Canadian Crusoes

C >> Catherine Parr Traill >> Canadian Crusoes

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The long-continued hollow tapping of the large red-headed woodpecker, or
the singular subterranean sound caused by the drumming of the partridge,
striking his wings upon his breast to woo his gentle mate, and the soft
whispering note of the little tree-creeper, as it flitted from one hemlock
to another, collecting its food between the fissures of the bark, were
among the few sounds that broke the noontide stillness of the woods; but
to all such sights and sounds the lively Catharine and her cousin were
not indifferent. And often they wondered, that Hector gravely pursued his
onward way, and seldom lingered as they did to mark the bright colours of
the flowers, or the bright sparkling of the forest rill.

"What makes Hec so grave?" said Catharine to her companion, as they seated
themselves upon a mossy trunk, to await his coming up, for they had giddily
chased each other till they had far outrun him.

"Hector, sweet coz, is thinking perhaps of how many bushels of corn or
wheat this land would grow if cleared, or he may be examining the soil or
the trees, or is looking for his stick of blue-beech for your broom, or the
hiccory for his axe handle, and never heeding such nonsense as woodpeckers
and squirrels, and lilies and moss and ferns, for Hector is not a giddy
thing like his cousin Louis, or--"

"His sister Kate," interrupted Catharine, merrily; "but when shall we come
to the Beaver Meadow?"

"Patience, ma belle, all in good time. Hark, was not that the ox-bell? No;
Hector whistling." And soon they heard the heavy stroke of his axe ringing
among the trees, for he had found the blue-beech, and was cutting it to
leave on the path, that he might take it home on their return; he had also
marked some hiccory of a nice size for his axe handles, to bring home
at some future time.

The children had walked several miles, and were not sorry to sit down and
rest till Hector joined them. He was well pleased with his success, and
declared he felt no fatigue. "As soon as we reach the old Indian clearing,
we shall find strawberries," he said, "and a fresh cold spring, and then we
will have our dinners."

"Come, Hector,--come, Louis," said Catharine, jumping up, "I long to be
gathering the strawberries; and see, my flowers are faded, so I will throw
them away, and the basket shall be filled with fresh fruit instead, and we
must not forget petite Marie and sick Louise, or dear Mathilde. Ah, how I
wish she were here at this minute! But here is the opening to the Beaver
Meadow."

And the sunlight was seen streaming through the opening trees as they
approached the cleared space, which some called the "Indian clearing," but
is now more generally known as the little Beaver Meadow. It was a pleasant
spot, green, and surrounded with light bowery trees and flowering shrubs,
of a different growth from those that belong to the dense forest. Here the
children found, on the hilly ground above, fine ripe strawberries, the
earliest they had seen that year, and soon all weariness was forgotten
while pursuing the delightful occupation of gathering the tempting fruit;
and when they had refreshed themselves, and filled the basket with leaves
and fruit, they slaked their thirst from the stream, which wound its way
among the bushes. Catharine neglected not to reach down flowery bunches of
the fragrant white-thorn and of the high-bush cranberry, then radiant with
nodding umbels of snowy blossoms, or to wreath the handle of the little
basket with the graceful trailing runners of the lovely twin-flowered
plant, the Linnaea borealis, which she always said reminded her of the
twins, Louise and Marie, her little cousins. And now the day began to wear
away, for they had lingered long in the little clearing; they had wandered
from the path by which they entered it; and had neglected, in their
eagerness to look for the strawberries, to notice any particular mark by
which they might regain it. Just when they began to think of returning,
Louis noticed a beaten path, where there seemed recent prints of cattle
hoofs on a soft spongy soil beyond the creek.

"Come, Hector," said he gaily, "this is lucky; we are on the cattle path;
no fear but it will lead us directly home, and that by a nearer track."

Hector was undecided about following it, he fancied it bent too much
towards the setting sun; but his cousin overruled his objection. "And is
not this our own creek?" he said: "I have often heard my father say it had
its rise somewhere about this old clearing."

Hector now thought Louis might be right, and they boldly followed the path
among the poplars and thorns and bushes that clothed its banks, surprised
to see how open the ground became, and how swift and clear the stream swept
onward.

"Oh, this dear creek," cried the delighted Catharine, "how pretty it is! I
shall often follow its course after this; no doubt it has its source from
our own Cold Springs."

