the house, having brought their oxen with

them, we had half an hour of the delicious excitement of which my

daughter-in-law and myself had talked so calmly some time before.

It was a bright sunny day, and my daughter and myself were busily

engaged in cooking a substantial dinner for our working party, when,

chancing to look up, my daughter exclaimed, “Mamma, is that sunlight

or fire shining through the roof?” I ran out directly, and saw that

the shingles below the chimney were well alight and beginning to blaze

up. Calling to my daughter in passing, I flew to the end of the house

and screamed out “Fire! fire!” in a voice which, my sons afterwards

laughingly assured me, must have been heard at the post-office, three

miles off. It had the immediate effect of bringing the whole party to

our assistance in a few seconds, who were met by my daughter with two

pails of water, which she had promptly procured from the well.

My two sons, both as active as monkeys, were immediately on the roof;

one with an axe, to cut away the burning shingles; the other with

water, handed up by men, to keep the fire from spreading. In ten

minutes all danger was over; but it left us rather frightened and

nervous, and I must confess that I never again wished for excitement of

the same dangerous kind.

In the summer of this year I went to Bracebridge, on a visit to my

daughter, Mrs. C., whose husband had lately taken priest’s orders, and

been appointed by his bishop resident Church of England minister in

that place, a change very agreeable to him, as he was well known, and

much liked and esteemed by the inhabitants.

When I left the Bush to go into Bracebridge, it was with the full

intention of never returning to it, and all my family considered my

visit to Mrs. C. as a farewell visit before leaving for England. I

had made great exertions to get from my kind lawyer and a friend an

advance of sufficient money to take one of us back to the dear “old

country,” and all agreed that I should go first, being well aware that

my personal solicitations would soon secure the means of bringing back

my eldest son and daughter, who, being the only unmarried ones of the

family, were my constant companions.

Having, unfortunately for my plans, but quite unavoidably, made use of

part of the money to leave things tolerably comfortable in the Bush,

I waited anxiously till the deficit could be made up, which I fully

hoped would soon be the case, a work of mine, in fifteen parts, having

been forwarded to a publisher in New York, with a view to publication

if approved of. What was my distress at receiving the manuscript back,

with this observation appended to it: “The work is too English,

local, and special, to be acceptable on this side of the Atlantic”!

Other articles intended for the magazine I sometimes wrote for were

also returned upon my hands about the same time. I draw a veil over my

feelings, and will only say that disappointment, anxiety, suspense,

and the burning heat of the weather gave me a very severe attack of

illness, which frightened my dear child Mrs. C. most dreadfully, and

left me so weak, feeble, and completely crushed, that I was thankful

to send for my son, and to go back ignominiously to the hated Bush, to

be tenderly nursed by my dear children, and to grieve over the loss of

money so utterly thrown away.

The year wore slowly away, and Christmas Eve came at last; the snow had

fallen in immense quantities, and the roads were nearly impassable from

the deep drift. Our worthy friend Mr. A----g was away at the lochs,

eight miles off, where he had taken a job of work, and we therefore

felt pretty sure that he could not pay us his customary Christmas

visit. We felt almost thankful, much as we liked him; for we had been

literally without a cent for two months, and all our provision for

Christmas festivities consisted in plenty of potatoes and a small

modicum of flour.

But we were not to escape the humiliation of having nothing to put

before our invited guest. Long after dark a well-known knock at the

door announced Mr. A----g, who came for the key of his house, of which

we always had the charge, and who had walked the whole way from the

lochs to keep his tryst with us, over roads deep in snow and quite

dangerous from snow-drifts at either side, which were so many pitfalls

for unwary travellers. He came in, and we made him directly some hot

tea--a welcome refreshment after his cold and fatiguing tramp of six

hours.

When he was gone, we held a committee of ways and means; but as

nothing could be done to alter the state of affairs, and as there was

absolutely a ludicrous side to the question, we laughed heartily and

went to bed.

Having edified the public with an account of our first Christmas dinner

in the Bush, I cannot resist the temptation of giving the details of

our last, which certainly did not show much improvement in our finances.

On Christmas morning, 1874, we very early heard a joyous shout, and

saw dear Charles advancing triumphantly with two very small salt

herrings (the last of his stock) dangling in one hand, and a huge

vegetable-marrow in the other, these articles being the only addition

he could make to our Christmas dinner, which for the three previous

years he had been mainly instrumental in providing.

What could we do but laugh and cheerfully accept the situation?

Charles promised to bring his dear wife and the two babies down on the

ox-sleigh as early as possible. We borrowed, without hesitation, some

butter from our friend Mr. A----g, who had a stock of it, and my eldest

son went himself to fetch him before dinner, fearing that delicacy

would prevent his coming, as he could too well guess the state of the

larder.

Our guests assembled and dinner-time arrived, I placed on the table a

large and savoury dish of vegetable-marrow mashed, with potatoes well

buttered, peppered, salted and baked in the oven; the two herrings

carefully cooked and a steaming dish of potatoes, with plenty of

tea, made up a repast which we much enjoyed. When tea-time came, my

daughter, who had devoted herself for the good of the community,

supplied us with relays of “dampers,” which met with universal

approbation.

In compliment to our guest, we had all put on what my boys jocosely

term our “Sunday go-to-meeting clothes!” I was really glad that the

grubs of so many weary weeks past on this day turned into butterflies.

Cinderella’s transformations were not more complete. My daughter

became the elegant young woman she has always been considered; my

sons, in once more getting into their gentlemanly clothes, threw

off the careworn look of working-day fatigue, and became once more

distinguished and good-looking young men; and as to my pretty

daughter-in-law, I have left her till the last to have the pleasure

of saying that I never saw her look more lovely. She wore a very

elegant silk dress, had delicate lace and bright ribbons floating about

her, a gold locket and chain and sundry pretty ornaments, relics of

her girlish days, and to crown all her beautiful hair flowing over

her shoulders. I thought several times that afternoon, as I saw her

caressing first one and then another of her three baby boys, that

a painter might have been proud to sketch the pretty group, and to

throw in at his fancy gorgeous draperies, antique vases and beautiful

flowers, in lieu of the rude coarse framework of a log-house.

I could not but notice this Christmas Day that no attempt was made at

_singing_, not even our favourite hymns were proposed; in fact the

whole year had been so brim full of misfortune and trouble that I think

none of our hearts were attuned to melody. Ah! dear reader, it takes

long chastening before we can meekly drink the cup of affliction and

say from the heart, “_Thy will be done!_” Let you and I, remembering

our own shortcomings in this respect, be very tender over those of

others!

Our party broke up early, as the children and their mother had to be

got home before the light of the short winter-day had quite vanished,

but we all agreed that we had passed a few hours very pleasantly.

Very different was our fare on New Year’s Day of 1875--a sumptuous wild

turkey, which we roasted, having been provided for us by the kindness

of one whom we must ever look upon in the light of a dear friend.

The “gentlemanly Canadian,” mentioned by me in my Bush reminiscences,

read my papers and at once guessed at the authorship. Being in Muskoka

on an election tour with his friend Mr. Pardee, he procured a guide

and found us out in the Bush. He stayed but a short time, but the very

sight of his kind friendly face did us good for days. Finding that I

had never seen a wild turkey from the prairie, he asked leave to send

me one, and did not forget his promise, sending a beautiful bird which

was meant for our Christmas dinner, but owing to delays at Bracebridge

only reached us in time for New Year’s Day; which brings me to 1875, an

era of very important family changes.

I began this year with more of hopefulness and pleasure than I had

known for a long time. My determination that this year should see us

clear of the Bush had long been fixed, and I felt that as I brought

unconquerable energy, and the efforts of a strong will to bear upon

the project, it was sure to be successful. I had no opposition now to

dread from my dear companions; both my son and daughter were as weary

as myself of our long-continued and hopeless struggles. My son’s health

and strength were visibly decreasing; he had already spent more than

three years of the prime of his life in work harder than a common

labourer’s, and with no better result than the very uncertain prospect

of a bare living at the end of many years more of daily drudgery. His

education fitted him for higher pursuits, and it was better for him to

begin the world again, even at the age of thirty-two, than to continue

burying himself alive.

We had long looked upon Bush life in the light of exile to a penal

settlement without even the convict’s chance of a ticket-of-leave. All

these considerations nerved me for the disagreeable task of getting

money from England for our removal, in which, thanks to the unwearied

kindness of the friends I have before mentioned, I succeeded, and

very early in the year we began to make preparations for our final

departure. It required the stimulus of hope to enable us to bear the

discomforts of our last two months’ residence in the Bush.

After the turn of the year, immense quantities of snow continued to

fall till we were closely encircled by walls of ice and snow fully

five feet in depth. The labour of keeping paths open to the different

farm-buildings was immense, and the unavoidable task of cutting away

the superincumbent ice and snow from the different roofs was one of

danger as well as toil. I was told that we were passing through an

exceptional winter, and I must believe it, as long after we were in

Bracebridge the snow continued to fall, and even so late as the middle

of May a heavy snow-storm spread its white mantle on the earth, and hid

it from view for many hours.

