Down the River to the Sea Part 2

"Couldn't you repeat a verse or two of your own translation?" said Flora.

"I should _have_ to repeat my own, if I did any," he said, smiling, "for it's the only one I could manage to remember."

"Well, give us a bit of it, do," commanded Kate.

Hugh thought for a moment. "I'll give you the two stanzas that might do for a description of the present scene," he said, and went on to recite, with great spirit:

"And it boils and it seethes, and it hisses and roars, As if fire struggled fierce with the wave, And a misty spray-cloud from its bosom outpours, And the chasing floods endlessly rave; And, like thunder remote, with its low distant rumbles, The foam-crested stream from the dark canon tumbles!

But at last comes a lull in the turbulent war, And black in the midst of white foam A yawning rift gapes in the center, that far Leads downwards to bottomless gloom; And lo! all the surges, swift, rus.h.i.+ng and roaring, Down into the whirlpool are endlessly pouring!"

"It has the merit of being pretty literal, at any rate," he added, as they all thanked him, while Flora whispered to May that the whole translation was in the new book that was nearly ready. "But it is so strong and terse in the original that it is extremely difficult to render with any justice in a translation."

"It would do for a description of _this_ whirlpool, at any rate," said Kate. And then she told them of a real tragedy, not unlike that of "The Diver," which had been recently enacted there, the feat of a bold swimmer, who had ventured to oppose his own strength and skill to that resistless force of the flood, with a similar result.

"Poor fellow!" said Hugh, "that's tragedy enough for the place without inventing one. But why will man be so foolhardy?"

"I can tell you of another daring feat, that _succeeded_ though,"

replied Kate, "though _that_ might have seemed foolhardy, too." And she went on to tell them how a little steamboat called the "Maid of the Mist," which used to ply up and down, just below the Falls, in order to give visitors the same view they now had from the ferry boat, had finally been taken down the river to Niagara, at its mouth, piloted through these fierce rapids and that greedy whirlpool; and how, when at last the pilot had successfully accomplished his anxious task, and left the boat at its dock, he looked at least ten years older than he had done only an hour or two before.

While they talked Flora was trying to make a rapid sketch of the view had from where they sat on the bank--just as a help to remember it by, she said, for there was far too much to attempt in a hasty sketch, and the others were not sorry for an excuse to linger a little longer in so striking and picturesque a spot; but at last they felt compelled to bid it farewell, and tore themselves away, ascending in the same way in which they had come down, not without some tremor on the part of the girls, lest the stout chain should part while they were on the way. Rejoining Mrs. Sandford, who had grown very impatient, they were soon in the carriage again, but before pursuing their onward way they made a little _detour_, driving through a charming glen which led gradually downwards, under embowering trees and among mossy rocks and ferny glades, to where a pretty little bay lay, cut off from the raving stream by a beach of weather-worn pebbles. At the other extremity of the picturesque glen lay a little placid pool formed by an eddy of the river, at which Hugh declared he should like to stand all day with his fis.h.i.+ng-rod, taking in leisurely all the influences of the tranquil scene. Flora, also, went into raptures over the place, which she said reminded her so much of a Scottish glen, and she and her brother eagerly discussed its points of similarity and contrast with several glens well known to them at home.

Returning once more to the high-road they continued their drive in the slanting afternoon light, with rich farms and orchards on either side of them and lovely glimpses of the river and the opposite bank, till they found themselves among the picturesque dingles that lie round Queenston Heights, ascending the n.o.ble eminence, crowned by a stately shaft, which had been for some time looming before them in the distance. This height, Kate declared, was a natural monument, marking the Thermopylae of Canada. But when they came out at last on its brow, close to the base of the shaft, they all exclaimed with delight at the exquisite beauty of the view that lay at their feet, which for the time made them forget that such things as historical a.s.sociations had any existence.

Just below them lay a fair, broad bay, into which the narrow, precipitous gorge had suddenly expanded; while away to their left they could trace, as on a map, the windings of the now placid river, round point after point, between banks that in the nearer distance looked like escarpments crowned with foliage, and, as they receded, gradually fell away in height until they descended almost to the level of the great Lake Ontario, which stretched--a blue, sea-like expanse--to the horizon line. Across the river, before them, the eye traveled over miles on miles of woodland and fertile farming country, dotted with villages and homesteads; the pretty little town of Lewiston, close to the river, just below. Immediately beneath them the rugged heights fell away abruptly to the river beach, and they looked down on the picturesque little village of Queenston, nestling among its graceful weeping willows, while, from its dock, a small ferry steamer was just leaving the quiet river, on its way to the nearly opposite dock at Lewiston. One or two sailing vessels and skiffs added animation to the charming foreground, and the whole seemed an embodiment of tranquil beauty.

