THE FIRE
Now, Fortune, do thy worst! For many years,
Thou, with relentless and unsparing hand,
Hast sternly pour'd on our devoted heads
The poison'd phials of thy fiercest wrath.
The early part of the winter of 1837, a year never to be forgotten
in the annals of Canadian history, was very severe. During the
month of February, the thermometer often ranged from eighteen to
twenty-seven degrees below zero. Speaking of the coldness of one
particular day, a genuine brother Jonathan remarked, with charming
simplicity, that it was thirty degrees below zero that morning, and
it would have been much colder if the thermometer had been longer.
The morning of the seventh was so intensely cold that everything
liquid froze in the house. The wood that had been drawn for the
fire was green, and it ignited too slowly to satisfy the shivering
impatience of women and children; I vented mine in audibly grumbling
over the wretched fire, at which I in vain endeavoured to thaw
frozen bread, and to dress crying children.
It so happened that an old friend, the maiden lady before alluded
to, had been staying with us for a few days. She had left us for
a visit to my sister, and as some relatives of hers were about to
return to Britain by the way of New York, and had offered to convey
letters to friends at home, I had been busy all the day before
preparing a packet for England.
