The next scene of our story opens on the eve of an eventful day in the annals of Canada. About sunset in an October afternoon, Neville Trueman reached The Holms, after a long and weary ride from the western end of his circuit, which reached nearly to the head of Lake Ontario. The forest was gorgeous in its autumnal foliage, like Joseph in his coat of many colours. The corn still stood thick, in serried ranks, in the fields, no longer plumed and ta.s.seled like an Indian chief, but rustling, weird-like, as an army of spectres in the gathering gloom. The great yellow pumpkins gleamed like huge nuggets of gold in some forest Eldorado. The crimson patches of ripened buckwheat looked like a blood-stained field of battle: alas! too true an image of the deeper stains which were soon to dye the greensward of the neighbouring height.
The change from the bleak moor, over which swept the chill north wind from the lonely lake, to the genial warmth of Squire Drayton"s hospitable kitchen was most agreeable. A merry fire of hickory wood on the ample hearth--it was long before the time of your close, black, surly-looking kitchen stoves--snapped and sparkled its hearty welcome to the travel-worn guest. It was a rich Rembrant-like picture that greeted Neville as he entered the room. The whole apartment was flooded with light from the leaping flames which was flashed back from the brightly-scoured milk-pans and bra.s.s kettles on the dresser--not unlike, thought he, to the burnished shields and casques of the men-at-arms in an old feudal hall.
The fair young mistress, clad in a warm stuff gown, with a snowy collar and a crimson necktie, moved gracefully through the room, preparing the evening meal. Savoury odours proceeded from a pan upon the coals, in which were frying tender cutlets of venison-- now a luxury, then, in the season, an almost daily meal.
The burly squire basked in the genial blaze, seated in a rude home-made armchair, the rather uncomfortable-looking back and arms of which were made of cedar roots, with the bark removed, like our garden rustic seats. Such a chair has Cowper in his "Task"
described,--
"Three legs upholding firm A messy slab, in fashion square or round.
On such a stool immortal Alfred sat, And swayed the sceptre of his infant realms: And such in ancient halls may still be found."
At his feet crouched Lion, the huge staghound, at times half growling in his sleep, as if in dreams he chased the deer, and then, starting up, he licked his master"s hand and went to sleep again.
On the opposite side of the hearth, Zenas was crouched upon the floor, laboriously shaping an ox-yoke with a spoke-shave. For in those days Canadian farmers were obliged to make or mend almost everything they used upon the farms.
Necessity, which is the mother of invention, made them deft and handy with axe and adze, bradawl and waxed end, anvil and forge.
The squire himself was no mean blacksmith, and could shoe a horse, or forge a plough coulter, or set a tire as well as the village Vulcan at Niagara.
"Right welcome," said the squire, as he made room for Neville near the fireplace, while Katherine gave him a quieter greeting and politely relieved him of his wrappings. "Well, what"s the news outside?" he continued, we must explain that as Niagara, next to York and Kingston, was the largest settlement in the province, it rather looked down upon the population away from "the front," as it was called, as outsiders almost beyond the pale of civilization.
"No news at all," replied Neville, "but a great anxiety to hear some. When I return from the front, they almost devour me with questions."
The early Methodist preachers, in the days when newspapers or books were few and scarce, and travel almost unknown, were in one respect not unlike the wandering minstrels or trouveres, not to say the Homeric singers of an earlier day. Their stock of news, their wider experience, their intelligent conversation, and their sacred minstrelsy procured them often a warm welcome and a night"s lodging outside of Methodist circles. They diffused much useful information, and their visits dispelled the mental stagnation which is almost sure to settle upon an isolated community. The whole household gathering around the evening fire, hung with eager attention upon their lips as, from their well-stored minds, they brought forth things new and old. Many an inquisitive boy or girl experienced a mental awakening or quickening by contact with their superior intelligence; and many a toil-worn man and woman renewed the brighter memories of earlier years as the preacher brought them glimpses of the outer world, or read from some well-worn volume carried in his saddle-bags pages of some much-prized English cla.s.sic.
"Well, there has been news in plenty along the line here," said the squire, "and likely soon to be more. The Americans have been ma.s.sing their forces at Forts Porter, Schlosser, and Niagara, and we expect will be attempting a crossing somewhere along the river soon."