The last day at length arrived, we sat for the last time by our

log-fire, we looked for the last time on the familiar landscape, and

I, at least, felt not one pang of regret. My bump of adhesiveness is

enormous; I cling fondly to the friends I love, to my pet animals,

and even to places where I have lived; in quitting France I could have

cried over every shrub and flower in my beloved garden. How great then

must have been my unhappiness, and how I must have loathed my Bush

life, when at quitting it for ever, my only feeling was joy at my

escape!

At the time we left, the roads were so dangerous for the horses’ legs

that my son had the greatest difficulty in hiring a wagon and team for

our own use--all our heavy baggage had been taken in by ox-sleighs.

He succeeded at last, and in the afternoon of the 2nd of March our

exodus began. My son and the driver removed all but the front seat,

and carefully spread our softest bedding, blankets and pillows, at

the bottom of the wagon, and on these my daughter and myself reclined

at our ease with our dear little charge between us. My favourite cat

Tibbs, of “Atlantic Monthly” celebrity, was in a warm basket before me,

and her companion Tomkins, tied up in a bag, slept on my lap the whole

way. My son sat with the driver, and Jack, our black dog, ran by the

side. We slept at Utterson, and in the morning went on to Bracebridge,

where my son had secured for us a small roadside house.

When we were tolerably settled Edward started for Toronto and Montreal

in search of employment, taking with him many excellent letters of

introduction. In Montreal he was most kindly and hospitably welcomed

by two dear friends, ladies who came out with us in the same ship from

England, who received him into their house, introduced him to a large

circle of friends, and did much to restore the shattered health of the

“handsome emigrant,” as they had named him in the early stages of their

acquaintance. Eventually finding nothing suitable in either place, our

dear companion and protector for so many years decided to go on the

Survey, his name having been put down by our kind friend, the donor of

the wild turkey, on the Staff of his relation, Mr. Stuart, appointed by

Government to survey the district of Parry Sound. Severe illness of our

little boy, followed by illness of my own which still continues, was my

welcome to Bracebridge, but still I rejoice daily that our Bush life is

for ever over.

Here I finally drop the curtain on our domestic history, and make but

a few parting observations. I am far from claiming undue sympathy for

my individual case, but would fain deter others of the genteel class,

and especially elderly people, from breaking up their comfortable homes

and following an _ignis fatuus_ in the shape of emigration to a distant

land.

I went into the Bush of Muskoka strong and healthy, full of life and

energy, and fully as enthusiastic as the youngest of our party. I

left it with hopes completely crushed, and with health so hopelessly

shattered from hard work, unceasing anxiety and trouble of all kinds,

that I am now a helpless invalid, entirely confined by the doctor’s

orders to my bed and sofa, with not the remotest chance of ever leaving

them for a more active life during the remainder of my days on earth.

A WEDDING IN MUSKOKA.

An Incident of Life in the Canadian Backwoods.

A WEDDING IN MUSKOKA.

I freely acknowledge that I am a romantic old woman; my children are

continually telling me that such is my character, and without shame

I confess the soft impeachment. I do not look upon romance as being

either frivolous, unreal, or degrading; I consider it as a heaven-sent

gift to the favoured few, enabling them to cast a softening halo of

hope and beauty round the stern and rugged realities of daily life,

and fitting them also to enter into the warm feelings and projects

of the young, long after the dreams of love and youth have become

to themselves things of the past. After this exordium, I need hardly

say that I love and am loved by young people, that I have been the

depositary of many innocent love secrets, and have brought more than

one affair of the kind to a happy conclusion. I feel tempted to record

my last experience, which began in France and ended happily in Muskoka.

The parties, I am happy to say, are still living, to be, I doubt not,

greatly amused at my faithful reminiscences of their past trials.

Just seven years ago I was in France busily working in my beautiful

flower-garden, when I was told that visitors awaited me in the

drawing-room. Hastily pulling off my garden-gloves and apron, I

went in and found a very dear young friend, whom I shall call John

Herbert; he asked my permission to present to me four young ladies

of his acquaintance, all sisters, and very sweet specimens of pretty,

lady-like English girls. The eldest, much older than the rest, and

herself singularly attractive, seemed completely to merge her own

identity in that of her young charges, to whose education she had

devoted the best years of her early womanhood, and who now repaid her

with loving affection and implicit deference to her authority. It was

easy for me to see that the “bright, particular star” of my handsome,

dashing young friend was the second sister, a lovely, shy girl of

sixteen, whose blushes and timidity fully assured me of the state of

matters between the two.

The mother of Mary Lennox (such was my heroine’s name) lived in France,

her father in England, and in this divided household the care of the

three younger girls had been entirely left to their eldest sister. John

Herbert had made their acquaintance in that extraordinary manner in

which young ladies and gentlemen do manage to become acquainted, as

often in real life as in novels, without any intercourse between the

respective families. For two or three months he had been much in their

society, and the well-known result had followed. I have rarely seen a

handsomer couple than these boy and girl lovers, on whom the eldest

sister evidently looked with fond and proud admiration; and when, after

a protracted visit, they took leave of me, I felt fully disposed to

treat them with the warmest kindness and friendship.

In subsequent interviews, poor Herbert more fully opened his heart to

me, and laid before me all his plans and projects for the future. The

son of an old officer who fell during the Crimean war, he had neither

friends nor fortune, but had to make his own position in the world.

At this time he was twenty-one, and having just entered the merchant

service was about to sail for Australia.

He told me also of the fierce opposition made by every member of Mary’s

family, except her eldest sister, to their engagement. I was not at

all surprised at this, and told him so; for could anything be more

imprudent than an engagement between two people so young and so utterly

without this world’s goods?

Mary, like himself, had neither fortune nor prospects. She was going

to England to a finishing school with her two sisters, with the fixed

idea of qualifying herself for a governess. Herbert entreated me to be

a friend to these dear girls in his absence, to watch especially over

his Mary during their brief holidays which were to be spent in France,

to be his medium of correspondence with her while away, and above all

to watch for every incidental opening to influence her family in his

favour.

To all his wishes I at last consented, not without seriously laying

before him that his carrying out this wish of his heart mainly depended

upon his own steadiness, good conduct, and success in his profession.

He promised everything, poor fellow, and religiously kept his promise.

A few hurried interviews at my house were followed by a tearful

farewell, and then, for the first time, the young lovers drifted apart.

Herbert sailed for Australia, and Mary and her sisters crossed the

Channel and went to school.

I shall try briefly to sketch the appearance of my two young friends

at this momentous epoch of their lives. Mary Lennox had large, soft,

grey eyes full of expression, with very beautifully pencilled eyebrows

of dark-brown, the colour of her hair, of which she had a great

abundance. She had a very handsome nose, and a well-formed face, with

a colour varying with every shade of feeling. In height she was rather

below than above middle size, with a pretty, slight figure, girlish

and graceful. In complexion she was a fair brunette, which suited well

with the colour of her eyes and hair. A great charm to me was the shy,

downcast look of her pretty face, partly arising from the natural

timidity of her character, and partly from the novelty of her position.

After a confidential intercourse of some weeks, I found her possessed

of considerable character and steady principles, and her early

engagement seemed to have given her far more serious views of life and

its duties, than could have been expected in one so young. While her

more mercurial sisters were romping in my garden, and chasing my pussy

cats, she would mostly sit with her hand confidingly in mine, while

her eldest sister and myself talked of books, music, and all the topics

of the day.

As to John Herbert, none could look upon him and not acknowledge that

he was as eminently handsome as his young lady-love. Not above middle

height, his figure was slight and elegant, but well knit and muscular,

giving promise of still greater strength when more fully developed.

His merry laughing eyes were a clear hazel, with yellow spots, very

uncommon and very beautiful. His features finely cut, and delicately

chiselled, would have been perfect, but that critics pronounced his

nose to be a trifle too long. His eyebrows were dark and rather thickly

marked, giving great expression to his eyes. A beautiful head of dark

curly hair, and a soft short moustache completed the appearance of one

of the handsomest boys I have ever seen.

At this time he was full of energy, life, and determination, fond of

active, outdoor employment, with a presence of mind and a dauntless

courage which never failed him in moments of danger, and which enabled

him in after years to extricate himself and others from scenes of

imminent danger. Indeed, his sister averred that such was his presence

of mind, that should his ship be wrecked, and every one on board be

lost, Herbert would surely be saved if with only a butter-boat to cling

to. He was truly affectionate and kind-hearted, but at this early age

slightly imperious and self-willed, having been greatly flattered and

spoilt in childhood; but contact with the world does much to smooth off

the sharpest angularities and poor Herbert had a rough future before

him.

After Herbert had sailed for Melbourne, and Mary and her sisters

had gone to school, more than a year elapsed, during which time

letters duly arrived, which I carefully forwarded; and soon after the

expiration of that time, he and his ship arrived safely at Liverpool.

Having with some difficulty obtained from the owners a few days’ leave,

he hurried over to France to see and reassure his anxious and beloved

Mary. Fortunately it was the Christmas holidays, and as soon as I could

notify his arrival to Miss Lennox, she brought all the dear girls down

to me.