And so they cheerfully pursued their way, till the sun, sinking behind
the range of westerly hills, soon left them in gloom; but they anxiously
hurried forward when the stream wound its noisy way among steep stony
banks, clothed scantily with pines and a few scattered silver-barked
poplars. And now they became bewildered by two paths leading in opposite
directions; one upward among the rocky hills, the other through the opening
gorge of a deep ravine.

Here, overcome with fatigue, Catharine seated herself on a large block of
granite, near a great bushy pine that grew beside the path by the ravine,
unable to proceed, and Hector, with a grave and troubled countenance,
stood beside her, looking round with an air of great perplexity. Louis,
seating himself at Catharine's feet, surveyed the deep gloomy valley before
them, and sighed heavily. The conviction had now forcibly struck him that
they had mistaken the path altogether. The very aspect of the country was
different; the growth of the trees, the flow of the stream, all indicated a
change of soil and scene. Darkness was fast drawing its impenetrable veil
around them; a few stars were stealing out, and gleaming down as if with
pitying glance upon the young wanderers; but they could not light up their
pathway, or point their homeward track. The only sound, save the lulling
murmur of the rippling stream below, was the plaintive note of the
whip-poor-will, from a gnarled oak that grew near them, and the harsh
grating scream of the night hawk, darting about in the higher regions of
the air, pursuing its noisy congeners, or swooping down with that peculiar
hollow rushing sound, as of a person blowing into some empty vessel, when
it seizes with wide-extended bill its insect prey.

Hector was the first to break the silence. "Cousin Louis, we were wrong in
following the course of the stream; I fear we shall never find our way back
to-night."

Louis made no reply; his sad and subdued air failed not to attract the
attention of his cousins. "Why, Louis, how is this? you are not used to be
cast down by difficulties," said Hector, as he marked something like tears
glistening in the dark eyes of his cousin.

Louis's heart was full, he did not reply, but cast a troubled glance upon
the weary Catharine, who leaned heavily against the tree beneath which she
sat.

"It is not," resumed Hector, "that I mind passing a summer's night under
such a sky as this, and with such a dry grassy bed below me; but I do not
think it is good for Catharine to sleep on the bare ground in the night
dews,--and then they will be so anxious at home about our absence."

Louis burst into tears, and sobbed out,--"And it is all my doing that
she came out with us; I deceived her, and my aunt will be angry and much
alarmed, for she did not know of her going at all. Dear Catharine, good
cousin Hector, pray forgive me!" But Catharine was weeping too much to
reply to his passionate entreaties, and Hector, who never swerved from the
truth, for which he had almost a stern reverence, hardly repressed his
indignation at what appeared to him a most culpable act of deceit on the
part of Louis.

The sight of her cousin's grief and self-abasement touched the tender
heart of Catharine, for she was kind and dove-like in her disposition,
and loved Louis, with all his faults. Had it not been for the painful
consciousness of the grief their unusual absence would occasion at home,
Catharine would have thought nothing of their present adventure; but she
could not endure the idea of her high-principled father taxing her with
deceiving her kind indulgent mother and him: it was this humiliating
thought which wounded the proud heart of Hector, causing him to upbraid his
cousin in somewhat harsh terms for his want of truthfulness, and steeled
him against the bitter grief that wrung the heart of the penitent Louis,
who, leaning his wet cheek on the shoulder of the kinder Catharine,
sobbed as if his heart would break, heedless of her soothing words and
affectionate endeavours to console him.

"Dear Hector," she said, turning her soft, pleading eyes on the stem face
of her brother, "you must not be so very angry with poor Louis; remember it
was to please me, and give me the enjoyment of a day of liberty with you
and himself in the woods, among the flowers and trees and birds, that he
committed this fault."

"Catharine, Louis spoke an untruth and acted deceitfully, and look at the
consequences,--we shall have forfeited our parents' confidence, and may
have some days of painful privation to endure before we regain our home, if
we ever do find our way back to Cold Springs," replied Hector.

"It is the grief and anxiety our dear parents will endure this night,"
answered Catharine, "that distresses my mind; but," she added in more
cheerful tones, "let us not despair, no doubt to-morrow we shall be able to
retrace our steps."

