Shook their tiny bells to the breeze
on the broom-encircled commons of England.
The harebell had always from a child been with me a favourite
flower; and the first sight of it in Canada, growing upon that
lonely grave, so flooded my soul with remembrances of the past,
that, in spite of myself, the tears poured freely from my eyes.
There are moments when it is impossible to repress those outgushings
of the heart -
"Those flood-gates of the soul that sever,
In passion's tide to part for ever."
If Mat and his sister wondered at my tears, they must have suspected
the cause, for they walked to a little distance, and left me to the
indulgence of my feelings. I gathered those flowers, and placed them
in my bosom, and kept them for many a day; they had become holy,
when connected with sacred home recollections, and the never-dying
affections of the heart which the sight of them recalled.
A shout from our companions in the other canoe made us retrace our
steps to the shore. They had already rounded the point, and were
wondering at our absence.
Oh, what a magnificent scene of wild and lonely grandeur burst upon
us as we swept round the little peninsula, and the whole majesty of
Stony Lake broke upon us at once; another Lake of the Thousand
Isles, in miniature, and in the heart of the wilderness! Imagine a
large sheet of water, some fifteen miles in breadth and twenty-five
in length, taken up by islands of every size and shape, from the
lofty naked rock of red granite to the rounded hill, covered with
oak-trees to its summit; while others were level with the waters,
and of a rich emerald green, only fringed with a growth of aquatic
shrubs and flowers. Never did my eyes rest on a more lovely or
beautiful scene. Not a vestige of man, or of his works, was there.
The setting sun that cast such a gorgeous flood of light upon this
exquisite panorama, bringing out some of these lofty islands in
strong relief, and casting others into intense shade, shed no cheery
beam upon church spire or cottage pane. We beheld the landscape,
savage and grand in its primeval beauty.
As we floated among the channels between these rocky picturesque
isles, I asked Mat how many of them there were.
"I never could succeed," he said, "in counting them all. One Sunday
Pat and I spent a whole day in going from one to the other, to try
and make out how many there were, but we could only count up to one
hundred and forty before we gave up the task in despair. There are
a great many of them; more than any one would think - and, what is
very singular, the channel between them is very deep, sometimes
above forty feet, which accounts for the few rapids to be found in
this lake.
