[i]
[ii]
[iii]

LETTERS FROM MUSKOKA.

BY
AN EMIGRANT LADY.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
1878.

[All Rights Reserved.]

[iv]

[v]

PREFACE
TO THE
“LETTERS OF AN EMIGRANT LADY.”

In laying before the public a sketch
of our “Bush” experiences during
the first year after our arrival in
Muskoka, Ontario, Canada, I desire to state
the reasons which prompted us to such an
imprudent step as emigration, without even
the moderate capital necessary for any one
who would start with the slightest chance
of success. The Franco-German War in
1870 was the means of breaking up our[vi]
happy home in France, which, with one
short interval, had been the shelter of my
family and myself during fifteen years of
widowhood.

The commencement of the war found us
living in the outskirts of St. Pierre-lès-Calais,
a suburb of Calais, and a busy place, full of
lace factories. Our house and grounds, quite
open to the country at the back, fronted the
canal which communicates with the sea at
Calais.

When the war had made some progress,
and the German army appeared to be
steadily advancing through France, we found
ourselves in a most unpleasant dilemma—in
fact, literally between fire and water!

The civic authorities made known that, in
case of the approach of a German army, it
was their fixed intention to cut the sluices,
and to lay the adjacent country under water
for a distance of ten miles, and to a depth[vii]
of seven feet. Our large, rambling, convenient
old mansion, which shook with every
gale of wind, and had no cellarage nor secure
foundation of any kind, we felt would surely
be submerged.

Moreover, the military commandant notified
that in case Calais were threatened with
siege, all houses and buildings within the
military zone would be blown up, to allow
free range for the cannon on the ramparts.
This was pleasant intelligence to people in
the direct line of fire, and with a certainty of
very short notice to quit being given. Still,
we took the chances, and stood our ground.

We felt the deepest sympathy for the
French, and would willingly have helped
them to the extent of our very limited
means, but could only do so by lending beds
and bedding for the wounded, which we did,
and which were all scrupulously returned at
the close of the war.

[viii]

At this time I had a married daughter
residing at Guiñes, where her husband
was mathematical professor in the principal
English school, conducted by a French
gentleman. In the middle of August, about
midnight, we heard a carriage drive to the
door, and found that my son-in-law had
thought it more prudent to bring his family
to a safer place than Guiñes, which, being
quite an open town, was at any time liable
to incursions from the dreaded Uhlans. He
was obliged to return to his employers, who
could not be left with the sole responsibility
of a numerous school consisting mostly of
English scholars.

A few days afterwards, on an alarm that
the Germans had entered Amiens, we all
took refuge in Calais, where, as soon as the
war broke out, I had taken the precaution to
secure apartments. We had most of our
property hastily packed up and placed in[ix]
store. In Calais we remained till nearly the
beginning of winter, when my son-in-law
took his family back to Guiñes and we
returned to our house. In fact it began to
be recognised that Calais was too far out of
the way, and presented too little temptation
to a conquering army to make it likely we
should be molested.

The spring of 1871 brought great changes,
both public and private. The war ended,
but France was no longer the same country
to us. My eldest son had left us to take a
situation in London in the office of the kind
friends who had known him from boyhood,
and whose father, recently dead, had been
our neighbour for fifteen years, his beautiful
garden and pleasure-grounds joining our
more humble premises.

Before the summer was over, my son-in-law,
whose health suffered from his scholastic
duties, made up his mind to emigrate to[x]
Canada, and to join my youngest son who,
after many misfortunes, had settled on the
“free-grant lands” of Muskoka, and who
wrote frequently to urge other members of
the family to come out before all the good
land near his location was taken up. At
this time he was himself thriving, but immediately
after suffered great reverses. He
had a rheumatic fever which lasted many
weeks, and threw him back in his farming;
he lost one of his two cows from the carelessness
of a neighbour, and most of his crops
from the dry season and their being put in
too late, and was only beginning to recover
when his sister and her family arrived, having
with them his affianced wife.

My eldest daughter and myself were thus
left alone in France, and were obliged to give
up our cherished home, my reduced income
being quite insufficient to maintain it.

Virulent small-pox and other epidemics,[xi]
the result of effluvia from the battle-fields,
broke out, and I had dangerous illness in my
own family. Provisions rose to an enormous
price, taxation greatly increased, and the
country bid fair to be long in an unsettled
condition. Under these circumstances we,
too, began to think of emigration; and finding
that my eldest son, always accustomed to a
domestic circle, was very dull in London
without one, and at the same time not disinclined
to try farming, being fond of an
outdoor active life, we came to the decision
to emigrate.

He relinquished his excellent situation, his
employers behaving with the greatest kindness
and liberality. We read up a few books
on emigration which invariably paint it in
the brightest colours, and being quite ignorant
of the expense of so long a journey, of the
hardships of the “Bush,” and of the absolute
necessity for a sum of money to begin with,[xii]
we came out hoping in our innocence that
strong hearts, willing hands, and the pension
of an officer’s widow would be inexhaustible
riches in the wilderness.

The problem remains to be solved whether
we can continue our farming without capital,
or whether we shall be compelled to go to
one of the large towns in Canada or the
“States,” to seek for remunerative employment.

[xiii]

CONTENTS.

[xiv]

[1]

LETTERS FROM AN EMIGRANT LADY.

[2]

[3]

LETTER I.

You ask me, my dear child, to give
you a few particulars of our voyage
across the Atlantic to Canada, our
journey from Quebec to the Bush of Muskoka,
and our residence here as emigrant farmers
for the last year. As in my diary I have
only chronicled the bare events of each passing
day, you must only expect outlines of Bush
life, and not well filled up pictures. I pass over
the anguish of my separation from you and
your dear ones, and can only say that when
I thought of the attached circle of friends we
were leaving behind us, both in France and[4]
England, whom probably we should never see
again, I felt strongly tempted to remain; but
the fact that others of the family had preceded
us, and would be expecting our arrival,
that our baggage was already shipped, and
that your brother had taken leave of his
friendly employers, who to the last counselled
him to retain his situation, had weight enough
with me to prevent any change of plan. We
went on board the good ship T——s lying in
the Thames, at least twenty-four hours too
soon, and lay awake the whole of the first
night, as the carpenters never ceased working,
the ship having met with an accident on
her previous voyage.

The next morning I was greatly grieved to
find that your brother had only engaged two
first-cabin berths for your sister and myself;
and finding that our purse was very scantily
filled, had, with his usual self-denial, taken a
steerage passage for himself, and got a good-natured[5]
quartermaster to take charge of our
dear French dog old “Nero,” who forthwith
became a stowaway, and was smuggled out of
sight.

When the vessel was ready, we dropped
down the river to Gravesend, and having
taken in more passengers and emigrants, we
started for Plymouth. We remained there
for a few hours, and I pointed out to your
brother and sister the beautiful spot called
“Drake’s Island,” where, long before they
were born, I had passed a delightful summer
and autumn with your dear papa and my two
babies. Our regiment was then stationed at
Plymouth, and your papa commanded the
guard placed on the island for the protection
of the powder magazine.

The weather was beautiful when we left
Plymouth, and was expected to remain so
till the end of the voyage; but after a few
days, when well out in the Atlantic, a tremendous[6]
gale set in which lasted for several
days and nights.

I had been in storms two or three times
off the Irish coast, but confess that I never
felt so frightened as when at every roll our
ship gave (and she was a roller), we heard a
horrid grating sound which we shrewdly suspected
to be caused by part of our cargo of
iron which had shifted its place, and kept
moving with every motion of the ship. We
were told on arriving at Quebec that this unexpected
storm was occasioned by a hurricane
in the West Indies. Most of the passengers,
as well as ourselves, were possessed by the
demon of sea-sickness, and your sister was
hardly able to get up during the whole
passage.

The tedium of our confinement was, however,
much relieved by the pleasant society
and kindness of two most amiable English
ladies, who were going out to reside with a[7]
near relative at Montreal. Every day, after
the saloon dinner, they came to our cabin,
which they christened the “drawing-room,”
and our pleasant conversations there laid the
foundation of a friendship which I trust will
ever remain unbroken. Our nights from
various causes were weary and sleepless, but
in the early morning and for some hours we
had a diversion, which the proximity of our
cabin to the steward’s pantry procured for us.
Almost as soon as it was light, Jupiter
thundered from Olympus, or in other words
our black steward, who was punctiliously
addressed as “Mr. H——s,” began the day’s
proceedings by having the crockery and glass
broken during the night by the rolling of the
ship removed, and every order was given
with a dignified pomposity which was most
amusing.

We gave him and his assistants the sobriquet
of “Jupiter and his satellites!” Mr.[8]
H——s was a portly negro of an imposing
presence, and a benign expression of countenance
which a little reminded one of “Uncle
Tom” in Mrs. Beecher Stowe’s celebrated
work. He exacted implicit obedience, but
he was a very good man, strictly honest to
his employers, and very considerate to those
over whom he had any authority. Not once
during the voyage did we hear from his lips
an oath or an unseemly word.

The stewardess told us that he had a very
pretty wife in London, a young Englishwoman,
with a remarkably fair complexion.
She also told us an amusing anecdote of Mr.
H——s as steward of a troop-ship going out
to India. One Sunday afternoon the young
officers, tired of playing off practical jokes
on each other, and half dead with ennui,
applied to Mr. H——s to lend them a book
to read.

“You know the sort of book we want,[9]
H——s,” said they; “plenty of love and
fighting, and battles, and all that sort of
thing!”

“I understand, gentlemen,” said Mr.
H——s, and presently returned with a
large Bible which he placed before them.
“There, gentlemen, you will find in that
book all you want—beautiful love stories,
fierce wars, and plenty of battles!”

His colour, however, was somewhat against
him, and I could hardly keep my countenance
when a young under-steward, to whom we
were indebted for much attention, said to me
with quite an injured air, “You know, ma’am,
it does take it out of a feller to have to say
‘sir’ to a nigger!”

Of the young friend C. W., who came out
with us, we saw but little, for though he had
a first-class berth, he was a great deal in the
steerage with your brother, who was a
veritable “Mark Tapley” among the poor[10]
emigrants. He helped the minister in charge
to keep order among them, he procured all
manner of little extra comforts for the sick
women from the surly cooks, and was the
delight of all the children, who followed him
in troops. He managed to be a good deal in
our cabin when we were too ill to move, and
also came to us on deck when we were able
to crawl there. He was a favourite with all
our fellow-passengers, and every lady knew
she might depend upon his gentlemanly
attentions if required. This comforted me a
little for his being in such a disagreeable
position.

The sea continued very rough indeed even
after we were in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
and though I thought the real blue water
which I saw for the first time very beautiful,
yet I could by no means join in the raptures
of my fellow-passengers, but strictly averred,
that although a passionate admirer of “Old[11]
Ocean,” it was most decidedly when I
viewed it from terra-firma. I will not
weary you with minute details of our slow
passage up the beautiful St. Lawrence, nor
dilate upon the interest I felt in watching,
first the thinly-scattered white huts, and
afterwards the thickly-clustered villages of
the “habitants,” with their curious churches
and shining spires, backed by the dark pine
forests, and behind them ranges of blue-capped
mountains, compared with which the
hills of my own dear England were as
hillocks.

We landed at Quebec and went to the
Victoria Hotel, where your sister and I passed
a few miserable hours of suspense and anxiety.
We found ourselves at the very beginning of
an immense journey utterly without means
to carry us on beyond the first few stages.
The little extra expenses paid on leaving the
ship, and the clearing our baggage as far[12]
as Toronto, had all but emptied our purse.
We were rich in nothing but delusive hopes
and expectations, doomed, like the glass
basket of celebrated “Alnaschars,” to be
shattered and broken to pieces.

We half expected to find a letter with a
small remittance waiting for us at the
Quebec P. O. Our young friend C. W. was
in the same strait, as his money-order was
only payable in a bank at Toronto. Both
the gentlemen left us and crossed the water
to the town of Quebec, where, finding on due
inquiry no letter of any kind, your brother
was compelled to pledge his gold watch and
seal, upon which, though so valuable, he
could only get five pounds advanced. This unavoidable
delay lost us the mid-day train to
Montreal, by which we saw our kind friends
depart after taking a most affectionate leave
and engaging us to correspond with them.
When our two gentlemen returned we were[13]
nearly starving, as we did not like to go to
the table-d’hôte without them, and the
dinner had long been over. We all sallied
forth, and found in a small wayside tavern
a homely but excellent meal, and best of all,
a private room to take it in. From thence
we went to the station and started by the
seven p.m. train for Montreal, being quite
thankful that our journey had at length
begun.

[14]

LETTER II.

My last letter left us starting from
Quebec in the seven p.m. train for
Montreal. Our party consisting
of four people, we had a compartment to ourselves,
but were some time in settling comfortably,
as our old dog “Nero” had to be
smuggled in and kept quiet under your
sister’s waterproof-cloak, for fear the vigilant
guard should consign him to the luggage-car,
where he would infallibly have barked himself
to death.

I noticed very little in the neighbourhood
of Quebec, being too much occupied with my[15]
own sad thoughts, and regrets for those I had
left behind; but I did observe that the cows,
horses, and pigs all appeared very small and
manifestly inferior to the cattle in England.

During this journey I could not help contrasting
the mode of travelling in Canada
with the same in the “old country,” and
giving a decided preference to the former. It
would be almost impossible for either murder,
robbery, or any kind of outrage to be perpetrated
where the compartments are all
open, and the supervision of the guard
walking up and down incessant. It is also
a great alleviation to the fatigue of travelling
to have the refreshment of iced water to
drink, and the option of washing faces and
hands. Towards night we were beguiled
into “Pullman’s” sleeping-cars, little imagining
how greatly it would add to the expense
of the journey. Sleep, however, I found to
be impossible in these close boxes, tier above[16]
tier, and towards midnight, half smothered,
I made my way to the carriage we had
occupied before retiring.

