The Yankees must
have taken Canada, and are marching hither."
"Nonsense! that cannot be it. Besides they would never leave the
main road to attack a poor place like this. Yet the noise is very
near. Hark! they are firing again. Bring me the hammer and some
nails, and let us secure the windows."
The next moment I laughed at my folly in attempting to secure a log
hut, when the application of a match to its rotten walls would
consume it in a few minutes. Still, as the noise increased, I was
really frightened. My servant, who was Irish (for my Scotch girl,
Bell, had taken to herself a husband and I had been obliged to hire
another in her place, who had only been a few days in the country),
began to cry and wring her hands, and lament her hard fate in coming
to Canada.
Just at this critical moment, when we were both self-convicted of an
arrant cowardice, which would have shamed a Canadian child of six
years old, Mrs. O - - tapped at the door, and although generally a
most unwelcome visitor, from her gossiping, mischievous
propensities, I gladly let her in.
"Do tell me," I cried, "the meaning of this strange uproar?"
"Oh, 'tis nothing," she replied, laughing; "you and Mary look as
white as a sheet; but you need not be alarmed. A set of wild fellows
have met to charivari Old Satan, who has married his fourth wife
to-night, a young gal of sixteen.
