Alas, for my crockery and stone china! scarcely one article remained
unbroken.
"Never fret about the china," said Moodie; "thank God the man and
the horses are uninjured."
I should have felt more thankful had the crocks been spared too;
for, like most of my sex, I had a tender regard for china, and I
knew that no fresh supply could be obtained in this part of the
world. Leaving his brother to collect the scattered fragments, D - -
proceeded on his journey. We left the road, and were winding our way
over a steep hill, covered with heaps of brush and fallen timber,
and as we reached the top, a light gleamed cheerily from the windows
of a log house, and the next moment we were at my brother-in-law's
door.
I thought my journey was at an end; but here I was doomed to fresh
disappointment. His wife was absent on a visit to her friends, and
it had been arranged that we were to stay with my sister, Mrs. T - -,
and her husband. With all this I was unacquainted; and I was about
to quit the sleigh and seek the warmth of the fire when I was told
that I had yet further to go. Its cheerful glow was to shed no
warmth on me, and, tired as I was, I actually buried my face and
wept upon the neck of a hound which Moodie had given to Mr. S - -,
and which sprang up upon the sleigh to lick my face and hands. This
was my first halt in that weary wilderness, where I endured so many
bitter years of toil and sorrow. My brother-in-law and his family
had retired to rest, but they instantly rose to receive the way-worn
travellers; and I never enjoyed more heartily a warm welcome after
a long day of intense fatigue, than I did that night of my first
sojourn in the backwoods.
THE OTONABEE
Dark, rushing, foaming river!
I love the solemn sound
That shakes thy shores around,
And hoarsely murmurs, ever,
As thy waters onward bound,
Like a rash, unbridled steed
Flying madly on its course;
That shakes with thundering force
The vale and trembling mead.
So thy billows downward sweep,
Nor rock nor tree can stay
Their fierce, impetuous way;
Now in eddies whirling deep,
Now in rapids white with spray.
I love thee, lonely river!
Thy hollow restless roar,
Thy cedar-girded shore;
The rocky isles that sever,
The waves that round them pour.
Katchawanook[1] basks in light,
But thy currents woo the shade
By the lofty pine-trees made,
That cast a gloom like night,
Ere day's last glories fade.
Thy solitary voice
The same bold anthem sung
When Nature's frame was young.
No longer shall rejoice
The woods where erst it rung!
Lament, lament, wild river!
A hand is on thy mane[2]
That will bind thee in a chain
No force of thine can sever.
Thy furious headlong tide,
In murmurs soft and low,
Is destined yet to glide
To meet the lake below;
And many a bark shall ride
Securely on thy breast,
To waft across the main
Rich stores of golden grain
From the valleys of the West.
[1] The Indian name for one of the many expansions of this beautiful
river.
[2] Alluding to the projected improvements on the Trent, of which
the Otonabee is a continuation. Fifteen years have passed away
since this little poem was written; but the Otonabee still rushes
on in its own wild strength. Some idea of the rapidity of this
river may be formed from the fact that heavy rafts of timber are
floated down from Herriot's Falls, a distance of nine miles from
Peterborough, in less than an hour. The shores are bold and rocky,
and abound in beautiful and picturesque views.
CHAPTER XV
THE WILDERNESS, AND OUR INDIAN FRIENDS
Man of strange race! stern dweller of the wild!
Nature's free-born, untamed, and daring child!
The clouds of the preceding night, instead of dissolving in snow,
brought on a rapid thaw. A thaw in the middle of winter is the most
disagreeable change that can be imagined. After several weeks of
clear, bright, bracing, frosty weather, with a serene atmosphere and
cloudless sky, you awake one morning surprised at the change in the
temperature; and, upon looking out of the window, behold the woods
obscured by a murky haze - not so dense as an English November fog,
but more black and lowering - and the heavens shrouded in a uniform
covering of leaden-coloured clouds, deepening into a livid indigo at
the edge of the horizon. The snow, no longer hard and glittering,
has become soft and spongy, and the foot slips into a wet and
insidiously-yielding mass at every step. From the roof pours down a
continuous stream of water, and the branches of the trees collecting
the moisture of the reeking atmosphere, shower it upon the earth
from every dripping twig. The cheerless and uncomfortable aspect of
things without never fails to produce a corresponding effect upon
the minds of those within, and casts such a damp upon the spirits
that it appears to destroy for a time all sense of enjoyment. Many
persons (and myself among the number) are made aware of the approach
of a thunder-storm by an intense pain and weight about the head; and
I have heard numbers of Canadians complain that a thaw always made
them feel bilious and heavy, and greatly depressed their animal
spirits.