About this time the train came to a sudden
stop, and at last I asked the guard why we
were so long stationary. He told me that a
train which ought to have been in before us
was missing, that men had gone out with
lanterns to look for it, and that for fear of
being run into we must wait till it came up.
A most dreary four hours we passed before
we were released. We were at a small
station in a barren spot of country, where
nothing was to be seen in the dim light but
a few miserable-looking wooden houses scattered
about. It was a cheerless prospect, and
we were thankful when at length we went on.

We passed the morning more agreeably,
as the guard, a quiet, intelligent man, entered
into conversation with us. He was
telling us of a curious and erudite book about[17]
to be published at Boston, Massachusetts,
compiled by one of his relations, from numerous
records and papers treasured in the
family, and handed down from one generation
to another, beginning with the first landing
of the “Pilgrim Fathers.”

His ancestor, with his family, came out in
the Mayflower, and from that time to the
present they had had an unbroken succession
of godly ministers, who in the early times of
their settlement were called, in the old
Puritan phraseology, “sons of thunder.” In
the spring of 1871, he had attended the annual
family gathering at Boston, to which
the remotest connections, if possible, came.
I regret much that I did not take down his
name.

In consequence of our long delay in the
night, we did not arrive at Montreal in time
for the early train, but had to breakfast there,
and remain a few hours. When we started,[18]
we found that we had a hot and dusty journey
before us. I greatly admired the environs
of Montreal, particularly some pretty villa
residences, perched, as it were, in terraces
one above the other.

An incident occurred in the course of the
day which afforded me a few moments of
exquisite satisfaction, which every mother
will understand.

While our train was drawn up before a
small station, an emigrant train, going to
some distant part, went past. Numbers of
the emigrants were there who had been
steerage passengers on board our vessel from
England. As your brother was standing,
with C. W., on the steps of one of the carriages,
he was recognised, and they immediately
vociferated, “Mr. K.! Mr. K.! three
cheers for Mr. K.!” Then arose three
deafening cheers, which died away in the
distance; but not before your sister and I,[19]
looking out of the window, saw an indefinite
number of pocket-handkerchiefs, of all colours
and dimensions, fluttering from the windows
in token of recognition.

Towards the evening of this day, as we
were nearing Toronto, another stoppage occurred,
similar to the one of the night before.
A baggage-truck had got off the line, and
might be expected at any moment to run
into our train.

On this occasion I could not but think our
situation most alarming. We were drawn
up on a narrow bridge over a foaming torrent,
with jagged rocks sticking up from the
bottom, suggesting a not very pleasant fate
had we been rolled over. Here we remained
for four hours and a half. Luckily I was so
much occupied with my own thoughts, that
I did not hear a gentleman in an adjoining
compartment recounting to his horrified
audience an accident on the Boston Railway,[20]
in which he had been a reluctant participator,
the week before, and which occurred
to a train in a similar position to ours. This
train waited for many hours, was at last run
into, and twenty-five of the passengers were
killed. Your sister heard every word, but
took care not to disturb my meditations.

This accident detained us so long, that it
was past midnight when we got into Toronto,
and, hiring a carriage, were driven to a respectable,
cheap family hotel, strongly recommended
to your brother by a kind and
gentlemanly Canadian, who was our fellow-passenger
from England.

Unfortunately they were full, from garret
to cellar, and could not take us in. Our
driver, left to his own devices, took us to the
“Rossin House,” where we remained till the
next day, most supremely uncomfortable,
in a rambling hotel of immense extent,
where I lost my way every time I left the[21]
saloon; where, from not knowing the hours,
we were all but starved; and where it was
hardly possible to obtain a civil answer from
any one of the attendants.

We started from Toronto at three p.m. the
next day, leaving our young friend C. W.
behind, who, having drawn his money, was
going back to Montreal, to pass a little time
there before joining us in the Bush. He had
also to present letters of introduction to
Judge J——n, who was known to be able
and presumed to be willing, to assist the
views of the son of his old friend.

The farther we went from Toronto, the
more barren and ugly the country appeared,
and the hideous stumps in every clearing
became more and more visible. By degrees
also the gardens by the roadside became
more denuded of floral vegetation, till at last
my eyes rested for miles on little but holly-hocks
and pumpkins. Towards dusk, the[22]
lurid glare of the burning trees in the far-off
forest became appalling, as well as magnificent.
I was told that the season had been
exceptionally dry, no rain having fallen for
three months, and that in different parts the
fires had been most destructive. In almost
every case these fires have been the natural
result of some incidental carelessness. Some
wayfarer, far from his home, and camping
out for the night, leaves the smouldering
ashes of his fire to be blown into a flame by
a sudden breeze, or flings the ashes of his
pipe into the adjacent brushwood; in leaving
the place of his temporary halt, he little
imagines the loss of property, and even of
life, which may be occasioned by his thoughtlessness.

We slept that night at Belle Ewart, a
rising town on Lake Simere, and the next
morning took the steamer to Orillia. This
passage across the lake was the most beautiful[23]
part of our journey. The day was
bright and clear, the water blue, and the
scenery most beautiful. All was changed
when we landed at Orillia. We had to leave
our nice, roomy, well-appointed steamer for
a filthy, over-crowded little boat, where we
had hardly standing-room.

I now saw, for the first time, real live
Indians, both men and women, some of each
being on board the boat. Their encampment
on the lake was likewise pointed out
to me. Alas for my enthusiasm! Alas
for my remembrance of youthful delight over
Cooper’s enchanting novels! I was never
more disappointed in my life than when I
first took notice of these degenerate samples
of “Red Men!”

The men appeared to me undersized and
sinister-looking, the squaws filthy and almost
repulsive. No stretch of imagination could
bring before me in the persons of these very[24]
ordinary mortals the dignified and graceful
“Uncas,” or the stately and warlike “Chingachook!”
We landed at Washage, and after
standing for more than an hour on the quay,
took the stage-wagon for Gravenhurst, the
vehicle being so crowded that even the
personal baggage most essential to our comfort
had to be left behind. Oh! the horrors
of that journey! The road was most dreadful—our
first acquaintance with “corduroy”
roads. The forest gradually closed in upon
us, on fire on both sides, burnt trees crashing
down in all directions, here and there one
right across the road, which had to be dragged
out of the way before we could go on. Your
brother with his arm round me the whole
way (I clinging to the collar of his coat),
could hardly keep me steady as we bumped
over every obstacle. In the worst places I
was glad to shut my eyes that I might
not see the danger. Your poor sister had[25]
to cling convulsively to the rope which
secured the passengers’ baggage (ours was left
behind and we did not see it for weeks) to
avoid being thrown out, and for long afterwards
we both suffered from the bruises we
received and the strain upon our limbs. At
last, long after dark, we arrived at Gravenhurst,
where we were obliged to sleep, as the
steamer to Bracebridge could not start before
morning on account of the fog. The steam-boat
had no accommodation for sleeping, but
we had a good supper on board, and a
gentlemanly Englishman, a passenger by the
stage and well acquainted with Muskoka,
took us to a small hotel to sleep. The
next morning we went to Bracebridge, and
there we found a letter from your brother-in-law
advising me to go before the commissioner
of crown-lands and sign for my land.
The papers for my free grant of a hundred
acres had gone to France, but had missed me,[26]
as I had already left. Unfortunately our
means were too exhausted to allow of our remaining
even one day in Bracebridge, and we
thought it more prudent to start early in the
stage-wagon, as the magistrate’s office would
not be open till ten a.m.

The not being able to sign at once lost me
the power of selling my pine-trees, the new
law (a most unjust one) coming into operation
before I was able to come in again. We were
at the N. A. Hotel, and the mistress of it,
herself an Englishwoman and not long from
Devonshire, told me afterwards how sincerely
she pitied us, and said to her husband when
we were gone, “That poor lady and her
daughter little know what hardships they are
about to encounter in the ‘Bush!’” The
drive from Bracebridge to Utterson, the
nearest post-town to our settlement and
distant from it six miles, was a long and
fatiguing stretch of fifteen miles, but unmarked[27]
by any incident of consequence. The
forest fires were burning fiercely, and our
driver told us that a week before the road
had been impassable. At times when the
trees were burning at each side of the narrow
road we felt a hot stifling air as we passed
rapidly along. It was a gloomy afternoon,
with fitful gusts of wind portending a change
of weather, and we were almost smothered in
clouds of Muskoka dust, much resembling
pounded bricks. When we got to Utterson
we were obliged to remain for two hours to
rest the poor horses, as no fresh ones were to
be got. While at the little tavern we heard
that your brother C. had been married a few
weeks before, as we expected, and that your
dear sister F., with her husband, children, and
the fiancée, had rested there on their way to
the “Bush,” six weeks before our arrival.
We were more easy in our minds after this.
We were near our journey’s end, the dear[28]
ones who had preceded us were all well, and
the marriage which for four years I had been
endeavouring to secure for your youngest
brother had been happily accomplished. I
alone of all our party felt a hopeless depression
of spirits, a presentiment of long
months of unhappiness. Our drive from
Utterson was short, but we went slowly, and
it was late in the day before we turned into
the “Bush.” Our driver called the path we
were going a “road;” I saw nothing but a
narrow track with frightful stumps, over
which our wagon jolted in a manner to
endanger our limbs; indeed, though more
than three miles from your brother-in-law’s,
we soon insisted on walking, thinking it safer.
We found the thick undergrowth of “ground-hemlock”
very trying to walk upon, as it
caught our feet in an alarming manner.
Our path was intersected by deep gullies, the
sides of which were precipitous. I must say[29]
that the horses of this country, like the mules
of Spain, seem wonderfully sure-footed, and
the drivers, who mostly appear as reckless
and daring as Irish carmen, guide them very
safely, and accidents rarely occur.

After we had crossed the second gully, our
driver said he could go no farther, as it
would be dark before he got out of the
“Bush,” a thing much dreaded here. Accordingly
your brother paid and dismissed
him, and we were left with all our packages
by the roadside to find our way as best we
could. Luckily we came upon a very respectable
settler, working on a part of his
clearing near the path, who most kindly left
his work and piloted us to your brother-in-law’s
lot, where we found a very small “clearing,”
and a log-house in the middle of it.
Your sister F. and the dear children came
running out to meet and welcome us, and
after the first warm congratulations, F. and[30]
your brother went to fetch the newly-married
couple, who at once came back with them.
There was much to hear and to tell, and you
may judge how great was our dismay to find
that those we had come to burthen with our
presence, were for the time being as penniless
as ourselves, and that weary and fatigued as
we were, the only refreshment my dear child
could offer us was linseed tea without sugar
or milk, and sour, doughy bread which I
could not persuade myself to swallow. Our
sleeping arrangements were of the most
primitive description. A scanty curtain
shaded off a corner of the room, where your
dear sister made a regular shake-down of all
her little stock of bedding. Here your two
sisters, your sister-in-law, the two children
and myself found an ark of refuge. The
three gentlemen lay down in their clothes
before the fire; and thus passed our first night
in the “Bush” of Muskoka!

[31]

LETTER III.

The next morning, after a brief
and very unsatisfactory toilet,
and a breakfast which needs no
description, your brother C. and his wife
left us to return to their own log-house, entreating
me to go and see them as soon as
I should have recovered from the fatigue of
the journey. You will perhaps wonder that
they should have remained the night with us,
over-crowded as we were; but the fact is,
when we first came here, the forest-paths
between our lots were so indistinctly marked
out and so little trodden, that to be out after[32]
dark was not safe; and, indeed, it is a rule
among the settlers here, that should any one
be out after dark, the nearest neighbour must
afford him a shelter till the morning. To go
astray in the “Bush” is dreaded above everything.

I cannot describe how greatly we were
shocked at the changed appearance of your
youngest brother. In spite of his present
happiness as a married man, he bore in his
whole appearance the marks of the hardships
he had gone through. He had left us, only
a year before, in France in high health and
spirits, expecting to find in America, and
especially in New York, an El Dorado where
he might easily employ his little capital to
advantage. We found him now fearfully
thin, his handsome face pinched and worn,
and looking certainly ten years older than his
brother, fully five years his senior. In some
future letter I must give you a sketch of his[33]
many misfortunes, his failure in New York,
and subsequent settlement in Muskoka, together
with the amusing account of his marriage
given me by your sister F.

My first employment in the Bush was
to write to my lawyer, entreating a further
advance of money, and to some kind friends
who had already helped us for the same
purpose.

As soon as this necessary work was
finished, I began to look about me, both outside
and inside of the log-house. I found
that it was placed in the centre of a very
small “clearing” of not more than half an
acre; and the very sight of the dense forest
circling us all round, with hardly any perceptible
outlet, gave me a dreadful feeling
of suffocation, to which was added the constant
alarm of fire, for the dry season had
made every twig and leaf combustible.

Had it not been for these drawbacks, I[34]
should greatly have admired the situation.
An amphitheatre of rock behind the house,
wooded to the very top, and the trees tinged
with the glowing hues of autumn, was very
picturesque; and the house itself, built upon
an eminence, seemed likely to be dry and
comfortable. The house inside was simply
one tolerable-sized room, which, like the
cobbler’s stall in the nursery ballad, was

It was built of rough, unhewn logs, chinks
of wood between the logs, and the interstices
filled up with moss. There were two small
windows, and a door in the front. The size
of the house, eighteen feet by twenty-five.

When your brother-in-law’s logs for his
house were cut, he called a “raising bee,”
which is the custom here. Fourteen of his
neighbours responded to the call. This is[35]
for building up the walls of the log-house.
Strength and willingness are most desirable
at “bees;” but for the four corners, which
have to be “saddled,” skill is likewise requisite,
and, therefore, four of the best hands
are always chosen for the corners.