"Who would ever dream," said Flora, "that this was the same river we saw raging away up there?" though May, listening attentively, could still hear the soft, distant murmur of the "Thunder of Waters."

"War and Peace," said Hugh. "But are we not going to ascend the monument?"

"Of course," said Kate, when they had all read the commemorative inscription, and duly admired the graceful shaft, crowned by the figure of General Wolfe, with one hand resting on his sword and the other extended as if to cheer on his men. They climbed the winding stair within to the summit, from whence they could command still more extensive and varied panorama on all sides of them. Kate eagerly pointed out on the last headland at the mouth of the river the little Canadian town of Niagara, which, she informed her Scotch cousins, was almost the oldest town in Ontario, and had even enjoyed the dignity of being its first const.i.tutional capital. Close beside it they could trace just through an opera gla.s.s the ramparts of old Fort George, which had played an important part in stormy days gone by. On the opposite point rose the white walls of the American Fort Niagara.

Landward, Kate pointed out the spires of St. Catherine's, fourteen miles off, and the silver streak of the Welland Ca.n.a.l, winding its devious way from Lake Erie to Port Dalhousie, on Lake Ontario. And, "if they only had a good spy-gla.s.s," she added, "they could catch a glimpse of Toronto, just across a blue stretch of lake."

After feasting their eyes on the lovely landscape, lighted by the warm afternoon sun, they were not sorry to descend from their lofty perch and sit down a while in a shady spot on the verge of the height, looking down over its dense foliage of oak and maple, birch and sumach, to the blue-green river that flowed beneath, half concealed by the rocky ledges. And as they sat there and Flora sketched, Kate described--helped out by May--how, early in one October morning of 1812, a line of boats filled with American troops had stolen silently across the stream, until the gallant "forlorn hope" had made a landing on the Canadian sh.o.r.e; and how the fire of the guns that greeted their pa.s.sage had roused General Wolfe at Fort George, and brought him galloping up at the head of his suite to take command of the gallant little British and Canadian force, of only about eight hundred men, all told. But this little force had opposed the progress of the invaders every inch of ground with such desperate valor as speedily to change the attack into a rout, in which numbers of the brave American soldiers, fighting gallantly, even after all was lost, fell victims to the uncontrollable ferocity of the Indians, determined to avenge the death of the brave Wolfe, who had fallen while fighting like one of his own men, and cheering on the "York Volunteers." Many of the invaders who escaped the pursuing Indians were killed in trying to descend the rocky height or drowned in attempting to swim across the river.

"A well-fought fight it must have been," exclaimed Hugh, "worthy to take its place beside any of our historical battlefields. Why don't we know more about these affairs at home? Then we might feel more as if Canada were indeed a 'Greater Britain!' And so these heights had _their_ dead hero, too, as well as the 'Heights of Abraham'?"

"Yes, indeed," said May; "General Brock was indeed a hero, just as much as Wolfe, though he only helped to _keep_ Canada, instead of conquering it."

"But," said Kate, "to go back to ancient history, do you know that this ridge here is said to have been once the sh.o.r.e of an ocean, and, at a later time, the boundary of the lake; and that here the Falls are supposed to have made their first plunge. The geologists have traced it all the way--its gradually receding front all the way back to where it is now."

"I'm sure I'm much obliged to them," said Hugh, "but somehow these vast blank periods of geological history don't touch me half so much as a little bit of human interest. That battle you have been describing is far more interesting than aeons of conflict between water and shale."

"If it interests you so much," Kate rejoined, "you can read more about it when we get home, in a Canadian story I have, called 'For King and Country,' which ends with the battle of Queenston Heights."

And now Flora had finished her little sketch, and Mrs. Sandford warned the lingering party that the afternoon was waning fast, in which undoubted fact they acquiesced with a general sigh of regret. They descended by the steep winding road on the other side of the height, through thickets of aromatic red cedar, down to the scattered little village, embowered among its orchards below, and drove some distance farther on along the road in order that they might enjoy, in returning, the charming view of the Heights, approached from the Niagara side. They followed, for a mile or two, the undulating road which, after leaving the village behind, was skirted with white villas, surrounded by wide stretches of soft green sward, flecked by the shadows of fine old trees, looking like a bit of an English park; and then, turning at last, enjoyed the charming view of the now distant bay, with wooded point after point intervening, and the bold eminence of Queenston Heights always fitly closing in the picturesque vista.

