One day he found me painting some wild flowers, and was greatly
interested in watching the progress I made in the group. Late in
the afternoon of the following day he brought me a large bunch
of splendid spring flowers.
"Draw these," said he; "I have been all the way to the - - lake
plains to find them for you."
Little Katie, grasping them one by one, with infantile joy, kissed
every lovely blossom.
"These are God's pictures," said the hunter, "and the child, who is
all nature, understands them in a minute. Is it not strange that
these beautiful things are hid away in the wilderness, where no eyes
but the birds of the air, and the wild beasts of the wood, and the
insects that live upon them, ever see them? Does God provide, for
the pleasure of such creatures, these flowers? Is His benevolence
gratified by the admiration of animals whom we have been taught to
consider as having neither thought nor reflection? When I am alone
in the forest, these thoughts puzzle me."
Knowing that to argue with Brian was only to call into action the
slumbering fires of his fatal malady, I turned the conversation by
asking him why he called his favourite dog Chance?
"I found him," he said, "forty miles back in the bush. He was a mere
skeleton. At first I took him for a wolf, but the shape of his head
undeceived me. I opened my wallet, and called him to me. He came
slowly, stopping and wagging his tail at every step, and looking me
wistfully in the face. I offered him a bit of dried venison, and he
soon became friendly, and followed me home, and has never left me
since. I called him Chance, after the manner I happened with him;
and I would not part with him for twenty dollars."
Alas, for poor Chance! he had, unknown to his master, contracted a
private liking for fresh mutton, and one night he killed no less
than eight sheep that belonged to Mr. D - -, on the front road; the
culprit, who had been long suspected, was caught in the very act,
and this mischance cost him his life. Brian was sad and gloomy for
many weeks after his favourite's death.
"I would have restored the sheep fourfold," he said, "if he would
but have spared the life of my dog."
My recollections of Brian seemed more particularly to concentrate in
the adventures of one night, when I happened to be left alone, for
the first time since my arrival in Canada. I cannot now imagine how
I could have been such a fool as to give way for four-and-twenty
hours to such childish fears; but so it was, and I will not disguise
my weakness from my indulgent reader.
Moodie had bought a very fine cow of a black man, named Mollineux,
for which he was to give twenty-seven dollars.