With the young there is ever a magical spell in that little word
_to-morrow_,--it is a point which they pursue as fast as it recedes from
them; sad indeed is the young heart that does not look forward with hope to
the morrow!

The cloud still hung on Hector's brow, till Catharine gaily exclaimed,
"Come, Hector! come, Louis! we must not stand idling thus; we must think of
providing some shelter for the night; it is not good to rest upon the bare
ground exposed to the night dews.--See, here is a nice hut, half made,"
pointing to a large upturned root which some fierce whirlwind had hurled
from the lofty bank into the gorge of the dark glen.

"Now you must make haste, and lop off a few pine boughs, and stick them
into the ground, or even lean them against the roots of this old oak, and
there, you see, will be a capital house to shelter us. To work, to work,
you idle boys, or poor wee Katty must turn squaw and build her own wigwam,"
she playfully added, taking up the axe which rested against the feathery
pine beneath which Hector was leaning. Now, Catharine cared as little as
her brother and cousin about passing a warm summer's night under the shade
of the forest trees, for she was both hardy and healthy; but her woman's
heart taught her that the surest means of reconciling the cousins would be
by mutually interesting them in the same object,--and she was right. In
endeavouring to provide for the comfort of their dear companion, all angry
feelings were forgotten by Hector, while active employment chased away
Louis's melancholy.

Unlike the tall, straight, naked trunks of the pines of the forest, those
of the plains are adorned with branches often to the very ground, varying
in form and height, and often presenting most picturesque groups, or rising
singly among scattered groves of the silver-barked poplar or graceful
birch-trees; the dark, mossy greenness of the stately pine contrasting
finely with the light waving foliage of its slender graceful companions.

Hector, with his axe, soon lopped boughs from one of the adjacent pines,
which Louis sharpened with his knife, and with Catharine's assistance drove
into the ground, arranging them in such a way as to make the upturned oak,
with its roots and the earth which adhered to them, form the back part of
the hut, which, when completed, formed by no means a contemptible shelter.
Catharine then cut fern and deer grass with Louis's _couteau-de-chasse_,
which he always carried in a sheath at his girdle, and spread two beds,
one, parted off by dry boughs and bark, for herself in the interior of the
wigwam, and one for her brother and cousin nearer the entrance. When all
was finished to her satisfaction, she called the two boys, and, according
to the custom of her parents, joined them in the lifting up of their
hands as an evening sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Nor were these
simple-hearted children backward in imploring help and protection from the
Most High. They earnestly prayed that no dangerous creature might come
near to molest them during the hours of darkness and helplessness, no evil
spirit visit them, no unholy or wicked thoughts intrude into their minds;
but that holy angels and heavenly thoughts might hover over them, and fill
their hearts with the peace of God which passeth all understanding.--And
the prayer of the poor wanderers was heard, for they slept that night in
peace, unharmed in the vast solitude. So passed their first night on the
Plains.

CHAPTER II.

"Fear not, ye are of more value than many sparrows."

The sun had risen in all the splendour of a Canadian summer morning, when
the sleepers arose from their leafy beds. In spite of the novelty of their
situation, they had slept as soundly and tranquilly as if they had been
under the protecting care of their beloved parents, on their little
paliasses of corn straw; but they had been cared for by Him who neither
slumbereth nor sleepeth, and they waked full of youthful hope, and in
fulness of faith in His mercy into whose hands they had commended their
souls and bodies before they retired to rest.

While the children slept in peace and safety, what terrors had filled the
minds of their distracted parents! what a night of anguish and sorrow had
they passed!