They all thought the drive such an enchanting one that there was not a dissenting voice when Kate proposed that, since they were going to take the daily steamer to Toronto from Niagara, on their onward route, by far the pleasantest plan would be to _drive_ thither, when at last they must leave the Falls.

Leaving the Falls seemed a sad prospect to all of them, but more especially so to May, over whom the Falls had thrown such a spell of fascination that she would have liked nothing better than to stay there all summer, feasting eyes and ears on their grandeur. But Hugh Macnab, who owned to the same feeling, added the consoling reflection that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever," and May felt convinced that the memory of the Falls would indeed be "a joy forever" to _her_ as long as she lived.

They could only spare three days more to Niagara, and as they sat that evening as usual on the piazza, regretting the lateness of the already waning moon, they agreed that now, having taken a general survey of the main points of view, they should not attempt any plans for the remaining days, but should spend them in those leisurely, unpremeditated loiterings, which are always the pleasantest way of absorbing all the more subtile and indefinite influences of n.o.ble scenery.

So the remaining days turned out to be, perhaps, the most delightful of the sojourn, spent in charming desultory strolls, as the fancy of the moment dictated, revisiting all the points which had most impressed them, taking in new beauties which they had not observed before, while they talked or were silent, as the mood suggested, and Flora filled her sketch-book with pretty "bits," and Hugh occasionally withdrew to a little distance and scribbled in his note-book, and Mrs.

Sandford, sitting near while the others discursively rambled, accomplished yards on yards of her endless knitting.

Their last day was Sunday, when they walked down to the pretty little church at Clifton, and enjoyed the quiet service, and sat most of the afternoon on the piazza, of the view from whence they never tired. It was a lovely sunset, and they walked as far as Table Rock to have a last lingering look at the superb view from there in the rich evening glow. As they watched the two magnificent Falls into which the stream divides, to re-unite below, Kate told her cousin Hugh of a beautiful simile which she had seen in a new Canadian book called "The New Empire," in which the author suggests that though the stream of the British race in America had divided like that sweeping river into two magnificent sections, so, like it, they might re-unite in the future citizens.h.i.+p of a world-wide Britain.

"And then, perhaps, we shall go on to our laureate's dream of the federation of the world! It is at all events a pleasant thought to finish this glorious visit with; and I suppose this is our farewell look?"

"I am afraid so," said Kate. "We shall not have much time in the morning for loitering. Let us be glad we have such a glorious sight of it--for the last!"

And they sat silently gazing, as if they would fain have prolonged the sunset light. But at length its last vestige had vanished, and they slowly walked back to the hotel in the starlight, while the grand music of the "Thunder of Waters" still filled their ears, and sounded even through their dreams.

CHAPTER II

ON THE LAKE.

"Dreaming again, May! Are you saying a last fond good-bye to the Falls? I'm afraid you've left your heart up there," said Mrs.

Sandford, as she smilingly laid her hand on the shoulder of her niece, who stood alone at the stern of the steamboat, silently gazing in the direction of the faint, distant cloud of spray that rose, just traceable against the clear blue sky, with a wistful regret in her soft gray eyes--regret at parting from that wonderful revelation of the sublime which had so powerfully impressed her imagination, and which, just at present, overpowered even the happy antic.i.p.ations of the further revelations of beauty and grandeur that still lay in the future progress of this wonderful voyage down the glorious river to the sea.

They had a delightful morning drive through the long stretch of charming rural scenery that lies between the Falls and Niagara, studded with pretty bowery old homesteads, long green lawns flecked with the long shadows of spreading walnut and tulip trees, and dark stately pines, through which they could catch glimpses of old-fas.h.i.+oned, pillared piazzas, or of old gray farm buildings, till at last they reached the picturesque suburbs of the quiet little town of "Niagara-on-the-Lake." As they drove through the grove of fine oaks that skirts the edge of the town, and admired the pretty little church of St. Mark's, making a charming picture in the foreground, Mrs.