Then ensued, for the lovers, long walks up and down my garden, in spite

of the cold; for us all a few pleasant tea-parties; and then another

separation, which this time was to extend over more than three years.

I am by no means favourable to long engagements, but these two were so

young that I have always considered the years of anxiety and suspense

they passed through, as an excellent training-time for both. They

certainly helped to form Mary’s character, and to give her those habits

of patience and trusting hopefulness which have been of so much benefit

to her since. Nor was she ever allowed to think herself forgotten.

Fond and affectionate letters came regularly every month, and at rare

intervals such pretty tokens of remembrance as the slender means of

her sailor lover could procure. Perfumes and holy beads from India,

feathers from Abyssinia, and a pretty gold ring, set with pearls of the

purest water, from the Persian Gulf.

Later came the pleasing intelligence that John Herbert had passed an

excellent examination to qualify him as mate, and was on board one

of the ships belonging to the company which took out the expedition

for laying the cable in the Persian Gulf. On board this ship, called

the _British India_, he met with a gentleman, whose influence over

his future fate has long appeared to us all providential. This person

was Major C----, the officer in command of the party sent out. They

had many conversations together; and cheered and encouraged by his

kindness, Herbert ventured to address a letter to him, in which he

stated how much he was beginning to suffer from the heat of India; how

in his profession he had been driven about the world for nearly five

years, and still found himself as little able to marry and settle as

at first; that he had no friend to place him in any situation which

might better his position, and that his desire to quit a seafaring life

was increased by the fact that he was never free from sea-sickness,

which pursued and tormented him in every voyage just as it did in the

beginning.

The kind and gentlemanly Major C---- responded warmly to this appeal;

they had a long interview, in which he told Herbert that he himself

was about to return to England, and felt sure that he could procure for

him a good situation in the Telegraph Department in Persia. He gave him

his address in London, and told him to come and see him as soon as he

got back from India.

John Herbert lost no time, when the expedition was successfully over,

in giving up his situation as mate, and in procuring all necessary

testimonials as to good conduct and capacity. Indeed, he so wrought

upon the officials of the _British India_, that they gave him a free

passage in one of their ships as far as Suez. The letter containing

the news of his improved prospects and speedy return occasioned the

greatest joy.

I had some time before made the acquaintance of Mrs. Lennox, and from

her manner, as well as from what Mrs. Lennox told me, I saw with

joy that all active opposition was over, and that the engagement was

tacitly connived at by the whole family. It was in the beginning of

April that John Herbert arrived, his health much improved by absolute

freedom from hard work and night watches. He had to pay all his own

expenses from Suez, and just managed the overland journey on his little

savings of eighteen or twenty pounds.

The “lovers’ walk” in my garden was now in constant occupation, and the

summer-house at the end became a permanent boudoir. After a few days

given to the joy of such an unexpected and hopeful reunion, Herbert

wrote to Major C---- to announce his arrival, and to prepare him for

a subsequent visit. He waited some days in great anxiety, and when he

received the answer, brought it directly to me. I will not say that

despair was written on his face--he was of too strong and hopeful a

temperament for that--but blank dismay and measureless astonishment

certainly were, and not without cause. The writer first expressed his

deep regret that any hope he had held out of a situation should have

induced Herbert to give up his profession for a mere chance. He then

stated that on his own return to England he had found the Government in

one of its periodical fits of parsimony, and that far from being able

to make fresh appointments, he had found his own salary cut down, and

all supernumeraries inexorably dismissed. Such were the contents of

Major C----’s letter. It was indeed a crushing blow. John Herbert could

not but feel that his five years of tossing about the world in various

climates had been absolutely lost, so far as being settled in life was

concerned, and he could not but feel also that he had again to begin

the great battle of life, with prospects of success much diminished by

the fact of his being now nearly twenty-six years of age.

Many long and anxious conversations ensued on the receipt of this

letter. Both Herbert and Mary bravely bore up against the keen

disappointment of all their newly-raised hopes. If the promised and

coveted situation had been secured, there would have been nothing to

prevent their almost immediate marriage; now all chance of this was

thrown far into the background, and all that could be done was to trace

out for Herbert some future plan of life to be begun with as little

delay as possible. At the death of a near relative he would be entitled

to a small portion of money amounting to five hundred pounds. This

he now determined to sink for the present sum of two hundred pounds

tendered by the Legal Assurance Society, in lieu of all future claims.

It was the end of July, 1870, before the necessary papers were all

signed, and with the money thus raised, Herbert resolved at once to

start for New York, where he proposed embarking his small capital in

some business in which his thorough knowledge of French might be useful

to him. He prudently expended a portion of his money in a good outfit

and a gold watch.

Soon after his arrival in New York he wrote to tell us that at the same

hotel where he boarded he had met with an old French gentleman recently

from Paris, that they had gone into partnership and had opened a small

establishment on Broadway for the sale of French wines and cigars. He

wrote that they had every hope of doing well, numbers of foreigners

buying from them, Frenchmen particularly coming in preference where

they could freely converse in their own language. Just at this epoch

the French and German war broke out, and stretching as it were across

the broad Atlantic, swept into its ruinous vortex the poor little

business in New York on which dear friends at home were building up

such hopes of success. Herbert and his partner found their circle of

French customers disappear as if by magic, the greater part recalled

to their own country to serve as soldiers. No German would enter a

French store, the English and Americans gave them no encouragement, and

amid the stirring events which now occupied the public mind, the utter

failure of the small business on Broadway took place without exciting

either notice or pity.

Herbert saved nothing from the wreck of affairs but his gold watch

and his clothes. It was about this time that a casual acquaintance

mentioned to John Herbert the “free-grant lands” of Muskoka, pointing

them out as a wide and promising field for emigration. He told

him that he knew several families who had located themselves in

that distant settlement, and who had found the land excellent, the

conditions on which it was to be held easy of fulfilment, and the

climate, though cold, incomparably healthy.

This intelligence, coming at a time when all was apparently lost,

and his future prospects of the gloomiest kind, decided John Herbert

to find his way to Muskoka and to apply for land there. He found a

companion for his long journey in the person of a German who had come

over with him in the same ship from Havre, and who, like himself, had

entirely failed in bettering his condition in New York.

This poor young man had left a wife and child in Germany, and now

that the war had broken out, having no vocation for fighting, he was

afraid to venture back. Herbert sold his gold watch (for which he had

given twenty pounds) for fifty dollars, and his companion being much

on a par as to funds, they joined their resources and started for

Muskoka. After a very fatiguing journey, performed as much as possible

on foot, but latterly partly by rail and partly by boat, they arrived

at Bracebridge, where the German took up one hundred acres, Herbert

preferring to wait and choose his land in spring; and it was agreed

that during the winter, now beginning with great severity, they should

work together and have everything in common.

Having engaged a man who knew the country well to go with them and

point out the land they had just taken up, they bought a few necessary

articles, such as bedding, tools, a cooking-stove, and a small supply

of provisions, and started for the township in which they were about

to locate. Once upon the land they set to work, cleared a spot of

ground, and with some assistance from their neighbours built a small

shanty sufficient to shelter them for the winter. It was when they

were tolerably settled that Herbert began to feel what a clog and a

hindrance his too hastily formed partnership was likely to be. Feeble

in body and feeble in mind, his companion became every day more

depressed and home-sick. At last he ceased entirely from doing any

work, which threw a double portion upon Herbert, who had in addition

to do all commissions, and to fetch the letters from the distant

post-office in all weathers.

Poor Wilhelm could do nothing but smoke feebly by the stove, shudder

at the cold now becoming intense, and bemoan his hard fate. He was

likewise so timid that his own shadow frightened him, and he could

not bear to be left alone in the shanty. Herbert had a narrow escape

of being shot by him one night on his return, rather late, from the

post-office. Wilhelm, hearing footsteps, in his fright took down from

the wall Herbert’s double-barrelled gun, which was kept always loaded,

and was vainly trying to point it in the right direction, out of the

door, when Herbert entered to find him as pale as death, and with limbs

shaking to that degree that fortunately he had been unable to cock the

gun.

It was indeed hard to be tied down to such a companionship. Herbert

himself suffered severely from the cold of the Canadian climate, coming

upon him as it did after some years’ residence in India, but he never

complained, and his letters home to Mary and all of us spoke of hopeful

feelings and undiminished perseverance. He has often told us since

that he never left the shanty without a strong presentiment that on

his return he should find it in flames, so great was the carelessness

of his companion in blowing about the lighted ashes from his pipe.

For this reason he always carried in the belt he wore round him, night

and day, his small remainder of money and all his testimonials and

certificates. A great part of his time was occupied in snaring rabbits

and shooting an occasional bird or squirrel with which to make soup for

his invalid companion. He used to set his snares overnight and look

at them the first thing in the morning. One bitter cold morning he

went out as usual to see if anything had been caught, leaving Wilhelm

smoking by the stove. He returned to find the shanty in flames and his

terrified companion crying, screaming, and wringing his hands. Herbert

called to him in a voice of thunder, “The powder!” The frightened fool

pointed to the half-burnt shanty, into which Herbert madly dashed, and

emerged, half smothered, with a large carpet-bag already smouldering,

in which, among all his best clothes, he had stored away his entire

stock of gunpowder in canisters. He hurled the carpet-bag far off into

a deep drift of snow, by which prompt measure he probably saved his own

life and his companion’s, who seemed quite paralysed by fear. He then

attempted to stop the fire by cutting away the burning rafters, but

all his efforts were useless; hardly anything was saved but one trunk,

which he dragged out at once though it was beginning to burn.

