The Lady of the Ice | Page 3

and use so fatally. It is a singular fact, for
which I will not attempt to account, that in Quebeccian society one
comes in contact with ladies only. Where the male element is I never
could imagine. I never saw a civilian. There are no young men in
Quebec; if there are any, we officers are not aware of it. I've often been
anxious to see one, but never could make it out. Now, of these
Canadian ladies I cannot trust myself to speak with calmness. An
allusion to them will of itself be eloquent to every brother officer. I will
simply remark that, at a time when the tendencies of the Canadians
generally are a subject of interest both in England and America, and
when it is a matter of doubt whether they lean to annexation or British
connection, their fair young daughters show an unmistakable tendency
not to one, but to both, and make two apparently incompatible
principles really inseparable.
You must understand that this is my roundabout way of hinting that the
unmarried British officer who goes to Canada generally finds his
destiny tenderly folding itself around a Canadian bride. It is the
common lot. Some of these take their wives with them around the
world, but many more retire from the service, buy farms, and practise
love in a cottage. Thus the fair and loyal Canadiennes are responsible
for the loss of many and many a gallant officer to her majesty's service.
Throughout these colonial stations there has been, and there will be, a
fearful depletion, among the numbers of these brave but too
impressible men. I make this statement solemnly, as a mournful fact. I
have nothing to say against it; and it is not for one who has had an
experience like mine to hint at a remedy. But to my story:
Every one who was in Quebec during the winter of 18--, if he went into
society at all, must have been struck by the appearance of a young
Bobtail officer, who was a joyous and a welcome guest at every house
where it was desirable to be. Tall, straight as an arrow, and singularly
well-proportioned, the picturesque costume of the 129th Bobtails could

add but little to the effect already produced by so martial a figure. His
face was whiskerless; his eyes gray; his cheek-bones a little higher than
the average; his hair auburn; his nose not Grecian--or Roman--but still
impressive: his air one of quiet dignity, mingled with youthful joyance
and mirthfulness. Try--O reader!--to bring before you such a figure.
Well--that's me.
Such was my exterior; what was my character? A few words will
suffice to explain:--bold, yet cautious; brave, yet tender; constant, yet
highly impressible; tenacious of affection, yet quick to kindle into
admiration at every new form of beauty; many times smitten, yet
surviving the wound; vanquished, yet rescued by that very
impressibility of temper--such was the man over whose singular
adventures you will shortly be called to smile or to weep.
Here is my card:
Lieut. Alexander Macrorie 129th Bobtails.
And now, my friend, having introduced you to myself, having shown
you my photograph, having explained my character, and handed you
my card, allow me to lead you to
CHAPTER II.
MY QUARTERS, WHERE YOU WILL BECOME ACQUAINTED
WITH OLD JACK RANDOLPH, MY MOST INTIMATE FRIEND,
AND ONE WHO DIVIDES WITH ME THE HONOR OF BEING
THE HERO OF MY STORY.
I'll never forget the time. It was a day in April.
But an April day in Canada is a very different thing from an April day
in England. In England all Nature is robed in vivid green, the air is
balmy; and all those beauties abound which usually set poets
rhapsodizing, and young men sentimentalizing, and young girls
tantalizing. Now, in Canada there is nothing of the kind. No Canadian
poet, for instance, would ever affirm that in the spring a livelier iris

blooms upon the burnished dove; in the spring a young man's fancy
lightly turns to thoughts of love. No. For that sort of thing--the thoughts
of love I mean--winter is the time of day in Canada. The fact is, the
Canadians haven't any spring. The months which Englishmen include
under that pleasant name are here partly taken up with prolonging the
winter, and partly with the formation of a new and nondescript season.
In that period Nature, instead of being darkly, deeply, beautifully green,
has rather the shade of a dingy, dirty, melancholy gray. Snow covers
the ground--not by any means the glistening white robe of Winter--but
a rugged substitute, damp, and discolored. It is snow, but snow far gone
into decay and decrepitude-- snow that seems ashamed of itself for
lingering so long after wearing out its welcome, and presenting itself in
so revolting a