The porch before the door was
covered with hops, and the room of general resort, into which it
immediately opened, was of large dimensions, the huge fire-place
forming the most striking feature. On the hearth-stone, hot as was
the weather, blazed a great fire, encumbered with all sorts of
culinary apparatus, which, I am inclined to think, had been called
into requisition for our sole benefit and accommodation.
The good folks had breakfasted long before we started from home,
but they would not hear of our proceeding to Stony Lake until after
we had dined. It was only eight o'clock a.m., and we had still four
hours to dinner, which gave us ample leisure to listen to the old
man's stories, ramble round the premises, and observe all the
striking features of the place.
Mr. Y - - was a Catholic, and the son of a respectable farmer from
the south of Ireland. Some few years before, he had emigrated with
a large family of seven sons and two daughters, and being fond of
field sports, and greatly taken with the beauty of the locality in
which he had pitched his tent in the wilderness, he determined to
raise a mill upon the dam which Nature had provided to his hands,
and wait patiently until the increasing immigration should settle
the townships of Smith and Douro, render the property valuable,
and bring plenty of grist to the mill.
He was not far wrong in his calculations; and though, for the first
few years, he subsisted entirely by hunting, fishing, and raising
what potatoes and wheat he required for his own family, on the most
fertile spots he could find on his barren lot, very little corn
passed through the mill.
At the time we visited his place, he was driving a thriving trade,
and all the wheat that was grown in the neighbourhood was brought
by water to be ground at Y - -'s mill.
He had lost his wife a few years after coming to the country; but
his two daughters, Betty and Norah, were excellent housewives, and
amply supplied her loss. From these amiable women we received a most
kind and hearty welcome, and every comfort and luxury within their
reach.
They appeared a most happy and contented family. The sons - a fine,
hardy, independent set of fellows - were regarded by the old man with
pride and affection. Many were his anecdotes of their prowess in
hunting and fishing.
His method of giving them an aversion to strong drink while very
young amused me greatly, but it is not every child that could have
stood the test of his experiment.
"When they were little chaps, from five to six years of age, I made
them very drunk," he said; "so drunk that it brought on severe
headache and sickness, and this so disgusted them with liquor,
that they never could abide the sight of it again.