The tools, the bedding, the working-clothes, and most of his good

outfit were consumed, and at night he went to bed at a kind neighbour’s

who had at once taken him in, feeling too truly that he was again a

ruined man.

One blessing certainly accrued to him from this sweeping misfortune.

He for ever got rid of his helpless partner, who at once left the

settlement, leaving Herbert again a free agent. Necessity compelled

him now to do what he had never done before--to write home for

assistance. His letter found his eldest sister in a position to help

him, as she had just sunk her own portion in the same manner that he

had done, not for her own benefit, but to assist members of the family

who were in difficulties. She sent him at once fifty pounds, and with

the possession of this sum all his prospects brightened.

He left the scene of his late disaster, took up one hundred acres of

land for himself and another one hundred in the name of Mary Lennox,

making sure that she would eventually come out to him. He set hard to

work chopping and clearing a few acres, which, as the spring opened, he

cropped judiciously. He then called a “bee,” which was well attended,

and raised the walls of a good large log-house, the roof of which he

shingled entirely himself in a masterly manner. For stock he bought

two cows and some chickens; and then wrote to Mary, telling of his

improved prospects, and asking her if, when he was more fully settled,

she would consent to share his lot in this far-off corner of the earth.

At this time Mary was on a visit to me, having been allowed, for the

first time, to accept my warm invitation. All her family were at the

sea-side in England, having left during the French war.

I have often said that a special Providence certainly watched over

Herbert and Mary. It did seem most extraordinary that just at this

particular time a married sister of John Herbert, with her husband and

children, had suddenly determined to join him in Muskoka. The reason

was this: Mr. C----, her husband, was the classical and mathematical

professor in a large French academy; but years of scholastic duties and

close attention to books had so undermined his health, that he was

quite unable to continue the exercise of his profession; indeed, the

medical men consulted by him gave it as their opinion that nothing but

an entire change of climate and occupation, and a complete abstinence

from all studious pursuits, together with an outdoor life, would give

him the slightest chance of recovery. Herbert was written to and

authorised to take up land for them near his own, and it was settled

that they were to sail in the end of July.

Now came my time for persuasion and influence. I opened a

correspondence with Mary’s father, who had recently received an

explicit and manly letter from Herbert, with which he was much pleased.

I represented to Mr. Lennox that this was no longer the “boy-and-girl

love” (to quote his own words) of five years ago, but a steady

affection, which had been severely tested by trouble, difficulty,

opposition, and separation; that no future opportunity could ever be

so favourable as the present one for his daughter going out to her

future husband under the protection and guardianship of a family soon

to become her relations, and who would, in everything, watch over her

interest and comfort. In short, I left nothing unsaid that could make

a favourable impression, willingly conceding to his paternal feelings

that it was, in a worldly point of view, a match falling short of his

just expectations for his beautiful and accomplished child.

When two or three letters had passed between us, we agreed that Mary

should go over at once to her family, and join her personal influence

to my special pleading.

I waited with great anxiety for her answer. At length it came. Her

family had consented. Fortunately she was just of age; and as she

remained steadfast in her attachment, they agreed with me that it would

be best for her to go out with her future sister-in-law. Mary wrote

to Mrs. C----, gratefully accepting her offer of chaperonage, and we

despatched the joyful news to Herbert; but unfortunately named a date

for their probable arrival which proved incorrect, as their vessel

sailed from London two or three weeks before the expected time. This we

shall see was productive of much temporary annoyance.

I pass over all the details of their voyage and subsequent journey,

and now take up the narrative in Mrs. C----’s words, telling of their

arrival at Mary’s future home:

“It was about noon of a burning day in August when the stage-wagon in

which we came from Utterson turned out of the road into the Bush. After

going some little way in a dreadful narrow track, covered with stumps,

over which the wagon jolted fearfully, we were told to get down, as

the driver could not go any farther with safety to the horses; and we

therefore paid and dismissed him.

“We soon came to a shanty by the roadside, the owner of which met us

and offered to be our guide. He evidently knew to whom we were going,

but the perplexed and doubtful expression of his face when he caught

sight of our party was most amusing. He looked from one to the other,

and then burst out, in quite an injured tone, ‘But nothing is ready for

you; the house even is not finished. Mr. Herbert knows nothing of your

coming so soon; he told me this morning that he did not expect you for

three weeks! What will he do?’ The poor man, a great friend and ally

of Herbert’s, appeared quite angry at our ill-timed arrival; but we

explained to him that we should only be too thankful for any kind of

shelter, being dreadfully wearied with our long journey, and the poor

children crying from heat, fatigue, and the attacks of the mosquitoes.

“Charles now proposed going in advance of us, to prepare Herbert for

our arrival. He walked quickly on, and, entering the clearing, caught

sight of Herbert, hard at work in the burning sun, covered with dust

and perspiration, and, in fact, barely recognisable, being attired in a

patched suit of common working-clothes, which he had snatched from the

burning shanty, with his toes also peeping out of a pair of old boots

with soles partly off.

“On first seeing his brother-in-law, every vestige of colour left his

face, so great was his emotion, knowing that we must be close at hand.

To rush into the house, after a few words of explanation, to make a

brief toilet, greatly aided by a bucket of water and plenty of soap,

to attire himself in a most becoming suit of cool brown linen, and,

finally, to place on his hastily-brushed head a Panama hat, which we

had often admired, was the work of little more than a quarter of an

hour; and, to Charles’ great amusement, the scrubby, dirty-looking

workman he had greeted, stepped forward in the much-improved guise of a

handsome and aristocratic-looking young planter.

“In the meantime, our guide having brought us within sight of the outer

fence, hastily took his leave, hardly waiting to receive our thanks.

Mary and I have often laughed since at his great anxiety to get away

from us, which we know now was partly from delicate reluctance to

intrude upon our first interview, but a great deal more from his horror

at the state in which he knew things to be at the house.

“Poor Herbert, when he reached us, could hardly speak. After one fond

and grateful embrace of his darling, and a most kind and affectionate

welcome to the children and myself, he conducted us to the house.

Although his neighbour had prepared us for disappointment, yet I must

own that we felt unutterable dismay when we looked around us.

“The house was certainly a good large one, but it was a mere shell;

nothing but the walls and the roof were up, and even the walls were

neither chinked nor mossed, so that we could see daylight between all

the logs. The floor was not laid down, but in the middle of it an

excavation had been begun for a cellar, so that there was a yawning

hole, in which for some weeks my children found a play-closet and a

hiding-place for all their rubbish.

“Furniture there was none, the only seats and tables being Herbert’s

one trunk, partly burned, saved from the fire, and a few flour-barrels.

There was no semblance of a bed, except a little hay in a corner, a few

sacks, and an old blanket. Some milk-pans and a few plates and mugs

completed the articles in this truly Irish cabin, of which Herbert did

the honours with imperturbable grace and self-possession. He made no

useless apologies for the existing discomforts; he told us simply what

he meant the house to be as soon as he could get time to finish it;

and in the interim he looked about with as much satisfaction as if his

log-house had been Windsor Castle, and we the crowned heads to whom he

was displaying its glories.

“We found the larder as scantily-furnished as the house; but Herbert

made us a few cakes and baked them in the oven; he boiled some

potatoes, and milked the cow, so that we were not long without some

refreshment.

“For sleeping we curtained off a corner of the room with our

travelling-cloaks and shawls, and made a tolerable bed with bundles of

hay and a few sacks to cover us. We had brought nothing with us but

our hand-baskets, so were obliged to lie down in most of our clothes,

the nights beginning to be very chilly, and the night air coming in

freely through the unchinked walls. We were, however, truly thankful

this first night to put the children to bed quite early, and to retire

ourselves, for we were thoroughly wearied and worn out. The two

gentlemen lay down, just as they were, in the far corner of the room on

some hay; and if we were chilly and uncomfortable, I think they must

have been more so.

“The first night we were undisturbed; but on the next, we were hardly

asleep when we were awoke by a horrid and continuous hissing, which

seemed to come from the hay of our improvised bed. We all started up

in terror, the poor frightened children crying loudly. The gentlemen,

armed with sticks, beat the hay of the beds about, and scattered it

completely. They soon had the pleasant sight of a tolerable-sized snake

gliding swiftly from our corner, and making its escape under the door

into the clearing, where Herbert found and killed it next morning. We

must indeed have been tired to sleep soundly, as we all certainly did,

after the beds had been re-arranged.

“The next day Mr. C---- proposed walking to Utterson, to purchase a few

necessary articles of food; and Herbert went on to Bracebridge, to look

for a clergyman to perform the marriage ceremony between him and Mary.

