Lost in the Backwoods | Page 3

fifty miles in a
little skiff, navigated along the shores of Lake Ontario by the
adventurous Pierre, and from the nearest landing-place transported on
the shoulders of himself and Duncan to their homestead. A day of great
labour but great joy it was when they deposited their precious freight in
safety on the shanty floor. They were obliged to make two journeys for
the contents of the little craft. What toil, what privation they endured
for the first two years! and now the fruits of it began to appear.
No two creatures could be more unlike than Pierre and Duncan. The
Highlander, stern, steady, persevering, cautious, always giving ample
reasons for his doing or his not doing. The Canadian, hopeful, lively,
fertile in expedients, and gay as a lark; if one scheme failed, another
was sure to present itself. Pierre and Duncan were admirably suited to
be friends and neighbours. The steady perseverance of the Scot helped
to temper the volatile temperament of the Frenchman. They generally
contrived to compass the same end by different means, as two streams
descending from opposite hills will meet in one broad river in the same
valley.
Years passed on: the farm, carefully cultivated, began to yield its
increase; food and warm clothing were not wanting in the homestead.
Catharine had become, in course of time, the happy mother of four
healthy children; her sister-in-law had exceeded her in these welcome
contributions to the population of a new colony.

Between the children of Pierre and Catharine the most charming
harmony prevailed; they grew up as one family, a pattern of affection
and early friendship. Though different in tempers and dispositions,
Hector Maxwell, the eldest son of the Scottish soldier, and his cousin,
young Louis Perron, were greatly attached: they, with the young
Catharine and Mathilde, formed a little coterie of inseparables; their
amusements, tastes, pursuits, occupations, all blended and harmonized
delightfully; there were none of those little envyings and bickerings
among them that pave the way to strife and disunion in after-life.
Catharine Maxwell and her cousin Louis were more like brother and
sister than Hector and Catharine; but Mathilde was gentle and dove-like,
and formed a contrast to the gravity of Hector and the vivacity of Louis
and Catharine.
Hector and Louis were fourteen--strong, vigorous, industrious, and
hardy, both in constitution and habits. The girls were turned of twelve.
It is not with Mathilde that our story is connected, but with the two lads
and Catharine. With the gaiety and naivete of the Frenchwoman,
Catharine possessed, when occasion called it into action, a thoughtful
and well-regulated mind, abilities which would well have repaid the
care of mental cultivation; but of book-learning she knew nothing
beyond a little reading, and that but imperfectly, acquired from her
father's teaching. It was an accomplishment which he had gained when
in the army, having been taught by his colonel's son, a lad of twelve
years of age, who had taken a great fancy to him, and had at parting
given him a few of his school-books, among which was a Testament
without cover or title-page. At parting, the young gentleman
recommended its daily perusal to Duncan. Had the gift been a Bible,
perhaps the soldier's obedience to his priest might have rendered it a
dead letter to him; but as it fortunately happened, he was unconscious
of any prohibition to deter him from becoming acquainted with the
truths of the gospel. He communicated the power of perusing his books
to his children Hector and Catharine, Duncan and Kenneth, in
succession, with a feeling of intense reverence; even the labour of
teaching was regarded as a holy duty in itself, and was not undertaken
without deeply impressing the obligation he was conferring upon them

whenever they were brought to the task. It was indeed a precious boon,
and the children learned to consider it as a pearl beyond all price in the
trials that awaited them in their eventful career. To her knowledge of
religious truths young Catharine added an intimate acquaintance with
the songs and legends of her father's romantic country; often would her
plaintive ballads and old tales, related in the hut or the wigwam to her
attentive auditors, wile away heavy thoughts.
It was a lovely sunny day in the flowery month of June. Canada had not
only doffed that "dazzling white robe" mentioned in the songs of her
Jacobite emigrants, but had assumed the beauties of her loveliest
season; the last week in May and the first three of June being parallel to
the English May, full of buds and flowers and fair promise of ripening
fruits.
The high sloping hills surrounding the fertile vale of Cold Springs were
clothed with the blossoms of the gorgeous scarlet castilegia coccinea,
or painted-cup; the large, pure, white blossoms