Sandford, who in her youth had often sojourned in the vicinity, pointed out the spot where she remembered having seen the "hollow beech-tree,"--long since gone,--commemorated by Moore in his poem of "The Woodp.e.c.k.e.r," though, it must be added, that this same beech-tree has been also located in the neighborhood of Kingston. Beyond the oak grove lay a broad green or "common" stretching away to the wide blue lake, on which the Iroquois used to hold an annual encampment to receive their yearly gifts and allowances. To the right of the road, just above the river, Mrs. Sandford pointed out the gra.s.sy mound and bit of ma.s.sive masonry, which is all that is left of old Fort George, with its eventful history, and a little further on the tower of Fort Mississauga, built after the final retreat of the American troops in 1813, out of the ruins of the original town, burned by the American soldiers on a dreary December day. No traces of these old conflicts can now be seen, being long since smoothed over by the gentle yet strong hand of time, and a beneficent Nature. Just opposite them, across the broad blue-green river, which has now lost all traces of its turbulent pa.s.sion, and subsided into a most peaceful and easy-going stream, they could see the white walls of the American Fort Niagara, which had exchanged so many rounds of cannonade with its opposite neighbor. May, fresh from reading Parkman, was eager to fix the exact spot where her special hero, LaSalle, had built his ill-fated "Griffin," the first sailing vessel that ever floated on these waters; but here her aunt could give her no information. _Her_ interest was entirely in later history, and she pointed out the place where Governor Simcoe had opened the first Parliament of Upper Canada and delivered his first speech, with all the usual formalities, to an a.s.sembly of eight members and two Legislative Councilors; after which the Governor, with his two Secretaries, departed in due pomp attended by a guard of honor of fifty soldiers from the old fort; and also, how, with less ceremonial, during the warm summer days, the Governor and his Council met on the green sward, under the spreading trees, and arranged the affairs of the Provinces, pa.s.sing, among other useful measures, the memorable one which put an end forever to all possibilities of negro slavery in the young colony, thereby saving it from much future difficulty and dishonor.

The mention of this last subject had brought on a discussion of the history of slavery in the American Republic, which much interested Hugh Macnab, whose Celtic sympathies had been rather with the South in the great struggle, while Kate was a warm partisan of the North, and argued their cause so well that her cousin had at last to confess himself mistaken on several important points. The argument lasted until they found themselves on board the Cibola, getting up her steam to carry them from Niagara and its glories. While Mrs. Sandford had been dilating on the attractions of Niagara-on-the-Lake as a delightful and quiet health resort, May, who had been very quiet during the drive, had stolen off to a quiet corner in the stern, where the others found her at last, sitting very still and trying to fix the glorious Falls in her memory by calling up once again the picture of them as she had seen them last.

"So this is Lake Ontario!" said Hugh Macnab, looking around with keen enjoyment. "How well I remember stumbling over the name at school in my geography lessons, and reading with awe that line of Campbell's about the tiger roaming along Ontario's sh.o.r.es!"

"Oh, did he really say that?" said Kate. "Who would have thought a great poet would have made such a mistake in his zoology?"

"Oh, as for that," said Hugh, smiling, "poets, especially when they are city-bred--are very apt to make mistakes about natural facts. And Ruskin had not written then, you know. But what a magnificent lake!"

he exclaimed again, inhaling the fresh, bracing breeze, and surveying with delight the turquoise-blue expanse of water, whose horizon-line blended softly with a pale azure sky, banked here and there by delicate violet clouds which might have pa.s.sed for distant mountains.

"Over there," he added, "one could imagine it the ocean, at least on one of the rare days when the ocean sleeps at peace!"

"It can be stormy enough, too," remarked Mrs. Sandford, with a grimace, called forth by some vivid remembrance of it in that aspect.

"I've been on it when even good sailors at sea have had to give in.

For, you see, the short, chopping waves are more trying than the big ocean rollers."

"And how long shall we be on it, after leaving Toronto?" asked Hugh, with some anxiety, for he was by no means a good sailor in such circ.u.mstances.

"Oh, you can have fourteen or fifteen hours of it, if you wish,"

replied Kate, mischievously, suspecting the reason for his question.

"But I've been planning a little variation that, because, of course, you see nothing of the country in traveling by lake, and I want you to see some of our really pretty places by the way; and besides, the Armstrongs, our Port Hope cousins, want to have a glimpse of you, of course, and would like us all to give them a day, at least, _en route_. And my plan is, that we take the lake steamer to Port Hope, which we reach in a lovely hour,--just in the gloaming, as Flora would say. We can all stay with the Armstrongs, for they have a good large house and some of the family are away; and we can have some very pretty drives about Port Hope next day. And then, the following morning, we can take the train, and go by the 'Grand Trunk' to a pretty little town called Belleville, on a charming bay called the Bay of Quinte, on which we can have a lovely sail down to Kingston. That will be better than spending the night on the lake--seeing nothing of the scenery and having to turn out of our berths at the unearthly hour of four o'clock in the morning, which is about the time the steamboat from Toronto arrives at that good old city."