"They"ll go back quicker than they came, I guess, as they did at Sandwich," said Zenas, who took an enthusiastically patriotic view of the prowess of his countrymen.
"I reckon the "Mericans feel purty sore over that business," said Tom Loker, who, with Sandy McKay, had come in, and, in the unconventional style of the period, had drawn up their seats to the fire. "They calkilated they"d gobble up the hull of Canada; but "stead of that, they lost the hull State of Michigan an" their great General Hull into the bargain," and he chuckled over his play upon words, after the manner of a man who has uttered a successful pun.
"You must tell us all about it," said Neville: "I have not heard the particulars yet."
"After supper," said the squire. "We"ll discuss the venison first and the war afterwards," and there was a general move to the table.
When ample justice had been done to the savoury repast, Miss Katherine intimated that a good fire had been kindled in the Franklin stove in the parlour, and, in honour of the guest, proposed an adjournment thither.
The squire, however, looked at the leaping flames of the kitchen fire as if reluctant to leave it, and Neville asked as a favour to be allowed to bask, "like a cat in the sun," he said, before it.
"I"m glad you like the old-fashioned fires," said the farmer.
"They"re a-most like the camp-fire beside which we used to bivouac when I went a-sogering. I can"t get the hang o" those new-fangled Yankee notions," he continued, referring to the parlour stove, named after the great philosopher whose name it bore.
A large semicircle of seats was drawn up around the hearth. The squire took down from the mantel his long-stemmed "churchwarden"
pipe.
"I learned to smoke in Old Virginny," he said apologetically. "Had the real virgin leaf. It had often to be both meat and drink when I was campaigning there. I wish I could quit it; but, young man,"
addressing himself to Neville, "I"d advise you never to learn.
It"s bad enough for an old sojer like me; but a smoking preacher I don"t admire."
Zenas, crouched by the chimney-jamb, roasting chestnuts and "popping" corn; Sandy, with the characteristic thrift of his countrymen, set about repairing a broken whip-stock and fitting it with a new lash; Tom Loker idly whittled a stick, and Miss Katharine drew up her low rocking-chair beside her father, and proceeded to nimbly knit a stout-ribbed stocking, intended for his comfort--for girls in those days knew how to knit, ay, and card the wool and spin the yarn too.
"Now, Tom, tell us all about Hull"s surrender," said Zenas, to whom the stirring story was already an oft-told tale.
"Wall, after I seed you, three months agone," said Tom, nodding to Neville, and taking a fresh stick to whittle, "we trudged on all that day and the next to Long P"int, an" a mighty long p"int it wuz to reach, too. Never wuz so tired in my life. Follering the plough all day wuz nothing to it. But when we got to the P"int, we found the Gineral there. An" he made us a rousin" speech that put new life into every man of us, an" we felt that we could foller him anywheres. As ther wuz no roads to speak of, and the Gineral had considerable stores, he seized all the boats he could find."
"Requiseetioned, they ca" it," interjected Sandy.
"Wall, it"s purty much the same, I reckon," continued Tom, "an" a queer lot o" boats they wuz--fishin" boats, Durham boats, scows [Footnote: In the absence of roads, boats were much used for carrying corn and flour to and from the mills, and for the conveyance of farm produce.]--a"most anythin" that "ud float.
Ther" wuz three hundred of us at the start, an" we picked up more on the way. Wall, we sailed an" paddled a matter o" two hundred miles to Fort Malden, an" awful cramped it wuz, crouchin" all day in them scows; an" every night we camped on sh.o.r.e, but sometimes the bank wuz so steep an" the waves so high we had to sail on for miles to find a creek we could run into, an" once we rowed all night. As we weathered P"int Pelee, the surf nearly swamped us."