“Saddling” is cutting out a piece at the
corner of each log, so that the end of each
succeeding log, when it is raised, rests in the
niche prepared for it, and thus the building,
when finished, is as firm as a rock. Nothing
is paid for the assistance given, but good
meals are expected; and sometimes these
“bees” are quite festive meetings, where the
wives and daughters of the settlers wait at
table, and attend to the wants of the hungry
visitors. At a “bee” which your brother
attended some time ago, all the young
women were in their Sunday attire.

At your brother-in-law’s “bee” the female
element was entirely wanting, and two or[36]
three little things went wrong; but excuses
are always made for the ignorance of a
new settler, and in subsequent meetings the
fare has been better, and full satisfaction
given.

In the centre of each log-house stands out,
hideously prominent and ugly, a settler’s
stove, with a whole array of pots, pans, and
kettles belonging to it, which, when not in
use, are mostly hung up on the walls, certainly
not conducing to their ornamentation.
Your sister, always fertile in expedients,
hangs a curtain before these unseemly appendages;
but my lively imagination pierces
behind the veil, and knowing they are there,
gives me a feeling of irritation and disgust
which I cannot describe.

I may truly call the stove a voracious
monster, for in the very cold weather it
takes nearly the whole day’s chopping of one
person to keep it filled up night and day.

[37]

You must not suppose that we had come
into a furnished house. There had as yet
been neither time nor means to get furniture
of any kind. Dear F. had herself only been
in possession a fortnight, and we were only
too glad to sleep on the floor, to sit on
upturned boxes, and to make our table of
the top of a large chest. When at length,
after many weeks’ waiting, our baggage
arrived, for some days we could hardly turn
round; but we were most thankful for the
excellent bedding and the good warm blankets
we had brought from France, carefully
packed in barrels. All woollen goods are
extremely dear in Canada, and, as contrasted
with our English manufactures, very poor in
quality.

You know that, from boys, both your
brothers have been excellent amateur carpenters,
and this fact they have turned to good
account in the “Bush.” As soon as time[38]
could be found, your eldest brother made a
bedstead for his sister’s confinement, and
stools, and benches, which we found most
useful. For a long time after our arrival in
the “Bush,” and even after your brother-in-law
and myself had received remittances
from England, we were in imminent danger
of starvation from the coarse, bad food, and
the difficulty of procuring it from a distance.

At the time of which I write, the autumn
of 1871, there was neither store nor post-office
nearer to us than that at Utterson,
fully six miles from our land. I have
already told you what kind of a road we
found it on coming in. The gentlemen of
our different families had to bring all provisions
in sacks slung upon their shoulders
and backs, no light work I can assure
you.

The staple food of the settlers consists of[39]
hard salt pork, potatoes, oatmeal, molasses,
rice, and flour for bread, which every family
makes for itself. According to the “rising,”
employed instead of yeast, the bread was
either bitter, sour, or salt, and we only began
to get good bread when our clergyman from
Bracebridge, months after our arrival, recommended
us to use the “Twin Brothers’ yeast,”
which we found answer very well. With
regard to other articles of consumption, such
as tea, sugar, coffee, etc., I was then, and
still am, decidedly of opinion that we were
using up the refuse of all the shops in
Toronto. The tea was full of sloe-leaves,
wild raspberry-leaves, and other natural productions
which never grew in China; and it
was so full of bits of stick that my son
informed the people at the store that we
had collected a nice little stock for winter
fuel.

My chemical knowledge was not sufficient[40]
for me to analyse the coffee, which we really
could not drink, but it was a villanous compound,
of which the coffee-berry was the
smallest ingredient; in short, we were fain
to fall back upon and take into favour real
chickory or dandelion, which, with a little
milk and sugar, is tolerably nice, and as the
roots are plentiful among the potato-hills in
autumn, many of the settlers prepare it for
their own use.

You know what a simple table we kept in
France, but there our plain food was well
cooked and prepared, and was the best of
its kind.

We found the change terrible, and
very injurious to our health, and, what was
worse, the store was often out of the most
necessary articles, and our messengers were
compelled to return, weary and footsore,
without what we wanted. We are much
better off now, having a post-office and store[41]
belonging to the settlement only three miles
away, kept by very civil and intelligent
Scotch people, who do their best to procure
whatever is ordered.

We suffered much also from the want of
fresh meat, for though at times some one in
the neighbourhood might kill a sheep, yet we
seldom heard of it before all the best parts
were gone. We also greatly regretted that
in a country where even the smaller lakes
abound with fish, we were so far away from
any piece of water that we could not obtain
what would have been a most agreeable
change from the much-detested salt pork.

I come now to speak of a delusion which is
very general in the “old country,” and in
which I largely shared. I mean with regard
to the great abundance of venison and game
to be found in these parts. This fallacy is
much encouraged by different books on emigration,
which speak of these desirable articles[42]
of food as being plentiful, and within the
reach of every settler.

I certainly arrived with a vague notion
that passing deer might be shot from one’s
own door, that partridge and wild-duck were
as plentiful as sparrows in England, and that
hares and rabbits might almost be caught
with the hand. These romantic ideas were
ruefully dispelled! There is little game of
any kind left, and to get that good dogs
are wanted, which are very expensive to
keep.

None of our party have caught the most
distant glimpse of a deer since we came, except
your two brothers, who once saw a poor
doe rush madly across the corner of C——s’
clearing, hotly pursued by a trapper’s deer-hound,
at a season when it was against the
law to shoot deer. Your sister-in-law once,
venturing from C——s’ clearing to ours
without an escort, was much alarmed at[43]
hearing a rustling in the “Bush” quite near
her, and a repeated “Ba—a, ba—a!” We were
told that the noise must have come from an
ancient stag which is said to have haunted
for years the range of rock near us. This
mythical old fellow has, however, never been
seen, even by the “oldest inhabitant.”

Your brothers have now and then shot a
chance partridge or wild-duck, but had to
look for them, and the truth must be told
that when settlers, gentle or simple, are engaged
in the daily toil of grubbing, and as it
were scratching the earth for bread, it is
difficult to find a day’s leisure for the gentlemanly
recreation of shooting. Your youngest
brother was pretty successful in trapping
beaver and musk-rat, and in shooting porcupine;
of the two former the skins can be
sold to advantage, but as to eating their
flesh, which some of our party succeeded in
doing, your eldest brother and myself found[44]
that impossible, and turned with loathing
from the rich repasts prepared from what I
irreverently termed vermin!

I must now tell you how our lots are
situated with regard to each other. C——s,
having come out a year before the rest of us,
had secured two hundred acres of free grant
land, one lot in his own name, and one in
the maiden name of his present wife, who
came out from England to marry him, under
the chaperonage of your sister and her husband.
This has enabled him, since the birth
of his little boy, to claim and obtain another
lot of a hundred acres, as “head of a family.”
His land is good, and prettily situated, with
plenty of beaver meadow and a sprinkling of
rock, and also a very picturesque waterfall,
where, in coming years, he can have a mill.
I have the adjoining hundred acres, good flat
land for cultivation, but not so picturesque as
any of the other lots, which I regret, though[45]
others envy me the absence of rock. My
land lies between C——s’ and the two
hundred acres belonging to your brother-in-law,
whose very pretty situation I have
already described.

I am sorry to say that the two hundred
acres taken up before we came, for your
eldest brother and sister, are at a distance of
five miles from here; your brother, who went
over to see about clearing a portion of them,
says the landscape is most beautiful, as in
addition to rock and wood there are good-sized
lakes, which make the lots less valuable
for cultivation, but far more beautiful to the
eye.

When we had been here about three
weeks, our young friend C. W. came to us
from Montreal, where he had not succeeded
in getting any situation, though he brought
letters of introduction to Judge J. It is
quite useless for young gentlemen, however[46]
well educated, to come out from the “old
country” expecting situations to be numerous
and easily attainable; all introductions from
friends of yours to friends of theirs are for
the most part useless, unless indeed addressed
to some commercial firm. The best and
surest introduction a man can have is to be
a steady and skilful workman at some
trade, and then he can command employment.

To return to C. W. He arrived, in fact,
in the dusk of a chilly evening, and was near
losing his way in the “Bush,” having to
pass across my land, which was then almost
untrodden. Fortunately as he advanced he
betook himself to shouting, and luckily was
heard and answered by C——s, who was
just going indoors for the night. They soon
met, and C——s took him home, and with
him and your sister-in-law he boarded and
lodged during the whole of his stay,[47]
for at your sister’s we were already over-crowded.

As the autumn advanced, we began most
seriously to give our attention to building
my log-house, hoping that I might settle my
part of the family before the winter set in.
Accordingly an acre of my land was cleared,
and the logs for a house cut and prepared, a
skilful workman being hired to help; and
when all was ready, we called a “bee,” and
took care to provide everything of the best
in the shape of provisions.

Our well-laid plan was a signal failure,
partly because settlers do not like coming to
a “bee” so late in the year (it was November),
and partly because some of the invitations
had been given on Sunday, which, as
most of the settlers near us were Scotch and
strict Presbyterians, caused offence. Only
three people came, and they were thanked
and dismissed.

[48]

The very next day (November 11th), snow-storms
and hard winter weather began; but
in spite of this our four gentlemen, seeing my
deep disappointment at being kept waiting
for a residence, most chivalrously went to
work, and by their unassisted efforts and
hard labour actually managed in the course
of a fortnight to raise the walls and place
the rafters of a log-house not much smaller
than the others. Their work was the admiration
of the whole settlement, and many
expressed themselves quite ashamed of having
thus left us in the lurch.

After raising the walls, however, they
were reluctantly compelled to stop, for the
severity of the weather was such, that
shingling the roof, chinking, and mossing
became quite impossible. As it was, E.
nearly had his hands frost-bitten. We were
thus compelled to remain with your sister
till the spring of 1872. We greatly felt,[49]
after we came into the Bush, the want of all
religious ordinances; but we soon arranged a
general meeting of all the members of the
family on a Sunday at your sister’s, when
your brother-in-law read the Church of
England service, and all joined in singing
the chants and hymns. Sometimes he was
unavoidably absent, as the clergymen at
Bracebridge, knowing him to have taken
his degree at St. John’s College, Cambridge,
and to be otherwise qualified, would ask
his assistance, though a layman, to do
duty for him at different stations in the
district.

We found in our own neighbourhood a
building set apart for use as a church, but
too far off for us to attend either summer or
winter. Here Church of England, Presbyterian,
and Wesleyan ministers preached in
turn, and thus some semblance of worship
was kept up. I hardly dare describe the[50]
miserable change we found in our employments
and manner of life when we first
settled down to hard labour in the Bush. It
was anguish to me to see your sisters and
sister-in-law, so tenderly and delicately
brought up, working harder by far than any
of our servants in England or France.

It is one thing to sit in a pretty drawing-room,
to play, to sing, to study, to embroider,
and to enjoy social and intellectual converse
with a select circle of kind friends, and it is
quite another thing to slave and toil in a
log-house, no better than a kitchen, from
morning till night, at cleaning, washing,
baking, preparing meals for hungry men
(not always of one’s own family), and drying
incessant changes of wet clothes.

I confess, to my shame, that my philosophy
entirely gave way, and that for a long time I
cried constantly. I also took to falling off
my chair in fits of giddiness, which lasted for[51]
a few minutes, and much alarmed the
children, who feared apoplexy. I felt quite
sure that it was from continual fretting, want
of proper exercise, the heat of the stove, and
inanition from not being able to swallow a
sufficiency of the coarse food I so much
disliked. Fortunately we had brought out
some cases of arrow-root, and some bottles
of Oxley’s Essence of Ginger, and with the
help of this nourishment, and walking
resolutely up and down the clearing, where
we kept a track swept for the purpose, I got
better. Your eldest sister likewise had an
alarming fit of illness, liver complaint and
palpitation of the heart, doubtless brought on
by poor food, hard work, and the great
weight of the utensils belonging to the stove.
I was much frightened, but after a time she,
too, partially recovered; indeed we had to
get well as best we might, for there was no
doctor nearer than Bracebridge, eighteen[52]
miles off, and had we sent for him, we had
no means of paying either for visits or drugs.

Christmas Day at length drew near, and
as we wished to be all together, though our
funds were exceedingly low, dear C——s
insisted on contributing to our Christmas-dinner.
He bought a chicken from a
neighbouring settler who, in giving him a
scare-crow, did not forget to charge a good
price for it. He sent it to us with some
mutton. Your sister has told me since,
that while preparing the chicken for cooking,
she could have shed tears of disgust and
compassion, the poor thing being so attenuated
that its bones pierced through the
skin, and had it not been killed, it must soon
have died of consumption. In spite of this
I roused my dormant energies, and with the
help of butter, onions and spices, I concocted
a savoury stew which was much applauded.
We had also a pudding! Well, the less[53]
said about that pudding the better. Nevertheless,
I must record that it contained a
maximum of flour and a minimum of currants
and grease. The plums, sugar, spice, eggs,
citron, and brandy were conspicuous by their
absence. Still, the pudding was eaten—peace
to its memory!

We all assembled on Christmas morning
early, and had our Church service performed
by your brother-in-law. Cruel memory took
me back to our beloved little church in
France, with its Christmas decorations of
holly and evergreens, and I could almost
hear the sweet voices of the choir singing
my favourite hymn: “Hark! the herald
angels sing!” There was indeed a sad
contrast between the festive meetings of
other years, when our little band was unbroken
by death and separation, and when
out of our abundance we could make others
happy, and this forlorn gathering in a strange[54]
land, with care written on every brow,
poverty in all our surroundings, and deep
though unexpressed anxiety lest all our
struggles in this new and uncongenial mode
of existence should prove fruitless. For the
sake of others, I tried to simulate a cheerfulness
I was far from feeling, and so we got
over the evening. We had a good deal
of general conversation, and some of our
favourite songs were sung by the gentlemen.