As to waiting for our luggage, and for the elegant bridal attire which

had been so carefully packed by loving hands, we all agreed that it

would be ridiculous; and dear Mary, like a true heroine, accepted the

discomforts of her situation bravely, and, far from uttering a single

complaint, made the best of everything.

“Both Mr. C---- and myself had fits of irrepressible vexation at the

state of affairs; but as we could in no way help ourselves, we thought

it best to be silent, and to hurry on the building of a log-house for

ourselves, which we at once did.

“The very day after our arrival, Mary and I undertook the work of

housekeeping, taking it by turns day and day about. We found it most

fatiguing, the days being so hot and the mosquitoes so tormenting.

Moreover, the stove being placed outside, we were exposed to the

burning sun every time we went near it, and felt quite ill in

consequence.

“When Herbert returned from Bracebridge, he told us that the Church of

England clergyman being away at Toronto, he had engaged the services of

the Wesleyan minister whose chapel he had sometimes attended, and that

gentleman had promised to come as soon as possible, and to bring with

him a proper and respectable witness.

“The day of his coming being left uncertain, Mary and I were kept in a

continual state of terror and expectation, and at such a time we felt

doubly the annoyance of not being able to get from Toronto even the

trunks containing our clothes. In vain we tried to renovate our soiled

and travel-stained dresses; neither brushing, nor shaking, nor sponging

could alter their unmistakably shabby appearance, and it required some

philosophy to be contented. It was worse for poor Mary than for any one

else; and I felt quite touched when I saw her carefully washing and

ironing the lace frill from the neck of her dress, and then arranging

it again as nicely as possible.

“Two days passed, and on the afternoon of the third we had put the poor

children to sleep, and were lying down ourselves, quite overcome with

the heat, when my husband entered hastily to tell us that the Rev. Mr.

W---- had arrived to perform the marriage ceremony, and had brought

with him as witness a good-natured store-keeper, who had left his

business to oblige Herbert, with whom he had had many dealings.

“Herbert, who had dressed himself every day, not to be taken by

surprise, was quite ready, and kept them in conversation while Mary

and I arranged our hair, washed the children’s faces and hands, and,

as well as we could, prepared the room. When all was ready they were

summoned, and in making their introductory bows, both our visitors

nearly backed themselves into the yawning cavern in the middle of the

floor, which, in our trepidation, we had forgotten to point out.

“Very impressively did the good minister perform the marriage service;

and at its close he addressed to the young couple a few words of

serious and affectionate exhortation, well suited to the occasion.

“He begged them to remember, that living as they were about to do in

the lonely forest, far from the public ordinances of religion, they

must give the more heed to their religious duties, and to the study of

the Word of God, endeavouring to live not for this world only, but for

that other world to which young and old were alike hastening.

“Herbert looked his very best on this momentous occasion, and, in

spite of all disadvantages of dress and difficulties of position, dear

Mary looked most sweet and beautiful, and created, I am sure, quite a

fatherly interest in the heart of the good old clergyman, himself the

father of a numerous family. We could offer the clergyman and witness

no refreshment; and when they were gone, our wedding-feast consisted of

a very salt ham-bone, dough dumplings, and milk-and-water.”

So ends Mrs. C----’s narrative, to which I shall append but few

observations. All went well from the day of the wedding, and on

that day the sun went down on a happy couple. Doubt, anxiety,

separation--all these were at an end; and, for weal or woe, John

Herbert and Mary Lennox were indissolubly united. Trials and troubles

might await them in the future; but for the present, youth, health,

hope, and love were beckoning them onward with ineffable smiles.

The luggage soon arrived, and comfortable bedding superseded hay and

snakes. Mr. and Mrs. C---- removed as soon as possible into their own

log-house, leaving our young couple to the privacy of their home.

Herbert worked early and late to finish his house, and partitioned off

a nice chamber for Mary, which was prettily furnished and ornamented

with cherished books, and gifts, and keepsakes from dear and distant

friends. The wealthier members of Mary’s family sent substantial tokens

of goodwill, and many pretty and useful gifts came from the loving

sister, who begins to talk of coming out herself.

Mary’s parents, cheered and comforted by the happy and contented

tone breathed in her letters, ceased to regret having sanctioned

the marriage; and, to crown all, a little son in due time made his

appearance, to cement still further the love of his parents and to

concentrate a very large portion of it in his own little person.

Here let the curtain drop. From time to time I may have had

misgivings, but have long been fully satisfied that a blessing has

rested on my well-meant endeavours to secure the happiness of two young

and loving hearts.

ANECDOTES OF THE CANADIAN BUSH, THIRTY YEARS AGO.

TOLD ME BY THE WIFE OF AN OLD SETTLER.

ANECDOTES OF THE CANADIAN BUSH.

Thirty years ago, when I went into the Bush, quite a young girl, with

my newly-made husband, the part in which we settled was a complete

wilderness. Our lot was taken up about thirty miles east of Belle

Ewart, now quite a flourishing village, with the railway passing

through it.

Our small log-house was perfectly isolated, as at that time we had

not a single neighbour nearer to us than twelve miles; all was dense

forest, with but a very faint imperfect track leading by degrees to

the main road. Here I passed the first years of my married life,

encountering many hardships and enduring many troubles. By degrees my

husband cleared and cultivated as much land as would supply our wants,

though he never took heartily to the farming, not having been used to

it, being by trade a gunsmith.

After several years, neighbours began to gather round us at the

distance of two or three miles, and in time quite a settlement was

formed. By one of these neighbours a few miles off I was invited to

a wedding when my first baby was about a year old. My husband had a

strong serviceable pony, but no buggy, and it was settled that I should

ride on the pony with baby on my lap, and my husband walk at the side.

When we were within a mile of our destination we noticed a tree fallen

across the path, which was a narrow track with forest on both sides,

and we also saw that the tree had a bushy green top to it. We arrived

at our friend’s, partook of the wedding festivities, and started on our

return home at ten o’clock on a bright starlight night.

As we approached the fallen tree over which the pony had stepped quite

quietly in the morning, the poor animal began to shiver all over, to

snort, to caper about the road in a most extraordinary manner, and

appeared too frightened to move on.

I whispered to my husband that I saw the green top of the tree moving,

and that I had better get off with the baby for fear of the pony

starting and throwing us off. He took me down, and we stepped across

the tree, dragging the pony after us with the greatest difficulty;

hardly had we got to the other side when from the bushy head of the

tree out walked a great brown bear, who certainly looked very much

astonished at our little party.

We were terribly frightened, expecting him to attack the pony, but he

stood quite still. We thought it better to move on, slowly at first,

and afterwards more quickly as we got nearer home. He followed us for

more than a mile, indeed till we were quite in sight of our own door,

then finding himself near a human habitation he gave one fearful growl

before gliding off into the forest, and we lost sight of him.

When we were safely housed, and the poor pony well fed and locked into

his little shed, I felt nearly dead with terror and fatigue.

My next interview with Bruin was in a buggy, three years afterwards, in

which I was being driven homeward by my husband. This time we had two

children with us, and had been to a considerable distance to purchase

articles at a newly-established store, which could not be procured

nearer. We were more than six miles from home, when the pony (the same

mentioned before) began to be greatly agitated, refused to go on, then

tried to start off, and gave loud snorts of distress.

My husband got out and stood at the pony’s head, holding him firmly

to prevent his starting. The light was very dim in the shade of the

Bush, but we both saw something large creeping along the edge of the

forest next to where my husband stood; he had no weapon with him but

his woodman’s knife and a thick stake picked up from the roadside.

Presently a bear came slowly out of the forest, and advanced into the

middle of the road at some distance from us, as if preparing for fight.

I was terribly frightened, but my husband stood quite still, holding

in the horse, but keeping in full view the bear, knowing what a terror

they have of man.

After steadily looking at each other for at least five minutes--minutes

of suspense and agony to us, Bruin evidently understood the

difficulties of his position, and quietly slunk away into the Bush on

the other side of the road; and we were glad to get home in safety.

At another time, I had a visit from a lynx; but as I certainly invited

him myself, I could not be surprised at his coming as he did, almost

close to my cottage door. My husband had been gone for two days on

important business to a village a long way off, and on this particular

evening I fully expected him home.

We were living in quite a small shanty till we could build a larger

house; it had a fireplace on the floor, and an open chimney; the room

was very low, and easy of access from the outside. I was living then

with my three little children and a young sister of fourteen who helped

me to take care of them. As it was getting dusk I thought I heard a

human voice distinctly calling from the forest, “Hallo!” I went to the

door and immediately answered in the same tone, “Hallo!” making sure

that it was my husband, who finding the track very faint from the gloom

of the forest, wanted our voices to guide him right. The voice replied

to me. I hallooed again, and this went on for some minutes, the sound

drawing nearer and nearer, till at length advancing from the edge of

the forest, not my husband, but a good-sized lynx, attracted by my

answering call, stood quite in front of the cottage--nothing more than

the width of a broad road between us and it.

The children, most fortunately, were playing inside, but my sister and

myself distinctly saw the eyes of the creature like globes of fire, and

in the stillness of the evening we could hear its teeth gnashing as if

with anxiety to attack us. Fortunately, through the open door of the

shanty the savage animal could see the blazing fire on the hearth, and

came no nearer.