When night had closed in without bringing back the absent children, the
two fathers, lighting torches of fat pine, went forth in search of the
wanderers. How often did they raise their voices in hopes their loud
halloos might reach the hearing of the lost ones! How often did they check
their hurried steps to listen for some replying call! But the sighing
breeze in the pine tops, or sudden rustling of the leaves caused by the
flight of the birds, startled by the unusual glare of the torches, and the
echoes of their own voices, were the only sounds that met their anxious
ears. At daybreak they returned, sad and dispirited, to their homes, to
snatch a morsel of food, endeavour to cheer the drooping hearts of
the weeping mothers, and hurry off, taking different directions. But,
unfortunately, they had little clue to the route which Hector and Louis had
taken, there being many cattle paths through the woods. Louis's want of
truthfulness had caused this uncertainty, as he had left no intimation of
the path he purposed taking when he quitted his mother's house: he had
merely said he was going with Hector in search of the cattle, giving no
hint of his intention of asking Catharine to accompany them: he had but
told his sick sister, that he would bring home strawberries and flowers,
and that he would soon return. Alas, poor thoughtless Louis, how little did
you think of the web of woe you were then weaving for yourself, and all
those to whom you and your giddy companions were so dear! Children, think
twice, ere ye deceive once! Catharine's absence would have been quite
unaccountable but for the testimony of Duncan and Kenneth, who had received
her sisterly caresses before she joined Hector at the barn; and much her
mother marvelled what could have induced her good dutiful Catharine to have
left her work and forsaken her household duties to go rambling away with
the boys, for she never left the house when her mother was absent from, it,
without her express permission, and now she was gone--lost to them, perhaps
for ever. There stood the wheel she had been turning, there hung the
untwisted hanks of yarn, her morning task,--and there they remained week
after week and month after month, untouched, a melancholy memorial to the
hearts of the bereaved parents of their beloved.

It were indeed a fruitless task to follow the agonized fathers in their
vain search for their children, or to paint the bitter anguish that filled
their hearts as day passed after day, and still no tidings of the lost
ones. As hope faded, a deep and settled gloom stole over the sorrowing
parents, and reigned throughout the once cheerful and gladsome homes. At
the end of a week the only idea that remained was, that one of these three
casualties had befallen the lost children:--death, a lingering death
by famine; death, cruel and horrible, by wolves or bears; or yet more
terrible, with tortures by the hands of the dreaded Indians, who
occasionally held their councils and hunting parties on the hills about the
Rice Lake, which was known only by the elder Perron as the scene of many
bloody encounters between the rival tribes of the Mohawks and Chippewas:
its localities were scarcely ever visited by our settlers, lest haply
they should fall into the hands of the bloody Mohawks, whose merciless
dispositions made them in those days a by-word even to the less cruel
Chippewas and other Indian nations.

It was not in the direction of the Rice Lake that Maxwell and his
brother-in-law sought their lost children; and even if they had done so,
among the deep glens and hill passes of what is now commonly called the
Plains, they would have stood little chance of discovering the poor
wanderers. After many days of fatigue of body and distress of mind, the
sorrowing parents sadly relinquished the search as utterly hopeless,
and mourned in bitterness of spirit over the disastrous fate of their
first-born and beloved children.--"There was a voice of woe, and
lamentation, and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and
refusing to be comforted, because they were not." The miserable uncertainty
that involved the fate of the lost ones was an aggravation to the
sufferings of the mourners: could they but have been certified of the
manner of their deaths, they fancied they should be more contented; but,
alas! this fearful satisfaction was withheld.

"Oh, were their tale of sorrow known,
'Twere something to the breaking heart,
The pangs of doubt would then be gone,
And fancy's endless dreams depart."

But let us quit the now mournful settlement of the Cold Springs, and see
how it really fared with the young wanderers.

When they awoke the valley was filled with a white creamy mist, that
arose from the bed of the stream, (now known as Cold Creek,) and gave an
indistinctness to the whole landscape, investing it with an appearance
perfectly different to that which it had worn by the bright, clear light of
the moon. No trace of their footsteps remained to guide them in retracing
their path; so hard and dry was the stony ground that it left no impression
on its surface. It was with some difficulty they found the creek, which was
concealed from sight by a lofty screen of gigantic hawthorns, high-bush
cranberries, poplars, and birch-trees. The hawthorn was in blossom, and
gave out a sweet perfume, not less fragrant than the "May" which makes the
lanes and hedgerows of "merrie old England" so sweet and fair in May and
June, as chanted in many a genuine pastoral of our olden time; but when our
simple Catharine drew down the flowery branches to wreathe about her hat,
she loved the flowers for their own native sweetness and beauty, not
because poets had sung of them;--but young minds have a natural poetry in
themselves, unfettered by rule or rhyme.