It was late when our party broke up; your
brother C——s with his wife and C. W.
actually scrambled home through the forest
by moonlight, a track having been broken by
snow-shoes in the morning.

A great grief to me at this time was
the long interval between writing letters
to the “old country” and receiving the
answers, an interval which my vivid imagination
filled up with all kind of horrors[55]
which might have happened to the dear ones
we had left behind.

The close of the year silently came on, and
I finish this letter with a “Sonnet to the
Pines,” my first composition in the Bush,
written partly to convince myself that I was
not quite out of my wits, but had still the
little modicum of intellect I once possessed,
and partly to reassure your brothers and
sisters, who were always predicting that I
should bring on softening of the brain by my
unceasing regrets for the past, and gloomy
prognostications for the future.

[57]

LETTER IV.

New-Year’s Day of 1872 was one
of those exceptionally beautiful
days, when hope is generated in
the saddest heart, and when the most pressing
cares and anxieties retire for at least a time
into the background of our lives. The sky
was blue and clear, the sun bright, and the
air quite soft and balmy for the time of year.
We had had some bitter cold and gloomy
weather, and we found the change most
delightful. As in France we were in the
habit of making presents among ourselves on
this day, I looked over all my stores with a[58]
view to keeping up the same pretty custom
here; but alas! in the absence of all shops I
was sorely puzzled. At last I made all right
by giving pencils and paper for scribbling
to the children; Eau de Cologne, sweet-scented
soap, and pots of pomatum to the
elders of the party; and finished off with a
box of Bryant and May’s “ruby matches” to
C. W., who considered them a great acquisition.
Your brother E. came over for the
whole day. He now boarded and lodged with
C——s, to make a little more room for your
sister F.’s confinement, which we expected at
the end of the month. I watched E. with
delight as he felled an enormous birch tree in
honour of the day; but though placed in
perfect safety myself, I could not avoid a
thrill of fear for him, as this monarch of the
forest came crashing down. Fatal accidents
very seldom occur, but new settlers, inexperienced
and unused to the axe, sometimes[59]
give themselves serious cuts. Your brother
and brother-in-law have had many narrow
escapes, but fortunately, as yet, are uninjured.
Your brother C——s before we came gave
himself a very severe cut, which prevented
his chopping for some weeks. One of the
settlers told your brother that when he first
began chopping he had given himself a most
dangerous wound, the axe having glanced
from the tree on to his foot; for weeks after
the accident he stood in a washing-tub for
security while chopping his fire-wood. This
account much amused us, and E——d made a
neat little caricature of P. in his tub chopping.

I was greatly disappointed in the Canadian
forest, and did not think it half as beautiful
as I had been led to expect, for though there
are certainly some very tall pines, and these
of a considerable girth, yet being so closely
packed together and hemmed in with small
trees and a thick undergrowth of brushwood,[60]
they always seem cramped, and their lofty
tops unable to spread out to their full size.
Hurricanes here are of frequent occurrence,
and at these times it is not unusual for full
half an acre of trees to be entirely laid flat,
giving the greatest trouble to the settler
when he wants to clear. At times the
“windfall,” as it is called, is a narrow belt of
uprooted trees extending for miles, and distinctly
marking the path of the hurricane
through the forest. I was less astonished at
the constant fall of the trees after examining
an enormous pine lying on C——s’ land,
which was blown down last year. The roots
of this tree seemed to have formed an enormous
web or network under the surface of
the ground, and only a few large fibres here
and there appeared to have gone to any
depth. I missed the umbrageous oaks, elms,
and beeches of our own parks, and also the
open forest glades which so greatly enhance[61]
the beauty of our woodland scenery. I am
told that the trees in the States are much
larger and finer, but of this I am of course
incompetent to judge, never having been
there. The most beautiful tree here is
certainly the “balsam,” a slender, delicate
tree whose feathery branches droop gracefully
to within a few feet of the ground.

We found the winter fearfully cold, the
thermometer being at times forty degrees
below zero. We had great difficulty in keeping
ourselves sufficiently clothed for such a
season. All people coming to the Bush
bring clothes far too good for the rough life
they lead there. In coming out we had no
means of providing any special outfit, and
therefore brought with us only the ordinary
wardrobes of genteel life. We soon found
that all silks, delicate shawls, laces and ornaments,
are perfectly useless here. Every
article we possess of that kind is carefully put[62]
away in our trunks, and will probably never
see daylight again, unless indeed that, like
Mrs. Katy Scudder in the “Minister’s
Wooing,” we may occasionally air our
treasures. What we found most useful was
everything in the shape of woollen or other
thick fabrics, winter dresses, warm plaid
shawls, flannels, furs, etc.; of these we had a
tolerable stock, and as the cold increased we
put one thing over another till we must have
often presented the appearance of feather-beds
tied in the middle with a string. Indeed,
as our gentlemen politely phrased it,
we made complete “guys” of ourselves, and
I must say that they were not one whit behind
us in grotesque unsightliness of costume.
Your brothers sometimes wore four or five
flannels one over the other, thick jerseys and
heavy overcoats when not actually at work, and
pairs upon pairs of thick woollen socks and
stockings, with great sea-boots drawn over all;[63]
or in deep snow “moccasins” or else “shoe-packs,”
the first being made by the Indians,
of the skin of the moose-deer, and the second
mostly of sheep-skins. The great mart for
these articles is at the Indian settlement of
“Lachine” on the St. Lawrence, near Montreal.
They also wore snow-shoes, which are
not made like the Laplanders’ with skates
attached for sliding, but simply for walking
on the surface of the deep snow. They consist
of a framework of wood three feet long
by one and a half wide, filled up with strips
of raw deer-skin interlaced, and in shape resembling
a fish, more like a monstrous sole
than any other. We ladies, too, were thankful
to lay aside our French kid boots and
delicate slippers, and to wrap our feet and
legs up so completely that they much resembled
mill-posts. Had you or any of our
dear friends seen us in our Esquimaux costume,
you would certainly have failed to[64]
recognise the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen
you had been in the habit of seeing.
To crown all, your brother-in-law and C——s
had goat-skin coats brought from France,
real Robinson Crusoe coats, such as are worn
by the French shepherds, and these they
found invaluable. We were very sorry that
E——d had not one likewise.

Our occupations were manifold; hard work
was the order of the day for every one but
me; but all the work I was allowed to do was
the cooking, for which I consider that I have
a special vocation. A great compliment was
once paid me by an old Indian officer in our
regiment, who declared that Mrs. K. could
make a good curry, he was sure, out of the
sole of a shoe!

At other times I read, wrote letters, and
plied my knitting-needles indefatigably, to
the great advantage of our little colony, in
the shape of comforters, baby-socks, mittens,[65]
Canadian sashes and petticoats for the little
children. Sometimes I read to the children
out of their story-books, but their happiest
time was when they could get your
sister P——e to give them an hour or two
in the evening of story-telling. You know
what a talent she possesses for composing,
both in prose and verse, stories for little
people, and with these she would keep them
spell-bound, to the great comfort of the elders
of the party, and of their poor mother especially,
who towards night felt much fatigued.

Dear children! they required some amusement
after the close confinement of the winter’s
day. Meanwhile the gentlemen were
busy from morning till night chopping down
trees in readiness for burning in spring.
This is mostly done in mid-winter, as they
are reckoned to chop more easily then.

You must not suppose that all this time
we had no visitors. By degrees many of the[66]
settlers scattered over the neighbourhood
came to see us, some, doubtless, from kindly
motives, others from curiosity to know what
the strangers were like. I found some of
them pleasant and amusing, particularly
those who had been long in the country,
and who could be induced to give me some
of their earlier Bush experiences. A few
of them seemed to possess a sprinkling of
higher intelligence, which made their conversation
really interesting.

One very picturesque elderly man, tall,
spare, and upright, came to fell some pine-trees
contiguous to the house, which much
endangered its safety when the hurricanes,
so frequent in this country, blew. He had
begun life as a ploughboy on a farm in my
beloved county of Kent, and had the unmistakable
Kentish accent. It seemed so
strange to me at first, to be shaking hands
and sitting at table familiarly with one of a[67]
class so different from my own; but this was
my first initiation into the free-and-easy
intercourse of all classes in this country,
where the standing proverb is, “Jack is as
good as his master!”

I found all the settlers kindly disposed
towards us, and most liberal in giving us a
share of their flower-seeds, plants, and garden
produce, which, as new-comers, we could
not be supposed to have. They were willing
also to accept in return such little civilities
as we could offer, in the shape of books and
newspapers from the old country, and sometimes
medicines and drugs, which could not
be got in the settlement. There might be a
little quarrelling, backbiting, and petty rivalry
among them, with an occasional dash of slanderous
gossip; but I am inclined to think not
more than will inevitably be found in small
communities.

As a body, they certainly are hard-working,[68]
thrifty, and kind-hearted. Almost universally
they seem contented with their
position and prospects. I have seldom met
with a settler who did not think his own
land the finest in the country, who had not
grown the largest turnip ever seen, and who
was not full of hope that the coveted railway
would certainly pass through his
lot.

At this time I felt an increasing anxiety
about your sister’s confinement, which was
now drawing near. That such an event
should take place in this desolate wilderness,
where we had no servants, no monthly-nurse,
and not even a doctor within reach,
was sufficiently alarming. To relieve my
mind, your brother-in-law went about the
neighbourhood, and at last found a very
respectable person, a settler’s wife, not more
than three miles off, who consented to be our
assistant on this momentous occasion, and he[69]
promised to go for her as soon as dear F——e
should be taken ill.

We had been made a little more comfortable
in the house, as your brother-in-law and
brother had made a very tolerable ceiling
over our bed-places, and your brother had
chopped and neatly piled up at the end of
the room an immense stock of fire-wood,
which prevented the necessity of so often
opening the door.

We felt now more than ever the want
of fresh meat, as the children could not
touch the salt pork, and were heartily tired
of boiled rice and dumplings, which were all
the variety we could give them, with the
exception of an occasional egg. In this
emergency your brother C——s consented to
sell me a bull calf, which he intended bringing
up, but having also a cow and a heifer,
and fearing to run short of fodder, he consented
to part with him. Thus I became[70]
the fortunate possessor of an animal which,
when killed, fully realised my misgivings as
to its being neither veal nor beef, but in a
transition state between the two. It had a
marvellous development of bone and gristle,
but very little flesh; still we made much of
it in the shape of nourishing broth and
savoury stews, and as I only paid seven
dollars for it, and had long credit, I was
fully satisfied with my first Bush speculation.

The 18th of January arrived. The day
had been very cold, with a drifting, blinding
snow; towards evening a fierce, gusty
wind arose, followed by pitch darkness.
The forest trees were cracking and crashing
down in all directions. We went to bed.
At two a.m., having been long awake, I heard
a stir in the room, and dear F.’s voice asking
us to get up. What my feelings were I leave
you to imagine—to send for help three[71]
miles off, in such a night, was impossible, for
even with a lantern your brother-in-law could
not have ventured into the Bush. Fortunately,
we had no time to be frightened or
nervous. We removed the sleeping children
to our own bed, made the most comfortable
arrangement circumstances would admit of
for dear F——e, and about three a.m., that is
to say, in less than an hour after being called,
our first Bush baby was born, a very fine
little girl.

Your sister P——e, who had been reading
up for the occasion, did all that was necessary,
with a skill, coolness and self-possession which
would have done honour to “Dr. Elizabeth
Black!”

I did indeed feel thankful when I saw
my child safe in bed, with her dear baby-girl,
washed, dressed, and well bundled up
in flannel, lying by her side, she herself
taking a basin of gruel which I joyfully prepared[72]
for her. God “tempers the wind to
the shorn lamb.”

We could well believe this when we found
your sister recover even more quickly than
she had done in France, where she had
so many more comforts and even luxuries;
nor was she this time attacked by ague and
low fever, from which she had always suffered
before.

This sudden call upon our energies made
me glad that my wandering life in the army
had rendered me very independent of extraneous
help, and that I had taught you all
from childhood never to call a servant for
what you could easily do with your own
hands. The very first thing people must
learn in the Bush, is to trust in God, and to
help themselves, for other help is mostly too
far off to be available.

At the end of this month, when I felt that
I could safely leave dear F——e, I determined[73]
to go to B——e and sign for my land.
The not having done so before had long been
a cause of great anxiety.

I had been more than four months in the
country, had begun to clear and to build
upon my lot, and yet from various causes
had not been able to secure it by signing the
necessary papers. These having been sent
to France, and having missed me, had been
duly forwarded here. Till the signing was
completed, I was liable at any moment to
have my land taken up by some one else.
Accordingly your brother wrote to B——
for a cutter and horse, and directed the
driver to come as far into the Bush as he
could.

We started on a very bright, cold morning,
but I had walked fully three miles before we
met our sledge, which was much behind
time. I never enjoyed anything in the
country so much as this my first sleighing[74]
expedition. The small sleigh, or cutter as
it is sometimes called, held only one, and I
was nestled down in the bottom of it, well
wrapped up, and being delightfully warm and
snug, could enjoy looking at the very picturesque
country we were rapidly passing
through. I did, however, most sincerely pity
your brother and the driver, who nearly
perished, for sitting on the front seat they
caught all the wind, which was piercing. We
stopped midway at a small tavern, where we
dined, and I can truly say that in spite of
the dirty table-cloth and the pervading slovenliness
and disorder of the house and premises,
I found everything enjoyable, and above all
the sense of being for a few hours at least
freed from my long imprisonment in the
woods.

It was late in the afternoon when we
arrived at B——e, where we went to the
N. A. Hotel, and were made very comfortable[75]
by its kind mistress. The next morning
at ten a.m. we went to the magistrate’s
office, where I signed for my one
hundred acres, and of course came away
with the conscious dignity of a landed proprietor.