"What a gran" feed we got frae thae gallant Colonel Talbot!"
interjected Sandy McKay. "D"ye mind his bit log bothie perched like a craw"s nest atop o" yon cliff. The "Castle o" Malahide," he ca"d it, no less. How he speered gin there were ony men frae Malahide in the auld kintry wi" us! An" a prood man he was o" his ancestry sax hunnerd years lang syne. Methinks he"s the gran"est o" the name himsel"--the laird o" a score o" toonships a" settled by himsel". Better yon than like the gran" Duke o" Sutherland drivin" thae puir bodies frae hoose an" hame. Lang suld Canada mind the gran" Colonel Talbot [Footnote: Posterity has not been ungrateful to the gallant colonel. In the towns of St. Thomas and Talbotville, his name is commemorated, and it is fondly cherished in the grateful traditions of many an early settler"s family. He died at London, at the age of eighty, in 1853.] But was na it fey that him as might hae the pick an" choice o" thae braw dames o"
Ireland suld live his lane, wi" out a woman"s han" to cook his kail or recht up his den, as he ca"d it."
"I"ve been at his castle," said Neville, "and very comfortable it is: He lives like a feudal lord,--allots land, dispenses justice, marries the settlers, reads prayers on Sunday, and rules the settlement like a forest patriarch." "Tell about Tec.u.mseh," said Zenas, in whose eyes that distinguished chief divided the honours with General Brock.
"Wall," continued Loker, "at Malden there wuz a grand pow-wow, an"
the Indians wore their war-paint and their medals, and Tec.u.mseh made a great harangue. He was glad, he said, their great father across the sea had woke up from his long sleep an" sent his warriors to help his red children, who would shed the last drop of their blood in fighting against the "Merican long knives." "And they"ll do it, too," chimed in Zenas, in unconscious prophecy of the near approaching death of that brave chief and many of his warriors.
"An" Tec.u.mseh," continued the narrator, "drawed a map of Detroit an" the "Merican fort on a piece o" birch bark, as clever, I heered the Gineral say, as an officer of engineers."
"But was na yon a gran" speech thae General made us when we were tauld tae attack thae fort?" exclaimed Sandy with martial enthusiasm. "Mon, it made me mind o" Wallace an" his "Scots wham Bruce hae aften led." I could ha" followed him "gainst ony odds, though odds eneuch there were--near twa tae ane, an" thae big guns an" thae fort tae their back."
"Wasn"t I glad to see the white flag come from the fort as we formed column for a.s.sault, instead o" the flash o" the big guns, showin" their black muzzles there," Loker ingenuously confessed.
"I"m no coward, but it makes a feller feel skeery to see those ugly-lookin" war dogs splttin" fire at him."
"Hae na I tell"t ye," said Sandy, somewhat sardonically, "gin ye"re born tae be hangit, the bullet"s no made that"ll kill ye."
"Ye"re as like to be hanged yerself," said Tom, somewhat resentfully, giving the proverb a rather literal interpretation.
"Tush, mon, nae offence, its ony an auld Scotch saw, that. But an angry mon was yon tall Captain Scott [Footnote: Afterwards Major- General Scott, Commander-in-Chief of the United States army. The prisoners were sent to Montreal and Quebec. Hull was subsequently court-marshalled for cowardice and condemned to death, but he was reprieved on account of Revolutionary service.] at thae surrender.
How he stamped an" raved an" broke his sword."
"I am sure the Gineral was very kind to them. On our march home, the prisoners shared and fared as well as we did."
"I heard," said Neville, "that Hull was afraid the Indians would ma.s.sacre the women and children who had taken refuge in the fort."
"No fear of that," said Loker. "Tec.u.mseh told the Gineral they had sworn off liquor during the war. It"s the fire-water that makes the Indian a madman, an" the white man, too."
"Well, thank G.o.d," said Neville, "it is a great and bloodless victory. I hope it will bring a speedy peace."
"I am afraid not," said the squire, arousing from his doze in the "ingle nook." "We had a seven years" struggle of it in the old war, and I fear that there will have to be some blood-letting before these bad humours are cufed. But we"ll hope for the best.
Come, Katharine, bring us a flagon of your sweet cider."
The st.u.r.dy brown flagon was brought, and the gleaming pewter mugs were filled--it was long before the days of Temperance Societies-- even the preacher thinking it no harm to take his mug of the sweet, amber-coloured draught.
Neville read from the great family Bible that night the majestic forty-sixth psalm, so grandly paraphrased in Luther"s hymn,
"Ein" feste Burg ist unser Gott;"