I had a great dislike to
removing, which involves a necessary loss, and is apt to give to
the emigrant roving and unsettled habits. But all regrets were now
useless; and happily unconscious of the life of toil and anxiety
that awaited us in those dreadful woods, I tried my best to be
cheerful, and to regard the future with a hopeful eye.
Our driver was a shrewd, clever man, for his opportunities. He took
charge of the living cargo, which consisted of my husband, our
maid-servant, the two little children, and myself - besides a large
hamper, full of poultry, a dog, and a cat. The lordly sultan of
the imprisoned seraglio thought fit to conduct himself in a very
eccentric manner, for at every barn-yard we happened to pass, he
clapped his wings, and crowed so long and loud that it afforded
great amusement to the whole party, and doubtless was very edifying
to the poor hens, who lay huddled together as mute as mice.
"That 'ere rooster thinks he's on the top of the heap," said our
driver, laughing. "I guess he's not used to travelling in a close
conveyance. Listen! How all the crowers in the neighbourhood give
him back a note of defiance! But he knows that he's safe enough at
the bottom of the basket."
The day was so bright for the time of year (the first week in
February), that we suffered no inconvenience from the cold. Little
Katie was enchanted with the jingling of the sleigh-bells, and,
nestled among the packages, kept singing or talking to the horses
in her baby lingo. Trifling as these little incidents were, before
we had proceeded ten miles on our long journey, they revived my
drooping spirits, and I began to feel a lively interest in the
scenes through which we were passing.
The first twenty miles of the way was over a hilly and well-cleared
country; and as in winter the deep snow fills up the inequalities,
and makes all roads alike, we glided as swiftly and steadily along
as if they had been the best highways in the world. Anon, the
clearings began to diminish, and tall woods arose on either side
of the path; their solemn aspect, and the deep silence that brooded
over their vast solitudes, inspiring the mind with a strange awe.
Not a breath of wind stirred the leafless branches, whose huge
shadows reflected upon the dazzling white covering of snow, lay
so perfectly still, that it seemed as if Nature had suspended
her operations, that life and motion had ceased, and that she
was sleeping in her winding-sheet, upon the bier of death.
"I guess you will find the woods pretty lonesome," said our driver,
whose thoughts had been evidently employed on the same subject as
our own. "We were once in the woods, but emigration has stepped
ahead of us, and made our'n a cleared part of the country. When I
was a boy, all this country, for thirty miles on every side of us,
was bush land. As to Peterborough, the place was unknown; not a
settler had ever passed through the great swamp, and some of them
believed that it was the end of the world."
"What swamp is that?" asked I.
"Oh, the great Cavan swamp. We are just two miles from it; and I
tell you that the horses will need a good rest, and ourselves a good
dinner, by the time we are through it. Ah, Mrs. Moodie, if ever you
travel that way in summer, you will know something about corduroy
roads. I was 'most jolted to death last fall; I thought it would
have been no bad notion to have insured my teeth before I left C - -.
I really expected that they would have been shook out of my head
before we had done manoeuvring over the big logs."
"How will my crockery stand it in the next sleigh?" quoth I. "If the
road is such as you describe, I am afraid that I shall not bring a
whole plate to Douro."
"Oh, the snow is a great leveller - it makes all rough places smooth.
But with regard to this swamp, I have something to tell you. About
ten years ago, no one had ever seen the other side of it; and if
pigs or cattle strayed away into it, they fell a prey to the wolves
and bears, and were seldom recovered.
"An old Scotch emigrant, who had located himself on this side of it,
so often lost his beasts that he determined during the summer season
to try and explore the place, and see if there were any end to it.
So he takes an axe on his shoulder, and a bag of provisions for
a week, not forgetting a flask of whiskey, and off he starts all
alone, and tells his wife that if he never returned, she and
little Jock must try and carry on the farm without him; but he was
determined to see the end of the swamp, even if it led to the other
world. He fell upon a fresh cattle-track, which he followed all that
day; and towards night he found himself in the heart of a tangled
wilderness of bushes, and himself half eaten up with mosquitoes and
black-flies. He was more than tempted to give in, and return home
by the first glimpse of light.
"The Scotch are a tough people; they are not easily daunted - a few
difficulties only seem to make them more eager to get on; and he
felt ashamed the next moment, as he told me, of giving up.