I was charmed with the kind and courteous
manners of Mr. L——s. He reminded
me more of that nearly extinct race—the
gentleman of the old school—than any one I
had seen since leaving England. His son,
who is his assistant, seems equally amiable
and popular. Seeing from my manner that
I considered Muskoka, even at the present
time, as the Ultima Thule of civilisation,
he told us some amusing anecdotes of what
it had actually been when his grandfather
first became a settler in Canada. The towns
and villages now called the “Front,” had
then no existence; all was thick forest, no
steamers on the lakes, no roads of any kind,[76]
and barely here and there a forest-track
made by Indians or trappers. From where
his grandfather settled down, it was sixty
miles to the nearest place where anything
could be got, and the first year he had to go
all this distance on foot for a bushel of seed
potatoes for planting, and to return with
them in a sack which he carried on his back
the whole way.

We left B——e to return home at one p.m.,
but it was nearly dark when we turned into
the Bush, and quite so when we were put
down at the point from which we had to
walk home. Here we were luckily met by
your brother C——s and C. W., with a
lantern and a rope for our parcels, according
to promise. C——s took charge of me, and
led the way with the lantern. I tried to
follow in his steps, but the track was so
narrow, and the light so uncertain, that I
found myself, every few moments, up to my[77]
knees in soft snow, if I diverged only a step
from the track.

I became almost unable to go on, but
after many expedients had been tried, one
only was found to answer. C——s tied a
rope round my waist, and then round his
own, and in this safe, but highly ignominious
manner, I was literally towed through the
forest, and reached home thoroughly exhausted,
but I am bound to say almost as
much from laughter as from fatigue. I
found all well, and the children were highly
pleased with the little presents I had brought
for them.

[78]

LETTER V.

The first months of this year found
us very anxious to get the log-house
finished, which had been so
well begun by our four gentlemen, and as
soon as the weather moderated a little, and
our means allowed us to get help, we had it
roofed, floored, chinked, and mossed. It was
necessary to get it finished, so that we might
move before the great spring thaw should
cover the forest-paths with seas of slush and
mud, and before the creek between us and
our domicile should be swollen so as to
render it impassable for ladies.

[79]

When the workmen had finished, we sent
to the nearest town for a settler’s stove; and
as the ox-team we hired could bring it no
farther than the corner of the concession
road which skirts one end of my lot, your
brothers had the agreeable task of bringing
it piecemeal on their backs, with all its heavy
belongings, down the precipitous side of my
gully, wading knee-deep through the creek
at the bottom, and scrambling up the side
nearest here. It was quite a service of danger,
and I felt truly thankful that no accident
occurred.

About this time our young friend C. W.
left us, and we were very sorry to lose him,
for more particularly in “Bush” life the
taking away of one familiar face leaves a sad
blank behind. He could not, however, make
up his mind to remain, finding the life very
dull and cheerless, and suffering moreover
most severely from the cold of the climate.[80]
He went to Toronto, and at last got a
tolerably good situation in a bank, where his
thorough knowledge of French and German
made him very useful.

Another important event also took place,
and this was the christening of our dear
little “Bush” girl, who by this time was
thriving nicely. Our Church of England
clergyman at B——e very kindly came
over to perform the ceremony, but as no
special day had been named, his visit took
us by surprise, and the hospitality we were
able to extend to him was meagre indeed.
This christening certainly presented a marked
contrast to our last. It was no well-dressed
infant in a richly-embroidered robe and
French lace cap like a cauliflower ring, that
I handed to our good minister, but a dear
little soft bundle of rumpled flannel, with
just enough of face visible to receive the
baptismal sprinkling.

[81]

We all stood round in our anomalous costumes,
and a cracked slop-basin represented
the font. Nevertheless, our little darling
behaved incomparably well, and all passed
off pleasantly. With our minister afterwards,
a very kind and gentlemanly man,
we had an hour’s pleasant conversation,
which indeed was quite a treat, for in the
Bush, with little or no time for intellectual
pursuits, for the practice of any elegant accomplishment,
or indeed for anything but the
stern and hard realities of daily labour; conversation
even among the well-educated is
apt to degenerate into discussions about
“crops” and “stock,” and the relative
merits of timothy or beaver hay.

We saw but little of your brother Edward
at this time, for he was fully occupied in the
log-house, where he lit a large fire every day
that it might be thoroughly aired for our reception,
and then engaged in carpentering[82]
extensively for our comfort. He put up
numerous shelves for the crockery and
kitchen things, made two very good and
substantial bedsteads, a sofa fixed against the
wall which we call the “daïs,” and a very
comfortable easy-chair with a flexible seat
of strips of cowhide interlaced—an ingenious
device of your brother Charles, who made
one for his wife.

At last the house being finished, quite
aired enough, and otherwise made as comfortable
as our very slender means would
permit, we resolved to move, and on the
7th of April we took our departure from
dear F——’s, who, however glad to have
more room for the children, sadly missed our
companionship, as we did hers. The day of
our exodus was very clear and bright, and
the narrow snow-track between our lots was
still tolerably hard and safe, though the
great thaw had begun, and the deep untrodden[83]
snow on either side of the track was
fast melting, and every careless step we took
plunged us into two or three feet of snow,
from which we had to be ignominiously
dragged out. It was worse when we sank
into holes full of water, and the narrow path
treacherously giving way at the edges, we
had many of these falls. All our trunks,
chests, and barrels had to be left at F——’s,
and we only took with us packages that
could be carried by hand, and our bedding,
which was conveyed on the shoulders of the
gentlemen.

Of course we travelled in Indian file, one
after the other.

When we finally departed, your brother-in-law
and Sister P——e preceded me, laden
with all manner of small articles, and every
few yards down they came. I followed with
a stout stick which helped me along considerably,
and as I was not allowed to carry[84]
anything, and picked my way very carefully,
I managed to escape with comparatively few
falls, and only two of any consequence, one
when I pitched forward with my face down
flat on the ground, and another when my feet
suddenly slipped from under me and sent me
backwards, rolling over and over in the snow
before, even with help, I could get up. The
effects of this fall I felt for a long time.

At length we arrived at our new home,
but in spite of the magic of that word, I felt
dreadfully depressed, and as we were all
thoroughly wet and weary, and on looking
out of the windows in front saw nothing but
a wall of snow six feet deep, which encircled
the house and quite hid the clearing from
our eyes, I need not say that we were anything
but a gay party. Your kind brother-in-law,
to console me a little, went home and
brought back in his arms, as a present for
me, the little cat of which I had been so[85]
fond at his house. I cheered up immediately,
and had so much trouble to prevent little
Tibbs from running away and being lost in
the snow, that it was quite an occupation for
me. One member of our party made himself
at home at once, and from the moment of our
entrance took possession of the warmest place
before the stove. This was dear old Nero,
who, as a “French seigneur,” had great
privileges, was much admired in the settlement,
and was always called the “Frenchman!”
His chief delight seemed to be incessantly
barking at the squirrels.

The thaw continuing, we were quite
prisoners for some weeks, and as to our
property left at your sister’s, it was nearly
three months before we could get it, as your
brother-in-law with your brothers had to cut
a path for the oxen between our clearings,
and to make a rough bridge over his creek,
which, though not so deep as the one on my[86]
land, was equally impassable for a wagon and
team.

Happy would it have been for us, and for
all the new settlers, if, when the snow was
quite melted, which was not till the second
week in May, fine dry weather had ensued.
This would have enabled us to log and burn
the trees felled during the winter, and to
clear up the ground ready for cropping.
Instead of this, drenching rain set in, varied
by occasional thunder-storms, so that even
after the logging was done it was June before
we could venture to fire the heaps, the ground
being still quite wet, and even then the clearing
was such a partial one that by the 15th of
June we had only three-fourths of an acre
thoroughly ready, and on this your brother
planted eight bushels of potatoes, happily for
us regardless of the prognostics of our
neighbours, who all assured him that he was
much too late to have any chance of a return.[87]
He had, however, an excellent yield of eighty
bushels, which fully repaid him for his perseverance
and steady refusal to be wet-blanketed.
He also, however late, sowed
peas, French beans, vegetable-marrows, and
put in cabbages, from all of which we had a
good average crop.

We had, of course, to hire men for our
logging, with their oxen, and to find their
meals. I could not but observe how well
they all behaved, washing their faces and
hands before sitting down to table, and also
scrupulously refraining from swearing, smoking,
or spitting, while in the house. A man
who hires himself and his oxen out for the
day, has two dollars and food for himself and
his beasts; and should he bring any assistants,
they each have seventy-five cents and their
food. You should have seen the gentlemen
of our party after a day’s logging! They
were black from head to foot, and more[88]
resembled master chimney-sweeps than anything
else. Most of the settlers have a
regular logging-suit made of coarse coloured
stuff; anything better is sure to be spoiled
during such work.

Our fire, though a bad one, was very
picturesque. It did not burn fiercely enough
to clear off the log-heaps still wet from
the late rains, but it ran far back into
the forest, and many of the tall trees, particularly
the decaying ones, were burning
from bottom to top, and continued in flames
for some days and nights. During the
logging I sincerely pitied the poor oxen, who
are yoked together and attached by a heavy
chain to one immense log after another, till
they are all brought into position, and the
log-heaps are arranged for burning. It is
most distressing to see these patient animals
panting after their exertions, and too often, I
regret to say, beaten and sworn at in a most
outrageous manner.

[89]

Great care is required to prevent accidents
during logging, and fatal ones sometimes
occur. I was in conversation with the reeve
of an adjoining township this summer, and he
told me that two years ago he lost his eldest
son, a young man of great promise, in this
melancholy way. The poor fellow made a
false step while driving his team, and fell
right before the oxen who were coming on
with a heavy log, quite a tree, attached to
them. Before it was possible to stop them,
they had drawn the tree over him and he was
literally crushed to death.

Not having been able to get the land ready
for corn of any kind, and our only crops being
the potatoes I have mentioned, and a few
garden vegetables, your brother thought it
best to give his whole attention to fencing
our clearing all round, and putting gates at
the three different points of egress. This
was the more necessary as your brother[90]
Charles had a cow and heifer with a large
circle of acquaintances among our neighbour’s
cattle, who came regularly every morning
to fetch them away into the Bush, where
they all fed till night. Your brother made
three gates on the model of French ones,
which are both solid and simple in their
construction, easy to open and easy to shut.

Wonderful to say, some of the old settlers
condescended to admire these novelties.
Your brother Charles worked with him till
this necessary labour was concluded, and we
were glad enough when our four and a half
acres were securely protected from the daily
inroads of stray cattle. Before the fence was
up, your sister and I spent half our time in
running out with the broom to drive away
the neighbour’s cattle, and protect our
cherished cabbage plants, and the potatoes
just coming up. Two audacious steers in
particular, called Jim and Charlie, used to[91]
come many times during the day, trot round
the house, drink up every drop of soapy water
in the washing-tubs, and if any linen was
hanging on the lines to dry, would munch it
till driven away.

Two oxen and two or three cows used to
come early every morning, and cross our
clearing to fetch their friends from your
brother Charles’. We used to hear the
ox-bells, and after they had passed some time
would see them returning in triumph with
Crummie and the heifer, and after your
brother-in-law got a cow, they would go for
Dolly likewise, and then the whole party
would go off and feed together in the Bush
till night.

Fortunately, all the cattle in this part
wear bells to prevent their being lost. One
day your sister and I went to bring F——e
and the children back to tea, when suddenly
her own cow, Mistress Dolly, with[92]
a neighbour’s oxen called Blindy and Baldface,
came rushing down the path we were
in, and we had just time, warned by the
bells, to scramble out of the way with the
children and get behind some trees, while
F——e, always courageous and active, drove
them in an opposite direction.

The being able to turn the cattle (a settler’s
riches) into the Bush during the whole
summer, and thus to feed them free of all
expense, is a great boon to the settler; but
this Bush-feeding has its disadvantages, for
the cattle will sometimes stray with what
companions they gather on the road, miles
and miles away, to the great discomfort of
their masters who have to hunt for them.

All through the past summer, after his
hard day’s work, we used to see your
youngest brother pass with a rope in one
hand and his milk-pail in the other, from
our clearing into the Bush, to look for[93]
Crummie and the heifer. Sometimes he
would return with them, but much oftener
we had to go without the milk he supplied
us with, as Crummie would be heard of far
away at some distant farm, and occasionally
she and her companion strayed as far as the
Muskoka Road, many miles off, which of
course necessitated great loss of time and
much fatigue the next day in hunting her up.
Both your brothers and your brother-in-law
are excellent at making their way through
the Bush, and as each carries a pocket-compass,
are in little danger of being lost.

Just before we came here the whole settlement
had to turn out in search of a settler’s
wife, who had gone to look for her cow one
fine afternoon with two of her own children
and two of a neighbour’s, who coveted the
pleasant scrambling walk, and the chance of
berry-picking. As evening came on and they
did not return, much alarm was felt; and[94]
when the night had passed, it was thought
best to call out all the men in the immediate
neighbourhood. Accordingly twenty men
were soon mustered, headed by a skilful
trapper, who has been many years here,
and knows the Bush well. They made a
“trapper’s line,” which means placing the
men in a straight line at considerable
distances from each other, and so beating
the Bush in all directions as they advance,
shouting and firing off their guns continually.
At length, towards the afternoon, the trapper
himself came upon the poor woman and the
four children, not many miles from her home,
sitting under a tree, utterly exhausted by
hunger, fatigue, and incessant screaming for
help. Her account was, that she had found
her cow at some distance from home, had
milked her, and then tried to return, but
entirely forgot the way she came, and after
trying one opening after another became
utterly bewildered.