At length their path began to grow more difficult. A tangled mass of
cedars, balsams, birch, black ash, alders, and _tamarack_ (Indian name for
the larch), with a dense thicket of bushes and shrubs, such as love the
cool, damp soil of marshy ground, warned our travellers that they must
quit the banks of the friendly stream, or they might become entangled in
a trackless swamp. Having taken copious and refreshing draughts from the
bright waters, and bathed their hands and faces, they ascended the grassy
bank, and again descending, found themselves in one of those long valleys,
enclosed between lofty sloping banks, clothed with shrubs and oaks, with
here and there a stately pine. Through this second valley they pursued
their way, till emerging into a wider space, they came among those
singularly picturesque groups of rounded gravel hills, where the Cold Creek
once more met their view, winding its way towards a grove of evergreens,
where it was again lost to the eye.

This lovely spot is now known as Sackville's Mill-dike. The hand of man has
curbed the free course of the wild forest stream, and made it subservient
to his will, but could not destroy the natural beauties of the scene.
[Footnote: This place was originally owned by a man of taste, who resided
for some time upon the spot, till finding it convenient to return to his
native country, the saw-mill passed into other hands. The old log-house on
the green bank above the mill-stream is still standing, though deserted;
the garden fence, broken and dilapidated, no longer protects the enclosure,
where the wild rose mingles with that of Provence,--the Canadian creeper
with the hop.]

Fearing to entangle themselves in the swamp, they kept the hilly ground,
winding their way up to the summit of the lofty ridge of the oak hills,
the highest ground they had yet attained; and here it was that the silver
waters of the Rice Lake in all its beauty burst upon the eyes of the
wondering and delighted travellers. There it lay, a sheet of liquid silver
just emerging from the blue veil of mist that hung upon its surface, and
concealed its wooded shores on either side. All feeling of dread and doubt
and danger was lost, for the time, in one rapturous glow of admiration at a
scene so unexpected and so beautiful as that which they now gazed upon from
the elevation they had gained. From this ridge they looked down the lake,
and the eye could take in an extent of many miles, with its verdant wooded
islands, which stole into view one by one as the rays of the morning sun
drew up the moving curtain of mist that enveloped them; and soon both
northern and southern shores became distinctly visible, with all their bays
and capes and swelling oak and pine-crowned hills.

And now arose the question, "Where are we? What lake is this? Can it be
the Ontario, or is it the Rice Lake? Can yonder shores be those of the
Americans, or are they the hunting-grounds of the dreaded Indians?" Hector
remembered having often heard his father say that the Ontario was like an
inland sea, and the opposite shores not visible unless in some remarkable
state of the atmosphere, when they had been occasionally discerned by the
naked eye, while here they could distinctly see objects on the other side,
the peculiar growth of the trees, and even flights of wild fowl winging
their way among the rice and low bushes on its margin. The breadth of the
lake from shore to shore could not, they thought, exceed three or four
miles; while its length, in an easterly direction, seemed far greater
beyond--what the eye could take in. [Footnote: The length of the Rice Lake,
from its headwaters near Black's Landing to the mouth of the Trent, is said
to be twenty-five miles; its breadth from north to south varies from three
to six.]

They now quitted the lofty ridge, and bent their steps towards the lake.
Wearied with their walk, they seated themselves beneath the shade of a
beautiful feathery pine, on a high promontory that commanded a magnificent
view down the lake.

"How pleasant it would be to have a house on this delightful bank,
overlooking the lake," said Louis; "only think of the fish we could take,
and the ducks and wild fowl we could shoot! and it would be no very hard
matter to hollow out a log canoe, such a one as I have heard my father say
he has rowed in across many a lake and broad river--below, when he was
lumbering."

"Yes, it would, indeed, be a pleasant spot to live upon," [Footnote: Now
the site of a pleasant cottage, erected by an enterprising gentleman from
Devonshire, who has cleared and cultivated a considerable portion of the
ground described above; a spot almost unequalled in the plains for its
natural beauties and extent of prospect.] said Hector, "though I am not
quite sure that the land is as good just here as it is at Cold Springs;
but all these flats and rich valleys would make fine pastures, and produce
plenty of grain, too, if cultivated."

"You always look to the main chance, Hec," said Louis, laughing; "well, it
was worth a few hours' walking this morning to look upon so lovely a sheet
of water as this. I would spend two nights in a wigwam,--would not you, ma
belle?--to enjoy such a sight."

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