If So, What Means Yon Stately Column, [276] Surmounted By Its Fat, Helmetted Bellona, Mysteriously Looking Round As If Pregnant With A Mighty Unfathomable Future.

Ask history?

Open Capt. Knox's Journal of the Siege of Quebec, and read therein how, in front of that very spot where you now stand, along that identical road, over which you emerged from the city, war once threw her sorrows, ask this brave British officer to retrace one of those winter scenes he witnessed here more than one hundred years ago: the howling blast of the north sighing through the few remaining gnarled pines and oaks spared by Albion's warriors; add to it tired teams of English troops, laboriously drawing, yoked eight by eight, long sledges of firewood for Murray's depressed, harassed garrison, and you have something like John Knox's tableau of St. Foye Road on the 7th December, 1759. -

"Our garrison, now undergo incredible fatigue, not only within but also without the walls, being obliged to load and sleigh home firewood from the forest of St. Foy, which is near four miles distant, and through snow of a surpassing depth, eight men are allowed to each sleigh, who are yoked to it in couples by a set of regular harness, besides one man who guides it behind with a long stout pole, to keep it clear of ruts and other obstructions. We are told that M. de Levis is making great preparations for the long-meditated assault on this place (Quebec) with which we are menaced. Christmas is said to be the time fixed for this enterprise, and Monsieur says, 'if he succeed he shall be promoted to be Marechal de France, and if he fail, Canada will be lost, for he will give it up.'" [277]

Do not, dear reader, however fear for the old rock, it is tolerably secure so long as Fraser's Highlanders and British Grenadiers garrison it.

We have here endeavored to contrast the smiling present with the dreary past; peace, progress, wealth, as we find it to-day in this important appendage of the British Crown, ready to expand into an empire, with the dismal appearance of things when it was scantily settled, and in those dark days when war stalked through our land. Hamwood takes its name from that of the paternal estate of the Hamiltons, county of Meath, Ireland, and without pretending to architectural excellence, it is one of the loveliest spots on the St. Foye road. It belongs to Robert Hamilton, Esq., a leading merchant of Quebec.

BIJOU.

And I have heard the whispers of the trees, And the low laughter of the wandering wind, Mixed with the hum of golden-belted bees, And far away, dim echoes, undefined, - That yet had power to thrill my listening ear, Like footsteps of the spring that is so near. - (Wood Voices, KATE S. McL.)

Shall we confess that we ever had a fancy for historical contrasts? It is our weakness, perhaps our besetting sin; and when, on a balmy June day, at the hour when the king of day it sipping the dew-drops from the flowers, we ride past this unadorned but charming little Canadian home, next to Westfield, on the St. Foye heights, as it were sunning itself amidst emerald fields, fanned by the breath of the fragrant morn, enlivened by the gambols of merry childhood; memory, in spite of us, brings back the ghastly sights, the sickening Indian horrors, witnessed here on the 28th April, 1760.

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