[95]

The forest in summer is so unvarying that
nothing is easier than to go astray. As
night came on, she divided the can of milk
among the poor, hungry, crying children, and
at length, tired out, they all slept under a
large tree, the night providentially being fine
and warm. In the morning they renewed
their fruitless efforts, getting farther and farther
astray, till at length they had sunk down
incapable of longer exertion, and unable to
stir from the spot where they were found.

I conclude this letter with remarking, that
instead of the spring which I fondly anticipated,
we burst at once from dull gloomy
weather and melting snow, to burning hot
summer and clouds of mosquitoes and flies of
all kinds.

[96]

LETTER VI.

Summer and mosquitoes! Inseparable
words in Canada, except
in the large towns, where their
attacks are hardly felt.

In the Bush, the larger the clearing the
fewer the mosquitoes. It is, above all things,
desirable to avoid building a log-house near
swampy ground, for there they will be found
in abundance.

We have four acres and a half quite clear,
but unfortunately our log-house, instead of
being placed in the middle, is at one end,
with a well-wooded hill and a portion of dense[97]
forest at the back and at one end; delicious
retreat for our enemies, from whence they
issued in myriads, tormenting us from morning
till night, and all night long.

This Egyptian plague began in the end of
May, and lasted till the end of September.
We being new-comers they were virulent in
their attacks, and we were bitten from head
to foot; in a short time we felt more like
lepers than healthy, clean people, and the
want of sleep at night was most trying to
us all, after our hard work. Our only resource
was keeping large “smudges” continually
burning in pans. These “smudges” are made
of decayed wood, called “punk,” and smoulder
and smoke without flaming.

When I went to bed at night (my only
time for reading) I used to turn a long trunk
end upwards close to my bolster, and place
a large pan of “punk” on it, so that myself
and my book were well enveloped in smoke.[98]
Many times in the night we had to renew our
pans, and from the first dawn of day the
buzzing of these hateful insects, who seem
then to acquire fresh liveliness, prevented all
chance of sleep. Nor were the mosquitoes
our only foes. Flies of all kinds swarmed
around us, and one in particular, the deer-fly,
was a long black fly frightful to look at,
from its size and ugliness. Still, as the flies
did not circle about in the air as the mosquitoes
did, we could better defend ourselves
against them.

We derived little or no benefit from the
numerous remedies recommended by different
settlers. In one only I found some
alleviation—a weak solution of carbolic acid,
which certainly deadened the irritation, and
was at least a clean remedy compared with
the “fly-oil” with which most of the settlers
besmear themselves unsparingly.

Towards the end of June I entered upon[99]
an entirely new phase of Bush-life, which was
anything but pleasant to a person of a nervous,
susceptible temperament. This was my being
in perfect solitude for many hours of every
day. Your sister-in-law expected her first
confinement, and we were so anxious that
she should have proper medical advice, that
it was thought advisable to place her in
lodgings at B——e till the important event
took place. Her brother coming to pay her
a visit entirely agreed in the necessity of the
case, and as he kindly smoothed away the
money difficulty it was carried into execution.
She could not go alone, and therefore your
eldest sister accompanied her, and thus I lost
for a time my constant and only companion.

I undertook now to keep house for both
your brothers, as in his wife’s absence Charles
could have little comfort at home. I only saw
them at meal-times, and though your eldest
brother came home always before dusk, yet[100]
I could not but be very nervous at being so
much alone.

The weather became so hot, that the stove
was moved into the open air at the back of
the house, and to save me fatigue your
brother cut a doorway at the back, close to
where the stove was placed. Unfortunately
there was a great press of work at this time,
and moreover no lumber on the premises, and
therefore no door could be made, and the
aperture, which I had nothing large enough
to block up, remained all the summer, to my
great discomfiture.

At first I was not so very solitary, for a
settler’s daughter, who had worked for your
sister-in-law, came to me three times a week,
and went on the alternate days to your sister
F——e. We liked her very well, were very
kind to her, and under our training she was
learning to be quite a good servant, when an
incident occurred which occasioned our dismissing[101]
her, which gave me great pain, and
which has never been cleared up to my satisfaction.

Our poor dog Nero, who was an excellent
guard, and quite a companion, was taken
ill, and we fancied that he had been bitten
by a snake in Charles’ beaver meadow, where
he had been with your brothers who were
hay-making. We nursed him most tenderly,
you may be sure, but he got worse and worse
suffered agonies, and in less than a week I
was obliged to consent to our old favourite
dog being shot. He was taken from my bed
well wrapped up, so that he knew nothing of
what was coming, while I walked far away
into the wood, and your brother with one
shot put the faithful animal out of his pain.
Two days before he died a large piece of
poisoned meat was found near the pathway
of our clearing, and as from before the time
of his being ill no one but this servant girl[102]
had gone backwards and forwards, as her
father had a kind of grudge against your
brother for driving his cattle off the premises,
and as she never expressed the slightest sympathy
for the poor beast, but seemed quite
pleased when he was dead, we could not but
fear that she had been made the medium of
killing him. We found that he had been
poisoned with blue vitriol, but we knew this
too late to save him.

We buried him honourably, and I planted
a circle of wild violets round his grave, and
was not ashamed to shed many tears besides,
which was a well-deserved tribute to our old
and faithful friend.

After the girl was dismissed I found more
than enough of occupation, for though your
brother made and baked the bread, which I
was not strong enough to do, yet I cooked,
washed for them, and did the house-work,
which I found sufficiently fatiguing, and was[103]
very glad after dinner to sit down to my
writing-table, which I took good care to
place so as to face the open door, never feeling
safe to have it at my back.

Your dear sister F. was so kind, that at
great inconvenience to herself, on account of
the heat and the flies in the forest, she managed
to come nearly every day at four p.m.
with the children, and remained till your
brother came back for the night.

He was occupied for many weeks in making
hay with your brother and brother-in-law
in the beaver meadow, a large one and very
productive. They make a great deal of hay,
and put it up in large cocks, but a great
deal of it was lost by rotting on the ground,
from not being carried away in proper time.
The delay was occasioned by none of us having
oxen of our own, and from not having the
means of hiring till the season was passed.

The not getting money at the proper epochs[104]
for work is the greatest drawback to the new
settler. If it comes too soon it is apt to melt
away in the necessities of daily life; if it
comes too late he must wait for another year.

I fully realised during this summer, that
solitude in the Bush is not privacy. Though
in case of any accident I was out of reach of
all human help, yet I was liable at any moment
of the day to have some passing settler
walk coolly in, and sit down in my very chair
if I had vacated it for a moment. I got one
fright which I shall not easily forget. I had
given your two brothers their breakfast, and
they had started for their hay-making in the
distant beaver meadow. I had washed up
the breakfast-things, cleared everything away,
and was arranging my hair in the glass hanging
in the bed-place, the curtain of which was
undrawn on account of the heat. My parting
look in the glass disclosed a not very prepossessing
face in the doorway behind, belonging[105]
to a man who stood there immovable as a
statue, and evidently enjoying my discomfiture.

I greeted him with a scream, which was
almost a yell, and advanced pale as a ghost,
having the agreeable sensation of all the
blood in my body running down to my toes!
His salutation was:

“Wall, I guess I’ve skeered you some!”

“Yes!” I replied, “you startled me very
much.”

He then came in and sat down. I sat
down too, and we fell into quite an easy flow
of talk about the weather, the crops, etc.

How devoutly I wished him anywhere else,
and how ill I felt after my fright, I need not
say, but I flatter myself that nothing of this
appeared on the surface; all was courtesy and
politeness.

At length he went way, and finding your
brother in the beaver meadow, took care to[106]
inform him that he “had had quite a pleasant
chat with his old woman!”

I knew this man by sight, for once in the
early part of the summer he came to inquire
where Charles lived? On my pointing out
the path, and saying in my politest manner,

“You will have no difficulty, sir, in finding
Mr. C. K.’s clearing,” he coolly replied:

“I guess I shall find it; I knows your son
well; we always calls him Charlie!”

I had visitors during the summer, who were
much more welcome. Two nice intelligent
little boys with bare feet and shining faces,
the children of an American from the
“States,” settled in the Muskoka Road, used
to come twice a week with milk, eggs, and
baskets of the delicious wild raspberry at five
cents a quart. While they were resting and
refreshing themselves with cold tea and
bread-and-butter we used to have quite pleasant
conversations. They were very confidential,[107]
told me how anxiously they were
expecting a grandmother, of whom they were
very fond, and who was coming to live with
them; of their progress and prizes in the
Sunday-school some miles from here, which
they regularly attended; of their garden and
of many other little family matters; and when
I gave them some story-books for children,
and little tracts, they informed me that they
would be kept for Sunday reading. They
never failed, with the things they brought for
sale, to bring me as a present a bunch of beautiful
sweet-peas and mignonette, and occasionally
a scarlet gladiolus.

When they were gone I used to sit down
to my letter-writing; and after all my grubbing
and house-work, I felt quite elevated in the
social scale to have a beautiful bouquet on my
writing-table, which I took care to arrange
with a background of delicate fern leaves and
dark, slender sprigs of the ground-hemlock.[108]
The very smell of the flowers reminded me
of my beloved transatlantic home, with its
wealth of beautiful plants and flowering
shrubs, and every room decorated with vases
of lovely flowers which I passed some delicious
morning hours in collecting and
arranging.

When the fruit season had passed, I lost
my little visitors, but was painfully reminded
of them at the beginning of the winter.
Your brother-in-law was called upon, in the
absence of the clergyman, to read the burial
service over an old lady who had died suddenly
in the settlement. This was the
grandmother of my poor little friends. She
had always expressed a wish to spend her
last days with her daughter in Muskoka, but
put off her journey from the “States” till
the weather was so severe that she suffered
much while travelling, and arrived with a
very bad cold. The second morning after[109]
her arrival she was found dead in her
bed.

I remained all the summer strictly a
prisoner at home. The not being able to
shut up the log-house for want of the second
door of course prevented my leaving home,
even for an hour; for the Bush is not
Arcadia, and however primitive the manners
and customs may be, I have failed to recognise
primitive innocence among its inhabitants.

As to the berry-picking, which is the
favourite summer amusement here, I would
sooner have gone without fruit than have
ventured into the swamps and beaver meadows,
where the raspberries, huckleberries,
and cranberries abound. My fear of snakes
was too overpowering. Charles killed this
summer no less than seven; and though we
are told that in this part of Canada they are
perfectly innocuous, yet your brother pointed[110]
out that three out of the seven he killed had
the flat conformation of head which betokens
a venomous species.

In the meantime our news from B——e
was not too good. After a residence in the
lodgings of five weeks, your sister-in-law had
been confined of a dear little boy, and at first
all had gone well, but after a week she became
very ill, and also the baby; and as he
had to be brought up by hand, and there was
great difficulty in getting pure, unmixed milk
in B——e, it was thought better, when he
was five weeks old, to bring the whole party
back. That memorable journey must be reserved
for another letter.

I noticed this summer many times the
curious appearance of our clearing by moonlight.
In the day the stumps stood out in all
their naked deformity, as we had no “crops
of golden grain” to hide them; but at night
I never beheld anything more weird and[111]
ghostly. The trees being mostly chopped in
the winter, with deep snow on the ground,
the stumps are left quite tall, varying from
five to seven feet in height. When these are
blackened by the burning, which runs all
over the clearing, they present in the dim
light the appearance of so many spectres. I
could almost fancy myself in the cemetery in
the Dunkirk Road, near Calais, and that the
blackened stumps were hideous black crosses
which the French are so fond of erecting in
their churchyards.

They have in America a machine called a
“stump-extractor;” but this is very expensive.
By the decay of nature, it is possible,
in two or three years, to drag out the stumps
of trees with oxen; but the pine stumps
never decay under seven or eight years, and
during all that time are a perpetual blot on
the beauty of the landscape.

I was much interested in a sight, novel to[112]
me, namely, the fire-flies flitting about in the
tops of the tall trees. They seemed like so many
glittering stars, moving so fast that the sight
became quite dazzled. In the cold weather,
too, the aurora borealis is most beautiful;
and it is well worth being a little chilly to
stand out and watch the soft tints melting
one into the other, and slowly vanishing
away. But for these occasional glimpses of
beauty and sublimity, I should indeed have
found existence in the Bush intolerably
prosaic.

I very much missed the flocks of birds I
was accustomed to in Europe; but as I
always forbade any gun being fired off in
my clearing, I soon made acquaintance with
some. It was a treat to me to watch two
audacious woodpeckers, who would come and
nibble at my stumps, and let me stand within
a few feet of them without the least fear.
There was also a pretty snow-bird, which[113]
knew me so well that it would wait till I
threw out crumbs and bits of potato for it;
and once, when we had some meat hanging
in a bag on the side of the house, which your
brother tied up tightly to prevent depredation,
this sagacious creature perched on the
shed near, and actually looked me into untying
the bag, and pulling partly out a piece
of the pork, upon which it set to work with
such goodwill, that in a few days some
ounces of fat had disappeared.

[114]

LETTER VII.

All journeys to and from the Bush
are prosecuted under such difficulties,
that it is very fortunate
they are few and far between. Indeed, few
of the better class of settlers would remain,
but for the near prospect of Government
granting roads in the township, and the
more distant one of the different companies
for buying the pine-wood bridging over the
deep gullies on the lots to facilitate their
taking away the timber. When one of the
expectant members for Muskoka paid us, in
the course of the summer, an election visit,[115]
this was the point on which we mainly
insisted. Our courteous visitor promised
everything; but as his subsequent election
was declared null and void, we have as yet
reaped no benefit from his promises.