We hastily shut the door, and my poor little sister began to cry and

bemoan the danger we were in:

“Oh! the roof was so low, and it would clamber up and drop down the

chimney, or it would spring through the window, or push open the door,”

etc.

I begged her not to frighten the poor children who were playing in a

corner, but at once to put more wood on the fire and make a good blaze.

I now found that we had hardly any wood without going to the stack

outside, which luckily was very close to the door, and fearing that my

husband might at any moment return, and be pounced upon unawares, I

made my sister light a candle, and opening the door placed her at it,

telling her to move the light about so as to bewilder the lynx. Still

the dreadful animal remained, uttering cries at intervals, but not

moving a step. As quickly as I could I got plenty of wood, as much as I

thought would last the night, and very gladly we again shut the door.

We now piled up wood on the hearth till there was a great blaze, and no

doubt the showers of sparks which must have gone out at the chimney-top

greatly alarmed the lynx; it now gave a number of fierce angry cries

and went off into the forest, the sound becoming fainter and fainter

till it died away.

My husband did not return till the evening of the next day, and he had

seen nothing of our unwelcome visitor.

At the time I speak of, the woods of Muskoka were quite infested with

wolves, which, however, were only dangerous when many were together. A

single wolf is at all times too cowardly to attack a man. My husband

knew this, and therefore if he heard a single howl he took no notice,

but if he heard by the howling that a pack was in the forest near at

hand, he went on his road very cautiously, looking from side to side so

as to secure a tree for climbing into should they attack him.

The Canadian wolf has not the audacity of the prairie wolf; should it

drive a traveller to the shelter of a tree it will circle round it all

night, but at the dawn of day is sure to disappear.

A neighbour’s child, a boy of twelve years old, had a narrow escape

from four or five of them, having mistaken them for dogs. It was his

business to feed the animals, and having neglected one morning to cut

the potatoes small enough, a young calf was unfortunately choked from a

piece too large sticking in her throat. The dead calf was laid under a

fence not far from the shanty, and the boy having been severely scolded

for his carelessness, remained sulkily within doors by himself.

He was engaged in peeling a long stick for an ox-whip, when he heard,

as he thought, the barking of some dogs over the dead carcase of the

calf; he rushed out with the long stick in his hand, and saw four or

five animals busily tearing off the flesh from the calf; without a

moment’s reflection he ran in among them, shouting and hallooing with

all his might, and so valiantly laid about him with his stick that they

all ran off to the covert of the forest, where they turned; and he

heard a series of yells and howls which made his blood run cold, for he

knew the sound well, and saw that they were wolves and not dogs whose

repast he had interrupted. He said, that so great was his terror that

he could hardly get back to the shanty and fasten the door.

All the Canadian wild animals are timid; they only begin to prowl

about at dusk; they never attempt to enter a dwelling, and have a

salutary dread of attacking a man; if attacked themselves they will

fight fiercely, and a she-bear with cubs is always dangerous.

Since the time I speak of, the settlements all over the district

have become very numerous, and the quantity of land cleared up is so

great that the wild animals keep retreating farther and farther into

the recesses of the forest; and even the trappers by profession find

their trade much less lucrative than it was, they have so much more

difficulty in finding game in any quantity.

It is hardly possible to make people understand, who are unacquainted

with Bush-life, what the early settlers in Muskoka and other parts

had to suffer. Young creatures with their babies were left alone in

situations which in more settled countries call for the greatest care

and tenderness, and in desolate solitudes where they were far from all

human help.

Three weeks before the birth of my fourth child I became so ill with

erysipelas that my husband thought he had better go to the place where

my parents lived--more than twenty miles off, and bring back one of

my sisters to nurse me. He started after breakfast, and soon after he

left I became so dreadfully ill that I could not lift my head from the

pillow, or indeed turn myself in the bed.

My children, of the respective ages of two, four, and six, were

playing about, and as I lay watching them my terror was extreme lest

one of them should fall into the fire; I can hardly tell how they fed

themselves, or got to bed, or got up the next morning, for by that time

I could move neither hand nor foot, and was in dreadful pain. Thus I

lay all day, all night, and all the next day till the evening, when my

husband returned with one of my sisters. After that I became delirious,

and had hardly recovered when my child was born.

As soon as our land was well cleared up and a good house built, my

husband sold the property and bought a piece of ground at Belle Ewart,

where we have lived ever since, as his health would not allow him to

continue farming.

I was always afraid when living in the Bush of the children being lost

when they began to run about. The Bush at that time was so wild, and so

few paths through it, that there was every fear of children straying

once they turned off the narrow track.

A poor little boy, of eight years old, living some miles from us, was

lost for more than a week, and only by a miracle was found alive.

There was a windfall caused by a hurricane, not very far from his

father’s shanty. It was not very broad, but extended in length for

more than twenty miles, distinctly marking out the path of the tempest

as it swept through the Bush. All this windfall was overgrown with

blackberry-bushes, and at this time of year (the autumn) there were

quantities of fruit, and parties used to be made for picking them, with

a view to preserving.

Our poor little wanderer having strayed alone one morning and reached

the windfall, began to eat the berries with great delight, and kept

going about from bush to bush, till when it got late he became so

bewildered that he could no longer tell in which direction his home

lay. Days went by; he was missed and hunted for, but misled by some

imaginary trace the first parties went in quite a wrong direction.

The child had no sustenance but the fruit; at length he became too

much exhausted to pick, and, as he described it, only felt sleepy.

Providentially, in passing an uprooted tree, he saw underneath a large

hole, and creeping in found it warm, soft, and dry, being apparently

well lined with moss and leaves. Here he remained till found by a party

who fortunately took the direction of the windfall, accompanied by a

sagacious dog used to tracking bears and other game.

The parties searching would have passed the tree, which was a little

out of the track, and many others of the kind lying about, but seeing

the dog suddenly come to a stop and begin sniffing and barking

they made a careful examination; they found the poor child in his

concealment almost at the point of death, and so scratched by the

brambles and stained by the juice of the berries as to be scarcely

recognisable. They had had the precaution to take with them a bottle of

new milk, and very carefully they put down his throat a little at a

time till he was able to swallow freely.

Now comes the extraordinary part of the story. The nights were already

very chilly; when asked on his recovery if he had not felt the cold,

he replied, “Oh no!” and said that every night at dusk a large brown

dog came and lay down by him, and was so kind and good-natured that it

let him creep quite close to it, and put his arms round it, and that

in this way he slept quite warm. He added, that the brown dog went

away every morning when it was light. Of course, as there was no large

dog answering to this description in any of the adjacent settlements,

and as the poor child was evidently in a bear’s den, people could not

but suppose that it was a _bear_ who came to his side every evening,

and that the animal, moved by some God-given instinct, refrained from

injuring the forlorn child. Years afterwards this boy used to talk of

the “kind brown dog” who had kept him so nice and warm in his hole in

the tree.

My last fright from a bear was only a few years ago, when I was driving

a married daughter home, who had been with me to pay a visit to a

friend in the Bush twelve miles off. We had one of her little children

with us, and were driving slowly, though the road was a good one, as

the horse had been many miles that day.

It was getting dusk, and the road, being narrow like all Bush roads,

was very gloomy. We were talking quietly of the visit we had just paid,

when from the thick top of a tree overhanging the roadside, dropped

down a large bear, who just grazed the back of the buggy in his fall.

I had but a glimpse of him, as hearing the noise I turned my head for

an instant; my daughter’s wild shriek of alarm as she clutched her

little one firmly, added to the growl of the bear, so frightened our

horse that he dashed off at full speed, and providentially meeting with

no obstacle, never stopped till he reached the fence of my husband’s

clearing. Even when locked into the house for the night we could hardly

fancy ourselves in safety.

The respectable person to whom I was indebted for the above anecdotes,

and who was in the capacity of nurse-tender to the mistress of the

hotel where I was staying, was much to my regret suddenly called away

to a fresh situation, by which I lost many more of her interesting

experiences, for as she truly said, numberless were the expedients

by which the wives of the early settlers protected themselves and

their little ones during the unavoidable absences of their husbands.

The pleasant gentlemanly host of the hotel where I was staying at

Bracebridge told me of his sitting entranced, when a little child, at

the feet of his old grandmother, to hear her stories of the wild beasts

which abounded at the time of her first settlement in the Canadian

wilderness.

Her husband belonged to an old and wealthy family in America, who,

remaining loyal during the war of Independence, were driven over into

Canada and all their property confiscated. They settled down, glad

to be in safety in a wild unfrequented part; and whenever provisions

were wanting, it was an affair of some days for the husband to go and

return, the nearest settlement being fifty miles off.

Packs of wolves used to prowl about the log-hut as evening came on,

and during the night the barking and howling was dreadful to hear;

the only thing to keep them off was a large fire of pine-logs which

his grandfather used to light of an evening as near the house as was

consistent with safety. It depended on which way the wind blew at

which end of the log-hut the fire was made. When he went away on an

expedition, he used to take out a large chink at each end of the house

and leave his wife an immense pointed pole, with which, putting it

through the chink-hole, she was enabled in safety to brand up the fire,

that is to draw the logs together so as to last through the night.

