"He"s an American aristocrat."
"We have no aristocrats with us. He"s a great slave-owner, and immensely rich."
"Very substantial claims to distinction, I must confess. You are wiser in these matters than we are. What do you think of Canada?"
"I don"t know; it"s very well for a young place. I only came here with sister last night; we are on our way to Quebec."
"To visit friends?"
"We have no friends in Canada. We want to see Lord Elgin."
"Lord Elgin!"
"Yes. We have seen a great many curious things, but we never saw an English lord."
"And you are going to Quebec for no other purpose than to look at Lord Elgin? His lordship should feel himself highly flattered. What sort of an animal do you suppose him to be?"
"A man, of course; but I a.s.sure you that the Boston ladies thought a great deal of him. Sister and I have plenty of time and money at our disposal, and we wanted to see if their opinion was correct."
"Well, I hope you may be gratified, and agree with the Boston ladies that he is a very clever man."
"Is he handsome?"
"He has an English nose."
"Oh, shocking!"
"A decided Anglo-Saxon face."
"I"m sure I shan"t admire him."
"But I"ll not antic.i.p.ate. A man may be a fine looking fellow in spite of his nose. But what do you think of the Falls?"
"Well, I have not _quite_ made up my mind about them. I should like to ride down to the edge of the river to look at them from below."
"I will order a carriage to-morrow morning, and drive you down."
"Thank you; I can do that for myself, if I have a mind to. I should like to ride down on horseback."
"The path is too steep; no one ventures down that terrible road on horseback."
"But I"m a capital rider."
"No matter; they use cows for that purpose here."
"Cows!"
"They are very safe, sure-footed animals. All the ladies ride down to the Falls on cows."
"Are they fools?"
"Wise women. Did not you see that fine drove of cows pa.s.s the hotel at sunset?"
"I did. I thought they were driven into the yard to be milked."
"Why, yes; but those cows are making Mr. ---"s fortune. They serve a double purpose, providing delicious b.u.t.ter and cream for his customers, and acting as horses for the ladies. I will pick out the most docile among them for your excursion to-morrow morning, and see it bridled and saddled myself."
This was too much for the gravity of any one. My son-in-law ran out of the room, and I laughed aloud. The poor girls began to find out that they were sold, and retreated into the balcony. An hour afterwards, as I was pacing through the long gallery that led to our sleeping apartment, one of the many doors on either side softly opened, and the youngest of these bright-eyed damsels stole out.
"I want to ask you a question," she said, laying her very white hand confidingly on my arm; "were those Englishmen quizzing my sister and me?"
"Need you ask that question?" said I, not a little amused at her simplicity.
"I never suspected it till I saw your son laughing to himself, and then I guessed something was wrong. It was a great shame of those rude fellows to amuse themselves at our expense; but your son is quite a different person--so handsome and gentlemanly. We admire him so much. Is he married?"
"His wife is my daughter."
I can"t tell why my answer struck the fair inquirer dumb; she drew back suddenly into her chamber, and closed the door without bidding me good night, and that was the last time I saw or heard of her and her companion.
"A summer spent at the Clifton House would elicit more extraordinary traits of character than could be gathered from the chit-chat of a dozen novels," thought I, as I paced on to No. 50, the last room on the long tier.
I was up by daybreak the next morning to see the Falls by sunrise, and was amply repaid for leaving my warm bed, and encountering the bright bracing morning air, by two hours" enjoyment of solemn converse alone with G.o.d and Niagara. The sun had not yet lifted his majestic head above the pine forest, or chased with his beams the dark shadows of night that rested within the curved sides of the great Horse-shoe. The waters looked black as they rolled in vast smooth ma.s.ses downward, till, meeting the projecting rocks, they were tossed high into the air in clouds of dazzling foam--so pure, so stainlessly white, when contrasted with the darkness, that they looked as if belonging to heaven rather than to earth. Anon, that dancing feathery tumult of foam catches a rosy gleam from the coming day. A long stream of sunlight touches the centre of the mighty arch, and transforms the black waters into a ma.s.s of smooth transparent emerald green, and the spray flashes with myriads of rubies and diamonds; while the American Fall still rolls and thunders on in cold pure whiteness, Goat Island and its crests of dark pines shrouding it in a robe of gloom. The voice of the waters rising amidst the silence that reigns at that lovely calm hour, sounds sonorous and grand. Be still, O my soul! earth is pouring to her Creator her morning anthem of solemn praise!
Earth! how beautiful thou art! When will men be worthy of the paradise in which they are placed? Did our first father, amidst the fresh young beauty of his Eden, ever gaze upon a spectacle more worthy of his admiration than this? We will except those moments when he held converse with G.o.d amid the cool shades of that delicious garden.
"That"s a sublime sight!" said a voice near me.
I turned, and found the old American gentleman at my side.
"I can see a change in the appearance of these Falls," he continued, "since I visited them some forty years ago. Time changes everything; I feel that I am changed since then. I was young and active, and clambered about these rugged banks with the careless hardihood of a boy who pants for excitement and adventure, and how I enjoyed my visit to this place!
A change has taken place--I can scarcely describe in what respect; but it looks to me very different to what it did then."
"Perhaps," I suggested, "the fall of that large portion of the table-rock has made the alteration you describe."
"You have just hit it," he said; "I forgot the circ.u.mstance. The Horse-shoe is not so perfect as it was."
"Could these Falls ever have receded from Queenstone?" said I.
He turned to me with a quick smile--"If they have, my dear Madam, the world is much older by thousands of ages than we give it credit for; but--" continued he, gazing at the mighty object in dispute, "it is possible that these Falls are of more recent date than the creation of the world. An earthquake may have rent the deep chasm that forms the bed of that river, and in a few seconds of time the same cause might break down that mighty barrier, and drain the upper lakes, by converting a large part of your fine province into another inland sea. But this is all theory. Fancy, you know, is free, and I often amuse myself by speculating on these things."
"Your daughter, I hope, is not ill," I said; "I did not see her at tea last night with her little son."
Instead of his usual shrewd smile, the old man laughed heartily. "So you take that young lady for my daughter!"
"Is she not? The child, however, must be your grandson, for he is the picture of you."
"I flatter myself that he is. That young lady is my wife--that little boy my son. Isn"t he a fine clever little chap?" and his keen grey eye brightened at the growing promise of his boy. "I have another younger than him."
"Heavens!" thought I, "what a mistake I have made! How M--- will laugh at me, and how delighted this old man seems with my confusion!" I am always making these odd blunders. Not long ago I mistook a very old-looking young man for his father, and congratulated him on his daughter"s marriage; and asked a young bride who was returning her calls, and who greatly resembled a married cousin who lived in the same town, _how her baby was?_ And now I had taken a man"s wife for his daughter his son for a grandson. But I comforted myself with the idea that the vast disparity between their ages was some excuse, and so slipped past one of the horns of that dilemma.