Towards the end of August, I was compelled
to pay my half-yearly visit to B——e,
for the purpose of getting my pension-lists
signed and duly forwarded. Your brother
likewise had to take in two settlers in the
vicinity, to swear off some land before taking
it up. At first we thought of making
our way to the post-office, three miles off,
and from thence taking places in the mail-cart;
but as we had to take in our settlers,
and to pay all their expenses to and from
B——e, your brother thought it best to send
to the town for a wagon and team expressly
for ourselves. This arrived; but, alas! in
the afternoon instead of the morning, which
had been specially mentioned.

[116]

On this day we fully proved the glorious
uncertainty of the Canadian climate. The
morning had been lovely, but towards three
p.m. a soft, drizzling rain began to fall,
which increased in volume and power till it
became a drenching torrent.

Your brother-in-law took charge of me,
and assisted me in scrambling over the different
gullies; but by the time I considered
it safe to get into the wagon, I was already
wet through. The horses were so tired,
having come from a distant journey, that we
travelled very slowly, and it was dark when
we drew up at the half-way house, where
we were to have tea and to rest the poor
animals. Here we remained for two hours;
and when we again started it was pitch dark,
with torrents of rain still falling, and the
addition of occasional peals of thunder and
flashes of lightning.

I have heard and read much of the tropical[117]
rains of India and other southern countries,
but it would be impossible to imagine a more
persistent drenching than we got on this
unlucky afternoon. The whole eight miles
from the half-way house the horses could
only walk very slowly, the night being unusually
dark. We greatly need in this
country such a law as they have in France,
where it is enacted, under a heavy penalty,
that no carriage, cart, or wagon shall travel
after dark without carrying a good and sufficient
light to prevent dangerous collisions.
I should have been very nervous but for my
implicit faith in the sagacity of the horses,
and the great care of the driver, whom we
only knew under his sobriquet of “Canadian
Joe.” He was a quiet, careful man, a French
Canadian, who beguiled the way by singing
very sweetly, and with whom it was pleasant
to converse in the language we loved so well.
He took us safely into B——e, with the addition[118]
to our party of two travellers we overtook
on the road, and upon whom we had
compassion.

When we got in, the hotel was about
closing for the night; the fires were out, and
the landlady had gone to bed ill; but the
master bestirred himself, showed me to a
comfortable bedroom, and made me some
negus, which your brother, himself wet to
the skin, soon brought me, and which at
least warmed me a little after so many hours
of exposure to cold and wet.

The next morning, as soon as we could
get into thoroughly-dried clothes, we went
to see our invalids. Your poor sister-in-law
was still suffering much, but her dear baby
(a very minute specimen of humanity) was
improving, and, after more than two months’
absence, I was thankful to see your sister
only looking very pale, and not, as I expected,
utterly worn out by her arduous[119]
duties and compulsory vigils and anxieties.
Your brother was obliged to return to the
Bush on Saturday; but I remained to come
home with your sister and sister-in-law the
next week.

In the meantime, having been to the
magistrate’s office and transacted all our
business, I greatly enjoyed with your brother
walking about the neighbourhood. It was,
indeed, a treat to walk on a good road, and
to see signs of life and progress everywhere,
instead of the silent monotony of the forest.

We noticed an amazing change for the
better in this “rising village of the Far West,”
which we had not seen for six months. The
hotels and stores seemed to have quadrupled
themselves, good frame-houses were springing
up in every direction, and a very pretty
little church, since opened for Church of
England service, was nearly finished. These
lumber-houses are very ugly at first, on account[120]
of the yellow hue of the wood; but
this is soon toned down by exposure to the
weather, and climbing-plants and pretty
gardens soon alter their appearance, and
make them picturesque.

The dull, primitive life of the Bush certainly
prepares one to be pleased with trifles.
I revelled like a child in the unwonted stir
and hum of life about me, and felt half
ashamed of the intense amusement I derived
from the lordly airs of an old gander, who
marshalled his flock of geese up and down
the road all day long. I felt quite angry
with a young man at the breakfast-table of
the hotel, who complained loudly that this
old gentleman’s cackling and hissing had
kept him awake all night. I too, in the intervals
of sleep, had heard the same sound,
but to me it was sweet music.

On Sunday morning I had a treat for
which I was quite unprepared. The Rev.[121]
Morley Punshon, head of the Wesleyan
Methodist Church in Canada, came to
B——e, to lecture on the “Life and Writings
of Lord Macaulay.” On Sunday morning he
preached in the open air, to accommodate the
many who could not have found room in the
Wesleyan Chapel. A little secluded dell,
some distance from the main road, was
thoroughly cleared of wood and underbrush,
and rough benches were placed in profusion
for seats. I was astonished at the numbers
assembled—six hundred I was afterwards
told. After the benches were full, the hill-sides
were densely packed; and it was impossible
not to go back in thought to the
Scotch Covenanters and the heathery hills,
so often sprinkled with their blood. All here
was calm and peaceful; it was a lovely Sabbath
morning, the air indescribably balmy
and fragrant, the service very simple and
impressive, the singing singularly sweet, and[122]
the discourse delivered by the gifted minister
full of fervid eloquence.

He preached from Psalm xlii. 4. My
feelings nearly overcame me; it was the
very first time since I left England that I
had had the opportunity of publicly joining
in worship with my fellow-Christians; and it
appeared to me a matter of very small importance
that most of those present were
Wesleyans, while I was Church of England.
The lecture on “Macaulay” was duly delivered
the next day, and was much liked;
but I did not go, preferring to pass the time
with our poor invalid.

On Tuesday, September 2nd, your brother
Charles came in and made arrangements to
take his wife, child, and your sister, back on
the following day. I made up my mind to
go back with them, and again we took care
to secure Canadian Joe and his team. It
was a perilous journey for one in so much[123]
physical suffering, but it was admirably
managed. We laid a soft mattress in the
bottom of the wagon, with plenty of pillows,
and on this we placed your sister-in-law with
the baby by her side. Charles sat with them
to keep all steady; your sister and I sat with
the driver. Canadian Joe surpassed himself
in the care he took of the invalid; every bad
piece of road he came to he walked his horses
quite softly, looking back at Charles with a
warning shake of the head, as much as to
say, “Take care of her now!”

We travelled slowly, but by his great care
arrived safely, and at the cleared farm
nearest to mine we were met by your brother
and brother-in-law, who had skilfully arranged
a ship’s hammock on a pole, and
made of it a very tolerable palanquin. Into
this your sister-in-law was carefully lifted,
and two of the gentlemen carried her, the
third relieving them at intervals. They got[124]
her safely over all the gullies, and carried her
past my log-house to her own home, where
she was at once put to bed, and in a very
few days began to recover. Your sister and
I took charge of the dear little baby, and
after a most fatiguing walk and much
dangerous scrambling with such a precious
load, we got him safely here, where he has
remained our cherished nursling ever since,
and has thriven well. His dear young
mother, having quite recovered, comes every
day to be with her little treasure.

We only just arrived in time; the rain
began again and continued for some days.
We had much trouble with the rain drifting
in through the clap-boards of the roof.
What would Mr. Punch have said could he
have seen two ladies in bed with a baby between
them, and a large umbrella fixed at the
head of the bed to save them from the roof-drippings!

[125]

We had two visits this autumn from which
we derived much pleasure. One from our
old friend C. W., and one from a friend and
connection of your sister-in-law’s family, her
eldest brother having married one of his
sisters. H. L. was quite an addition to our
working party. More than six feet high,
strong and active, he fraternised at once with
your brothers, and cheerfully helped them in
their daily labours. Your brother hired a
team of oxen for some days, and had the remaining
trees lying in our clearing logged
up, and watched for the first fine dry day to
complete the burning begun in spring. Our
two young friends assisted him in his labours,
and they managed so well that the regular
day’s work was not interfered with. Every
evening they set fire to some of the log-heaps,
and diligently “branded” them up
till they were reduced to ashes. As we
could not admit our friends into the house[126]
after a certain hour in the evening, and as
their vigils extended far into the night, your
brother used to provide the party with
plenty of potatoes, which they roasted in the
ashes and ate with butter and salt, with a
large pot of coffee and an unlimited supply of
tobacco—they being all inveterate smokers.
As they had all fine voices and sang well
together, the gipsy party was not a dull one,
and the forest echoed with their favourite
songs. Fortunately there was no one in our
solitary neighbourhood to be disturbed from
their slumbers, and provided they did not
wake the baby, we rather enjoyed the unwonted
noise, knowing how much they were
enjoying themselves. Perhaps the most
amusing time of all was the Saturday afternoon,
when what we ladies called the “Jew
trading” invariably took place. I really
think that every article belonging to our
young men changed hands at these times,[127]
and the amusing manner in which the stores
of each were laid out for public admiration
and regularly haggled for, cannot be forgotten.
In this manner your eldest brother’s
celebrated chassepot gun, picked up on the field
of Sedan, gave place to a Colt’s revolver and
a small fowling-piece; his heavy gold seal (a
much-coveted article) took the more useful
form of corduroy trousers and heavy boots;
in like manner both your brothers gladly
bartered their fine dress shirts, and handkerchiefs,
and satin ties, for coarser garments
better fitted for the Bush, of which both C.
W. and H. L. had a good stock now quite
useless to them, as neither could make up
his mind to a Bush life. These amusing
transfers of property came to a close at last,
after some weeks of incessant trafficking, with
your brother’s solemnly asking my permission
to hand over to H. L., as a make-weight in
the scale, a large woollen comforter which I[128]
had knitted for him. Some of the bartering
went on at “Pioneer Cottage,” your brother
Charles’ place, a name most appropriately
given, as he was the first of our party in the
settlement. I called my log-house “Cedar
Lodge” at first, and headed some of my
letters to England with that elegant name,
understanding that I was the happy owner
of a number of cedar trees, but finding that
my riches in cedar consisted in a small
portion only of a dirty cedar-swamp, from
which not one tree fit for building could be
extracted, I dropped the grandiloquent nomenclature,
and simply put for heading to
my letters, “The Bush—Muskoka.”

We felt quite dull when our friends left,
but they correspond with both your brothers,
and H. L. is not far from us, having married
and settled at Toronto.

A very grave subject of consideration has
arisen among us on the subject of domestic[129]
servants. Should any providential improvement
in our circumstances take place, or our
farms become even moderately thriving, we
should certainly once more require these
social incumbrances, but where to find them
would be a question. Certainly not in the
settlement to which we belong. Not one of
the ladies in our three families has a special
vocation for cooking and house-tidying,
though all have done it since we came here
without complaint, and have done it well.
Indeed, a most respectable settler, who, with
other men and a team of oxen, was working
for some days on our land to help your
brother, remarked to his wife that he was
quite astonished that a young lady (meaning
your eldest sister), evidently unaccustomed
to hard work, could do so much and could do
it so well. He had noticed how comfortably
all the different meals had been prepared and
arranged. Your sister F——e too, in spite[130]
of the hindrance of three little children, has
always given great satisfaction to the workmen
employed by her husband. We should
of course hail the day when we could have
the help in all household matters we formerly
enjoyed; but we must surely seek for it at a
distance from here.

The children of the settlers, both boys and
girls, know well that on attaining the age of
eighteen years, they can each claim and take
up from Government a free grant of one
hundred acres. They naturally feel their
incipient independence and their individual
interest in the country, and this makes them
less inclined to submit to the few restrictions
of servitude still sanctioned by common sense
and general observance. They serve their
temporary masters and mistresses under protest
as it were, and are most unwilling to
acknowledge their title to these obnoxious
names. They consider it their undoubted[131]
right to be on a footing of perfect equality
with every member of the family, and have
no inclination whatever to “sit below the
salt.”

When your sister-in-law returned from
Bracebridge, her health was for some time
too delicate for her to do any hard work, and
we, having charge of the baby, could give her
no assistance. Your brother Charles looked
about the settlement for a respectable girl as
a servant. He found one in every way suitable,
about sixteen, and apparently healthy,
strong, willing, and tolerably competent. He
liked her appearance, and engaged her at the
wages she asked. She entered upon her
place, did her work well, and gave entire
satisfaction. Everything was done to make
her comfortable, even to the extent of giving
her the whole Sunday to herself, as she was
in the habit of attending the church some
miles off and also the Sunday-school. In[132]
little more than a week she suddenly left,
assigning no reason but that she was “wanted
at home,” which we knew to be a falsehood,
as she had two or three sisters capable of
assisting her mother. We were greatly
puzzled to find out her true reason for
leaving. After a time it was made clear to
us by a trustworthy person who had it from
the family themselves. The young lady had
found it intolerably dull, and it was further
explained to us that no settler would allow
his daughter to be in service where she was
not allowed to sit at the same table with the
family, and to join freely in the conversation
at all times!

[133]

LETTER VIII.

I begin this letter with a few
observations in support of my oft-repeated
assertion that poor ladies
and gentlemen form the worst, or at least the
most unsuccessful, class for emigration to
Canada. I must give you a slight sketch
of the class of settlers we have here, and
of the conditions they must fulfil before
they can hope to be in easy circumstances,
much less in affluent ones. Of course I
am speaking of settlers from the “old
country,” and not of Canadians born who
sometimes find their way from the front[134]
to try their fortunes in the backwoods. The
settlers in this neighbourhood, for a circuit of
about eight miles, are all of the lower classes;
weavers from Scotland, agricultural labourers
from England, artisans and mechanics from
all parts. Whatever small sum of money
a family of this class can collect with a view
to emigration, very little of it is spent in
coming over. They are invariably steerage
passengers, and on landing at Quebec are
forwarded, free of all expense, and well provided
for on the road, by the Emigration
Society, to the part where they intend
settling. Say that they come to the free-grant
lands of Muskoka. The intending
settler goes before the commissioner of
crown-lands, and (if a single man) takes up
a lot of a hundred acres; if married and
with children, he can claim another lot as
“head of a family.” He finds the conditions
of his tenure specified on the paper he signs,[135]
and sees that it will be five years before he
can have his patent, and then only if he has
cleared fifteen acres, and has likewise built
thereon a log-house of certain dimensions.
He pays some one a dollar to point out his
lot, and to take him over it, and then selecting
the best site, and with what assistance he
can get from his neighbours, he clears a small
patch of ground and builds a shanty. In the
meantime, if he have a wife and family they
are lodged and boarded for a very small sum
at some near neighbour’s. When he and his
family have taken possession, he underbrushes
and chops as much as he possibly can
before the winter sets in; but on the first
approach of the cold weather he starts for
the lumber-shanties, and engages himself to
work there, receiving from twenty to twenty-five
dollars a month and his food. Should he
be of any particular trade he goes to some large
town, and is tolerably sure of employment.