Wolves have long disappeared into the depths of the forest; a chance

one may now and then be heard of, but rarely in the vicinity of large

clearings. The visits of bears are becoming more and more frequent, for

Bruin is very partial to young pig, and does not disdain a good meal of

ripe grain. The barley-patch in my clearing, as the corn began to ripen

this summer, was very much trodden down by a bear whose tracks were

plainly to be seen, and he was supposed to be located in a cedar-swamp

on my land, as every now and then he was seen, but always coming to

or from that direction. One night we were roused from our sleep by a

fearful noise of cattle-bells outside of the fence, and when we went

out we found that there was a regular “stampede” of all the cattle in

the immediate neighbourhood; cows, oxen, steers, were all tearing madly

through the Bush towards a road at the other side of a deep gully near

the edge of my lot. They were evidently flying from the pursuit of some

wild animal.

Presently on the still night air rose a horrid fierce growl which

was repeated at intervals two or three times, getting fainter in the

distance till it quite died away. We all recognised the noise we had

recently heard in France from the bears in a travelling show, only

much fiercer and louder. My son, fully armed, started in pursuit,

accompanied by a young friend armed also, but though, guided by the

noise, they went far down the road, they caught but one glimpse of

Bruin in the moonlight as he disappeared down a deep gully and from

thence into the Bush, where at night it would not have been safe to

follow him.

Hoping that towards morning he might, as is usually the case, return

the same way, they seated themselves on a log by the roadside close to

the edge of the forest that they might not be palpably in the bear’s

sight, and there they remained for some hours till the cold of the

dawn warned them to come home, being very lightly clad. The very next

evening my son and his friend were pistol-shooting at a mark fixed on

a tree at the end of the clearing, when “Black Bess,” the dog, gave

tongue and rushed into the forest on the side next the cedar-swamp.

Guided by her barking the two gentlemen followed quickly, and this

time had a full view in broad daylight of a large brown bear in full

flight, but never got within shooting distance. Unluckily the dog,

though a good one for starting game, was young and untrained, and had

not the sense to head the animal back so as to enable her master to get

within range. This bear baffled all the arts of the settlers to get at

it, and settlers with cows and oxen were mostly afraid to set traps for

fear of accidents to their cattle.

A short time ago a settler living on the Muskoka Road was returning to

his home by a short cut through the Bush, when he came suddenly upon a

she-bear with two cubs. He had no weapon but a small pocket-knife, and

hoped to steal past unobserved, but in a moment the beast attacked him,

knocked his knife out of his hand and tore his arm from the shoulder

to the wrist. He would probably have been killed but that his shouts

brought up a party of men working on the Government road at no great

distance, and Mrs. Bruin was only too glad to get safe off with her

progeny into the depths of the Bush.

Two or three bears and a lynx were killed in the fall of 1873, in the

vicinity of Bracebridge, and one within a mile of the village, on the

road to the “South Falls,” one of my favourite walks when I was staying

there. There is, however, but little danger of meeting any wild animal

in the broad daylight. The words of David in the 104th Psalm are as

strictly true now as they were in his time: “The sun ariseth, they

gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.”

TERRA INCOGNITA;

OR,

THE WILDS OF MUSKOKA.

THE WILDS OF MUSKOKA.

In reading the history of newly-settled countries and the rise and

progress of mighty states, nothing is more interesting than to trace

the wonderful and rapid results which spring from the smallest

beginnings. In changing the wilderness into a fruitful land, we notice

first the laborious efforts to raise the rude and coarse necessaries of

daily life, then the struggles for convenience and comfort, then the

gradual demand for the luxuries of a higher civilisation. These last

can only be obtained by the growth and encouragement of the ornamental

as well as useful arts; then comes the dawning of political power, till

at length we see with amusement that the scattered hamlet has become a

thriving village, the village a populous town, and the town expanded

into a stately city, carrying wealth, commerce, and civilisation to the

remotest parts of what a few years back was simply unbroken forest.

Such is the future which, under the fulfilment of certain conditions,

we may confidently predict for the free-grant lands of Muskoka, to

which the Canadian Government are making strenuous efforts to draw

the tide of emigration. Nothing can well be more picturesque than the

tract of country already embracing twelve townships which constitutes

the district of Muskoka, so called, not from the poetical tradition of

“clear skies,” “no clouds,” which is by no means applicable to this

variable climate, but more probably from Musquoto, the name of a

Chippewa chief, which has been handed down to the present time, though

every trace of Indian occupation has long been effaced.

Hill and dale, wood and water, a winding river, tributary streams,

rapid waterfalls breaking the solitude with their wild music, the large

Muskoka lake, smaller lakes on many of the lots; all these charms

combine to form most beautiful scenery. Unfortunately the settlers,

looking upon the trees as their natural enemies, hew them down with

inexorable rancour, quite ignoring the fact that if they were to clear

more judiciously, leaving here and there a clump of feathery balsams,

or a broad belt of pine, spruce, maple, and birch, they would have some

shelter for their crops from the destroying north-west wind, and some

shade for their log-houses during the burning heat of summer.

Having been located in the township of Stephenson for more than two

years, I am able to make some observations on the subject, and I find

that as most of the settlers in my neighbourhood belong to the lower

classes, they have but little sense of the beautiful in any shape, and

no appreciation whatever of picturesque scenery. A settler of this

class is perfectly satisfied with his own performance when he has

cleared thirty or forty acres on his lot, leaving nothing so large as a

gooseberry-bush to break the dreary uniformity of the scene.

The London of Muskoka is the pretty thriving town of Bracebridge. I say

pretty, advisedly, for its situation on the river Muskoka is beautiful,

the scenery highly varied, the environs abounding in lovely walks and

choice bits of landscape which an artist might delight to portray.

Ten years ago the first adventurous settler built his log-hut on the

hill south of the present town between the pretty falls at the entrance

and the South Falls at three miles’ distance. All was then unbroken

forest, its solitude only disturbed by occasional visits from a few

scattered Chippewa Indians or lonely trappers in pursuit of the game,

more and more driven northward by the advancing tide of civilisation.

A few statistics of Bracebridge at the close of the present year (1873)

will show what progress has been made in every department.

Population 800

Children attending public schools 250

Children attending four Sunday schools 200

Number of churches 4

Clergymen 6

Medical doctors 2

Barristers, attorneys, conveyancers 7

Stores 15

In course of erection 5

Hotels 6

Printing-offices 2

Saw-mills 4

Grist and flour mill 1

Carding mill and woollen factory 1

Shoe shops 3

Butchers’ shops 3

Blacksmiths’ shops 4

Bakers’ shops 4

Besides these are many wheelwrights, carpenters, joiners, etc. The

gentleman who wrote to the _Daily News_ in England from Huntsville

in this neighbourhood, most unduly disparaged the little town of

Bracebridge, but as he visited Muskoka in exceptionally bad weather

at the close of a long-continued rainy season, and as his stay in the

district was limited to a few days at most, his opinion can hardly be

received as gospel truth. His dismay at the mud in the streets and the

general badness of the roads was very natural in a stranger to this

part of Canada. We certainly are greatly in want of assistance from

some McAdam, and we have every hope that improvement in our roads, as

in everything else, will reach us in time.

The climate of Muskoka is most favourable to health, even to

invalids, provided they have no consumptive tendencies. For all

pulmonary complaints it is most unsuitable, on account of the very

sudden atmospheric changes. The short summer, with its inevitable

accompaniment of tormenting mosquitoes, is burning hot, and the winter,

stretching sometimes over seven months of the year, is intensely cold,

and both these extremes render it a trying climate for consumptive

patients. The air, however, is pure, clear, and bracing, and nervous

and dyspeptic invalids soon lose many of their unpleasant sensations.

A gentleman who formed one of our little colony when we came out in

1871, has to thank the air of Muskoka for the entire renovation of

his health. His constitution was very much shattered by over-working

his brain during a long course of scholastic pursuits, and as his only

chance of recovery, he was ordered an entire change of climate and

outdoor occupation instead of study.

The Bush-life and the pure air worked miracles; his recovery was

complete, and he has been now, for some months, in holy orders as

a clergyman of the Church of England. He is able to preach three

times every Sabbath day, and to perform all the arduous duties of an

out-station without undue fatigue or exhaustion. The same gentleman’s

eldest child has derived as much benefit as his father from the change

of climate. At five years old, when he was brought to Muskoka, he was

most delicate, and had from infancy held life by a most precarious

tenure; but at the present time he is a very fine specimen of healthy

and robust childhood.

The twelve townships of Muskoka are increasing their population every

day, from the steady influx of emigrants from the old country. It

is most desirable that an Emigrant’s Home should be established in

Bracebridge for the purpose of giving gratuitous shelter and assistance

to the poorer class of emigrants, and sound and reliable advice to all

who might apply for it. In my “Plea for Poor Emigrants,” contributed

to the _Free Grant Gazette_, I earnestly endeavoured to draw public

attention to this great want, and I still hope that when the necessary

funds can be raised, something of the sort will be provided. Government

has thrown open the free-grant lands to every applicant above the

age of eighteen years; each one at that age may take up a lot of one

hundred acres; the head of a family is allowed two hundred. The

person located is not absolute master of the land till the end of five

years from the date of his or her location, when, if the stipulated

conditions have been fulfilled, the patent is taken out, and each

holder of a lot becomes a freehold proprietor. The conditions are

simply that he shall have cleared and got under cultivation fifteen

acres, and have raised a log-house of proper dimensions.

Government found that some restrictions were absolutely necessary,

as unprincipled speculators took up lots which they never meant to

cultivate or settle on, but for the fraudulent purpose of felling and

selling off the pine timber, and then leaving the country.

When a person has it in view to come to Muskoka, let him as much as

possible abstain from reading any of the books published on the

subject. Without accusing those who write them of wilfully saying the

thing that is not, I must say that the warmth of their colouring and

the unqualified praise they bestow greatly misleads ignorant people.

The poor emigrant comes out to Muskoka firmly believing it to be a

veritable “Land of Promise” flowing with milk and honey, an El Dorado

where the virgin soil only requires a slight scratching to yield cent.

per cent. His golden visions speedily vanish; he finds the climate

variable, the crops uncertain, the labour very hard, and Bush-farming

for the first four or five years very uphill work. If, however,

instead of yielding to discouragement he steadily perseveres, he may

feel assured of ultimately attaining at least a moderate degree of

success. It is also necessary for a settler in Muskoka to get out of

his head once and for ever all his traditions of old-country farming.

Bush-farming is different in every respect; the seasons are different,

the spring seldom opens till the middle of May, and between that time

and the end of September, all the farm-work of sowing, reaping, and

storing away must be completed. The winters are mostly occupied in

chopping. The best way for obtaining an insight into Bush-farming is

for the newly-arrived emigrant to hire himself out to work on another

person’s ground for at least a year before finally settling upon his

own.

This is his wisest plan, even should he bring out (which is not

generally the case) sufficient capital to start with. We sadly feel the

want in our settlement of a few farmers of better education, and of a

higher range of intelligence, who, having a little experience as well

as money, might leaven the ignorance which occasions so many mistakes

and so much failure among our poorer brethren in the Bush. It has been

said that “a donation of a hundred acres is a descent into barbarism,”

but few would be inclined to endorse this opinion who had witnessed,

as I have done for two years, the patient daily toil, the perseverance

under difficulties and privations, the self-denial, the frugality,

the temperance, and the kind helpfulness of one another, found in the

majority of our settlers. A black sheep may now and then be found in

every flock, and it is undeniable that the very isolation of each

settler on his own clearing, and the utter absence of all conventional

restraint, engenders something of lawlessness, of contempt for public

opinion, and occasionally of brutality to animals, but only I am bound

to say in the ungenial and depraved natures of those whose conduct

_out_ of the Bush would be equally reprehensible.

After all the pros and the cons of emigration to Muskoka have been

fully discussed, one fact stands prominently forward for the

consideration of the labouring classes of Great Britain.

The free grants offer an inestimable boon to the agricultural and the

manufacturing population. The workmen in both these classes spend the

prime of their health and strength in working for others, and after

suffering with perhaps wives and families incredible hardships from

cold and hunger, which cannot be kept away by insufficient wages, have

nothing to look forward to in their declining years but the tender

mercies of their parish workhouse, or the precarious charity of their

former masters. In emigrating to Muskoka they may indeed count upon

hard work, much privation, and many struggles and disappointments,

but they may be equally certain that well-directed energy, unflagging

industry and patient perseverance, will after a few years insure them a

competence, if not affluence, and will enable them to leave to their

children an inheritance and a position which would have been almost

impossible of attainment in the old country.

A PLEA FOR POOR EMIGRANTS.

A PLEA FOR POOR EMIGRANTS.

During a visit of some weeks to Bracebridge, at the close of last

winter, I was much interested in watching the different parties of

emigrants who came into the town, many of them with wives and families,

some without, but all looking more or less weary and travel-worn. I

noticed also in the countenances of many of the men a perplexed and

uneasy expression, as if they hardly knew where to go or what to do

next.

Who but must feel the deepest sympathy with these poor wayfarers,

whose troubles, far from ending when they have safely crossed the broad

Atlantic, seem to begin afresh and to gather strength during the long

and wearisome journey from Quebec to Muskoka.

All along the line are paid agents, who strive to turn the tide of

emigration in any other direction than this district of Muskoka, and

who perplex the tired traveller with recommendations to various places,

and with no end of unsought advice.

Till very lately, Muskoka was but little known, and as a fitting place

for emigration was greatly undervalued. I remember with some amusement

that during my journey with my family from Quebec to Bracebridge, two

years ago, it was sufficient in conversation to utter the cabalistic

word “Muskoka,” for us to be immediately treated to admonitory shakes

of the head, shrugs of the shoulders, uplifted hands, and very clearly

expressed opinions that we were rushing to certain destruction.

Now, _we_ emigrated with a definite purpose in view. We were bound

to a specific locality, and were in fact coming to join members of

the family who had preceded us; but the remarks addressed to us

were anything but cheering, and it may be imagined what an effect

similar discouragements must have upon the poorer class of emigrants,

whose slender resources have been taxed to the utmost to bring them

out at all--who feel that poverty renders the step they have taken

irretrievable, and who arrive at Bracebridge full of doubts and fears

as to their comfortable settlement and ultimate success.

Happy would it be for the emigrant, married or single, if his

difficulties were ended by his safe arrival at Bracebridge; but such

is not the case. As in all communities there will be an admixture

of worthless and designing characters, so in our thriving little

town are to be found a few who lie in wait for the unwary, and throw

temptation in the path of those who are not fortified by strong

religious principle. Should an unmarried emigrant, a young man from

the “old country”--with apparently a tolerable stock of money and

clothes--arrive, he is at once followed and courted with professions of

friendship, and on the plea of good fellowship is tempted to drink at

the bars of the different hotels, and to join in the low gambling which

seems unfortunately to be the special vice of Muskoka. Not till his

money is all expended is the victim left to himself; and too often he

has to begin his Bush-life penniless, or thankfully to engage in some

job of hard work which will at least secure his daily bread.

The married emigrant likewise is often deceived and misled by people

as ignorant as himself, who give him altogether false impressions of

the value of his land, the price of labour and provisions, the tools

he ought to buy, the crops he ought to put in, and many other details

essential to his success in Bush-farming.

I speak from experience in saying that nothing can exceed the kindness

and urbanity of the Commissioner of Crown Lands to all and every one

going to his office for the purpose of taking up land; but it would

be obviously impossible for this gentleman, and incompatible with the

public duties of himself and his assistants, to enter minutely into the

wants and requirements of each individual emigrant, or to give that

detailed advice and assistance which in many cases is so absolutely

necessary.

Could not much be done, and many evils be obviated, by the

establishment of an “Emigrant Home” in the town, to which all incoming

emigrants might be directed by large printed cards conspicuously hung

up in the bar of every hotel?

The superintendent of the home ought to be a man of some education, of

sound common sense, of large Christian sympathy, one who would feel it

a pleasure as well as a duty to smooth the path of the weary travellers

who accepted the gratuitous shelter provided for them. Surely for such

a desirable object as the one in view, the sanction and co-operation of

the Dominion Government might be obtained, and a sum of money granted

to establish the home, which might then be kept up by small annual

subscriptions from the wealthier inhabitants of Bracebridge, whose

commercial prosperity must so greatly depend upon the settlements

beyond and about it. Numbers of emigrants come in every year who have

left behind them in the old country dear friends and relations, who

only wait for their favourable verdict upon the promised land, to come

out and join them.

Would it not be well that emigrants should be enabled to write home

truthfully and gratefully that they were met on their arrival at

Bracebridge with brotherly kindness, Christian sympathy, shelter for

their wives and families, sound reliable advice as to their future

course, and help and encouragement suited to their especial need? It

may be urged that pecuniary assistance and gratuitous shelter for his

wife and children would impair the self-respect of the emigrant, and

place him in the light of a pauper to himself and others.

I do not think this would be the case. It appears to me that an

emigrant, arriving as too many do with his means utterly exhausted

and with little but starvation in view for his family and himself,

would have his British feelings of sturdy independence considerably

modified, and would be willing to accept of the help tendered to him,

not as a charitable dole from those above him in rank, but as a willing

offering from those who for their Saviour’s sake acknowledge a common

brotherhood with every suffering member of the great human family.

Nor would the establishment of such a home at all interfere with the

legitimate profits of the hotel-keepers.

From personal observation, I can testify that in numerous cases they

are called upon to give, and do most liberally give, food and shelter

gratuitously to those who cannot pay. Of course such a plan as this

would have to be matured and carried out by wise heads and efficient

hands. I can only humbly offer a suggestion which seems to me worthy

of consideration, and I cannot end my few observations better than

with the refrain of a deservedly popular song:

“Then do your best for one another,

Making life a pleasant dream;

Help a worn and weary brother

Pulling hard against the stream.”

THE END.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SURREY.

_S. &. H._

End of Project Gutenberg's Letters from Muskoka, by Harriet Barbara King