[136]

It is certainly a very hard and anxious life
for the wife and children, left to shift for
themselves throughout the long dreary
winter, too often on a very slender provision
of flour and potatoes and little else.

When spring at last comes, the steady,
hard-working settler returns with quite a
little sum of money wherewith to commence
his own farming operations. One of the
most respectable and thriving settlers near
us is a man who began life as a sturdy
Kentish ploughboy. He is now an elderly
man with a very large family and a good
farm. He has thirty acres well cleared and
under cultivation, has thirteen head of cattle
and some fine pigs, has the best barn in the
place, and has just removed his family into a
large commodious plank house, with many
rooms and a very fine cellar, built entirely at
odd times by himself and his son, a steady,
clever lad of eighteen.

[137]

This man for several years has gone at the
beginning of the winter to one of the hotels
in Bracebridge, where he acts as “stable-boy,”
and makes a great deal of money
besides his food, which, in such a place, is
of the best. He could very well now remain
at home, and reap the reward of his thrift
and industry, but prefers going on for a year
or two longer, while he still has health and
strength.

Now it is obvious that ladies and gentlemen
have not, and cannot have these advantages.
The ladies of a family cannot be
left unprotected during the long winter, and
indeed are, for the most part, physically incapable
of chopping fire-wood, drawing water,
and doing other hard outdoor work; I speak
particularly of poor ladies and gentlemen.
Should people of ample means choose to encounter
the inevitable privations of the
Bush, there are of course few which[138]
cannot be at least alleviated by a judicious
expenditure of money.

It may well be asked here, who is there
with ample means who would dream of
coming to Muskoka? I answer boldly, none
but those who are entirely ignorant of the
miseries of Bush life, or those who have
been purposely misled by designing and interested
people.

Here the settlers’ wives and daughters
work almost as hard as their husbands
and fathers—log, burn, plant, and dig;
and, in some instances, with the work
adopt the habits of men, and smoke and
chew tobacco to a considerable extent.
This, I am happy to say, is not the case
with all, nor even, I hope, with the majority;
but nearly all the women, long before attaining
middle age, look prematurely worn
and faded, and many of the settlers themselves
bear in their faces the unmistakable[139]
signs of hard work, scanty food, and a perpetual
struggle for existence.

I have not yet mentioned the subject of
wild beasts, but I may truly say that ever
since I came out here, they have been a complete
bugbear to me, and my dread of them
is still unconquerable. I have been much
laughed at for my fears, but as it is well-known
that there are wild animals in the
recesses of these woods, and as they do
sometimes show themselves without being
sought for, I cannot consider my fears
groundless.

I have been told by one settler, who has
been here for many years, and has often
“camped out” all night in the woods, that
he has never seen anything “worse than
himself;” but another settler, the trapper
mentioned in a former letter, kills some wild
animals every year, and two or three times
he has been met going over our lots in[140]
search of some bear or lynx which had escaped
him.

We are told that when the clearings are
larger, and more animals kept, especially
pigs, that our visits from Bruin at least
will be more frequent; and since your
brother Charles, some months ago, got two
fine pigs, he has repeatedly found bear-tracks
in his beaver meadow, and even close
up to the fence of his clearing. To say the
least of it, the pleasure of a solitary walk is
greatly impaired by the vague terror of a
stray bear confronting you on the pathway,
or of a spiteful lynx dropping down upon
your shoulders from the branch of a tree.

The morning before H. L. left us for
Toronto, he went to the post-office, but
before he got to the end of our clearing, he
saw at some distance a grey animal, which
at first he took to be a neighbour’s dog; long
before he got up to it, it cleared the fence at[141]
one bound, and vanished into the Bush.
He thought this odd, but went on; returning
in the twilight he was greatly astonished to
see the same animal again in the clearing,
and this time he might have had a good shot
at it, but unfortunately he was encumbered
with a can of milk, which he had good-naturedly
brought for me, and before he
could bring his gun to bear upon it, the
creature was again in the depths of the
Bush.

Much conversation ensued about it; some
thought it must have been a chance wolf, but
Charles, whose opinion we all looked to, was
more inclined to the idea of its being a grey
fox; he hardly thought that any other wild
animal would have come so fearlessly into
the clearing.

H. L. went to Toronto, and in a few days
your brother received a letter from him
saying that he had just seen a lynx newly[142]
killed which had been brought into the town,
and that in colour, shape, and size, it exactly
resembled the animal he had seen in my
clearing. It has since been supposed that
this might be the lynx the trapper said he
was tracking when he passed near here in
the spring.

I have often spoken of the broad deep
gully at the end of my lot near the “concession”
road. We had an old negro located
on the strip of land between for more than
five weeks. One fearfully cold day last
winter, during a heavy snow-storm, your
brother Charles came upon the poor old man
“camping” for the night on the road near
here. He talked to him a little, gave him
all the small change he happened to have
about him, and coming home and telling us,
we made a small collection, which with a loaf
of bread, he took to the old man next morning
before he went away.

[143]

Before the close of this autumn, Charles
again met his old acquaintance, looking more
ragged and feeble than ever. He had with
him only his axe and a small bundle. He
said that he was making his way to a lot
which he had taken up eight miles off, where
he was going to locate himself and remain.
He spoke too of having friends in the front
who would give him some assistance, and at
least send him some flour.

Again he camped out for the night, and
we held a family consultation about him.
Your brothers proposed going with him to
his lot, and helping him to build his shanty.
They talked of taking provisions and being
out for some days. They also spoke of
taking him food twice a week during the
winter for fear he should starve, as he
complained that his neighbours were very
unkind to him, and did not want him located
among them.

[144]

We all loudly protested against this plan
as being altogether quixotic, and reminded
them that to carry out their plan they must
periodically neglect their own work, leave us
alone, and run the risk of being often
weather-bound, thus causing injury to their
own health, and much alarm to us. We
suggested an expedient, to let poor Jake
settle himself near my gully for the winter;
your brothers to build him a shanty there,
and to take him every day sufficient warm
food to make him comfortable. Charles
promised to join with us in giving him so
much bread and potatoes every week. I
paid one visit to the old negro, whom I
found dirty, and with only one eye, yet not
at all repulsive-looking, as he had a very
pleasant countenance, and talked well and
intelligently.

He agreed to our plan, and your brothers
soon raised the logs of a good shanty, and[145]
till it was completed he built himself a wigwam,
Indian fashion, which he made very
warm and comfortable. We told him also
that if he liked to make a small clearing
round his shanty, we would pay him for his
chopping when he left. The winter soon
came, and the snow began to fall. The
first very frosty night made us anxious
about our old pensioner, and your brother
went to him early the next morning with a
can of hot tea for his breakfast. What was
his astonishment when he crossed the gully
to hear loud voices in Jake’s little encampment.

On reaching it he asked the old man who
was with him. He significantly pointed to
the wigwam, from which a woman’s voice
called out:

“Yes! I’m here, and I’ve got the hagur!”
(ague).

A few minutes afterwards the owner of[146]
the voice issued from the hut, in the person
of a stout, bold-looking, middle-aged woman,
(white), who evidently considered old Jake,
his shanty, his wigwam, and all his effects,
as her own undoubted property. We found
that this was the “Mary” of whom Jake
had spoken as being the person with whom
he had boarded and lodged in the front, and
who had found him out here. In the course
of the day both your brothers paid the old
man a visit, and signified to him that it
would be as well if he and his companion
took their departure, as we knew he was not
married to her, and we had a wholesome
dread of five children, whom Jake had incidentally
mentioned, following in the wake of
their mother.

We gave them leave, however, to remain
till the Monday following, as we did not
wish to drive any one out precipitately who
was suffering from the “hagur.” Till they[147]
went, we supplied them with provisions.
On the following Monday they departed.
Your brothers gave poor Jake two dollars
for the little bit of chopping he had done,
and we gave him some bread, coffee, and
potatoes, as provisions for his journey.
Your brothers saw him and Mary off with
all their bundles, and returned home, leaving
my gully as silent and solitary as ever.

We heard afterwards that Jake did not go
to his own lot, as he seemed to intend, but
was seen with his companion making his way
to the main road out of the Bush. A settler
overtook them, and told us they were
quarrelling violently for the possession of a
warm quilted French counterpane, which we
had lent to old Jake to keep him warm in
his wigwam, and had allowed him to take
away.

We were disappointed this year in not
having a visit from the old colporteur of[148]
Parry’s Sound. He came last year during
a heavy storm of snow, with a large pack of
cheap Bibles and Testaments, and told us he
was an agent for the Wesleyan Society, and
had orders to distribute gratis where there
was really no means of paying. In answer
to some remark of mine, he said that “the
Bible must always follow the axe.”

I recognised more than ever, how, by the
meanest and weakest instruments, God
works out His mighty designs. This poor
man was verging towards the decline of life;
had a hollow cough, and was in frame very
feeble and fragile, yet he was full of zeal,
travelled incessantly, and dispensed numbers
of copies of the Word of God as he passed
from settlement to settlement. I bought
two New Testaments for eight cents each,
well printed, and strongly bound.

I am at work occasionally at my pleasant
task of recording Bush reminiscences. My[149]
labours have at least kept me from vain and
fruitless regrets and repinings.

“Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate!”
How often have I repeated these dismal
words to myself since I came into the Bush,
and felt them to be the knell of hope and
happiness! But time flies whether in joy or
sorrow. We are now in the middle of our
second winter, those dreadful winters of close
imprisonment, which last for nearly seven
months, and which your sister and I both
agree, form the severest trial of Bush life.
My aspirations, in former years, were manifold;
but were I asked now what were the
three absolute essentials for human happiness,
I should be tempted to reply, “Roads
to walk upon, a church to worship in, and a
doctor within reach in case of necessity!”
All these are wanting in the Bush; but as
we have incessant daily occupation, an extensive
correspondence, and as providentially[150]
we brought out all our stock of cherished
books, we manage to live on without too
much complaining.

Your brother Charles is doing pretty well,
and hopes to bring his few animals safely
through the winter. Your brother-in-law
also is making progress, and is expecting
from England a partner (a young relation of
his own) whose coming will probably insure
him success. We remain just as we were,
striving, struggling, and hoping against
hope, that success may yet crown our endeavours.
Our farm stock is easily counted,
and easily taken care of: your brother’s dog,
with three very fat puppies; my pretty cat
“Tibbs,” with her little son “Hodge,” and
a magnificent tom puss, whose real home is
at “Pioneer Cottage,” but who, being of
social habits and having a general invitation,
does me the honour to eat, drink, and
sleep here.

[151]

My sketches of Bush life are an occupation
and an amusement to me, but I can truly
say that they very faintly portray our sufferings
and our privations.

[152]

[153]

LETTERS FROM AN EMIGRANT LADY.

Part II.

WRITTEN TWO YEARS AFTERWARDS.

[154]

[155]

LETTERS FROM AN EMIGRANT LADY.
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[156]
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[157]
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[158]
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[159]
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[160]
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[161]
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.

[162]

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[163]
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:

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[164]
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![165]
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;[166]
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[167]
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[168]
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[169]
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[170]
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.

[171]

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[172]
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[173]
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[174]
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[175]
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[176]
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[177]
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[178]
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[179]
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[180]
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[181]
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.

[182]

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[183]
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[184]
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.[185]
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.

[186]

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.

[187]

A WEDDING IN MUSKOKA.

An Incident of Life in the Canadian Backwoods.

[188]

[189]

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[190]
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[191]
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[192]
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[193]
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[194]
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[195]
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[196]
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.

[197]

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,[198]
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,[199]
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[200]
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[201]
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[202]
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[203]
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[204]
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.

[205]

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[206]
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.[207]
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[208]
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[209]
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[210]
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[211]
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,[212]
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[213]
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[214]
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[215]
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[216]
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[217]
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[218]
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,[219]
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[220]
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[221]
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,[222]
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.[223]
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[224]
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.

[225]

“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[226]
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[227]
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[228]
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[229]
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[230]
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[231]
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.

[232]

[233]

ANECDOTES OF THE CANADIAN BUSH,
THIRTY YEARS AGO.

TOLD ME BY THE WIFE OF AN OLD SETTLER.

[234]

[235]

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[236]
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[237]
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.

[238]

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[239]
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[240]
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[241]
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[242]
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[243]
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[244]
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[245]
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;[246]
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[247]
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[248]
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[249]
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[250]
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[251]
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[252]
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[253]
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[254]
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[255]
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[256]
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[257]
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[258]
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[259]
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.”

[260]

[261]

TERRA INCOGNITA;

OR,

THE WILDS OF MUSKOKA.

[262]

[263]

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.[264]
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[265]
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.

[266]

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[267]
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.

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[269]
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[270]
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[271]
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[272]
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[273]
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[274]
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[275]
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,[276]
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,[277]
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.

[278]

[279]

A PLEA FOR POOR EMIGRANTS.

[280]

[281]

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[282]
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[283]
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[284]
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.

[285]

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[286]
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[287]
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[288]
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[289]
consideration, and I cannot end my few observations
better than with the refrain of a
deservedly popular song:

THE END.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SURREY.

S. &. H.