CHAPTER XV.
One July morning Mr Forsyth was working in the field beside the river when he saw a canoe shoot in sight. It drew up to the bank and its occupant walked towards him.
“Man, it is you!” he exclaimed, grasping the extended hand. “At the first look I didna ken you. Hoo ye hae changed since last I saw you.”
“I know I have,” answered Morton, “the months since we parted have aged me more than half as many years would in ordinary course of life. The hardships of war, the strife between life and death on the battle-field, develop fast what is good or bad in a man.”
“Ye’ll hae had your share o’ the fechtin?”
“Yes; our regiment took part in all the movements in the Niagara district, and during the campaigning season there was not a week we did not exchange shots with the enemy or have to endure a toilsome march to check his plans.”
“And were you hurt at a’?”
“Nothing to speak of; scratches that did not keep me off duty over a few days. I may be thankful to have got off so well, for many a pretty fellow will never see home again.”
“War’s a gruesome trade.”
“It is that: I have seen scenes of horror that I try to banish from my memory. The carnage at Lundy’s Lane was sickening, and the cries of the wounded for help heart-breaking, for, from the darkness and the enemy’s pressing us, we could not reach them.”
“That brither should butcher brither is awfu’ proof o’ total depravity. After a’, thae Yankees, though their ways are not oor ways, are flesh o’ oor flesh, an’ we should live aside are anither in peace.”
“In this war, at least, Mr Forsyth, they are to blame. They declared it and if ever war is justifiable it is surely one like that we have fought and won, where a people rise to defend their native land against the invader.”
“I dinna dispute you, but as I creep near to my end, my heart softens to my fellow-men o’ a’ creeds and races and I wish to see peace and good-fellowship the warld ower.”
“So do I, but sure and permanent peace is not to be won by surrender of right. It is better for all that the best blood of Canada and Britain has soaked the fields within the sound of the roar of Niagara, than that Canada should have become a conquered addition to the United States.”
“You’re richt in that: the sacrifice is sair, but trial bitter, but a country’s independence maun be maintained. Canadians will think mair o’ their country when they see what it has cost to defend it. Noo that the war is ended, you’ll be leaving Canada?”
“That depends on what your daughter says. My regiment sails from Quebec by the end of the month.”
“What mean ye, sir, by Maggie hae’in’ aucht to dae wi’ your going?”
“Simply this, that if she will take me as her husband and you will give your consent, I shall sell my commission and remain in Canada.”
“You are surely no in earnest? What has the dochter o’ a backwoods farmer t’ dae wi’ an officer?”
“Since I landed in Canada I have had many false notions rudely torn away, and one of them is, that there is any connection between worth and station in life. I have found more to admire in the shanty than I ever did in the parlors of the Old Country.”
“That’s repeatin’ what Rabbie Burns wrote, the rank is but the guinea stamp.”
“I have proved it true: for the first time in my life I have become intimate with those whose living depends upon the labor of their hands, and my Old World notions have melted away, when I found them better than those whose boast it is they never soiled their fingers with manual toil.”
“Aye, aye; nae guid comes o’ tryin’ to escape the first command to fallen man, ‘in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.’”
“What say you?” asked Morton.
“To your asking Maggie? Oh, dinna speak o’t. She’s my ae ewe lamb and I canna pairt wi’ her.”
“I do not mean you should; we would go to Upper Canada together.”
The old man paused and leant upon his hoe and Morton stood respectfully behind him. After long silence he raised his head. “I canna answer you. It’s no for me to put my ain selfish will against her good; gang and let her choose for hersel’.”
“Thank you,” said Morton with emotion.
“We have had a backward spring; frost every week a maist to the middle o’ June, an’ sic cauld winds since syne that naething grows. We hae sown in hope, but I’m fearfu’ there will be little to reap. Sic a spring the auldest settler canna mind o’. Look at thae tatties! What poor spindly things they are, an’ this the first week o’ July.”
“It has not been so bad in the west.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Weel, this being the first real warm day we’ve had, I tell’t Maggie to busk hersel’ and gang and veesit the neebors, for she’s been in a sad and sorrowfu’ way since her mither deed. She said she had nae heart to veesit, but wad tak a walk alang the river and be back to mak my denner. Her brithers we expect hame every day from takin’ rafts to Montreal.”
“I’ll go and seek her,” remarked Morton, as he turned, and the old man went on hoeing. Morton had gone about a mile, when his eye caught the flutter of the linen kerchief Maggie had pinned round her neck. She did not see him and as she sauntered before him, he marked her graceful carriage, and muttered to himself, “A woman worthy to woo and win.” Unwilling to startle her by going too near, he cried “Miss Forsyth.”
She paused, turned in astonishment, and as her color came and went said, “Is it you?”
“Yes, and surely you will not shrink from me as you did when last we met.”
She held out her hand and as he pressed it, simply said, “I’m glad you’re safe and well.”
“Have you no warmer greeting for me?”
“What warmer do you deserve?”
“My deservings are nothing, but your own kind heart might plead for me.”
“Oh, dear: the conceit of some men, who think they can pick up hearts on the banks of the Chateaugay as they would acorns.”
“And what of women who pitch back rings as if they stung them?”
Maggie laughed and replied, “The gift is measured with the giver.”
“When a gift is a token of the hour of peril, what then, my lady? Is it a thing to be scorned?”
“Something to be restored to the sender when he gets out of the trap, that he may bestow it on somebody else.”
“I swear I never cared for anybody else.”
“Who asked you? If you must needs confess, you should have visited the fathers at the Basin on your way here.”
“I’m Puritan enough to desire to confess direct to the one I have offended.”
“So you have offended me!”
“You know I care for you.”
“How should I? From your many messages these last twenty months?”
Morton felt vexed and Maggie observed and enjoyed his perplexity. “Come,” she said, “it is wearing on to dinner-time and I know what soldiers’ appetites are. We had some soldier visitors who left us nothing. We will go home.”
“Not until I have said what I want to tell you,” he said warmly.
“Oh, you have something to tell me! You must have. Soldiers and hunters have always long stories to tell about themselves. Keep them until you have had some of our backwoods fare.”
“Tease me no more, Maggie; my heart is yours whether you accept it or not. That I have been neglectful and ungrateful I confess. How much I owe you I did not know until some months after I saw you.”
“You owe me nothing.”
“I owe you my life.”
“You owe it to Hemlock; not to me.”
“I know all, brave heart. I met Mrs Scott at Kingston and she told me of your journey to Oka, but for which Hemlock would never have known of my peril. As she spoke, the smouldering love I had for you burst into flame and your image has never been absent from my mind an hour since. When my comrades caroused and spoke loosely, I thought of you and turned away and tried to live worthily of you.”
“You know how to praise yourself.”
“No, no, my Maggie: I speak it not in praise of myself but in proof of my devotion, for how can a man show his love for a woman better than by forcing himself to live as he knows she would wish him to do?”
“And if you so loved this somebody of yours, why did you not write her?”
“You forget a soldier’s life is uncertain; I knew not the hour when I might fall. I said to myself a thousand times, if my life is spared I will seek her I love and plead my cause. When the bugle sounded the call to prepare for action I never failed to breathe an ardent prayer that Heaven’s blessing might rest upon you. I have been spared, the supreme hour in my life has come, and I await your answer.”
Maggie stood still. Her eyes fell to the ground and her fingers unconsciously plucked to pieces the flowers they held.
“Will you not speak?” pleaded Morton.
In a low voice she replied, “I cannot marry.”
“Why?”
“I will never leave my father.”
“I do not ask you should. I value his honest worth, and he shall be my father too, for I never saw my own, he died when I was a child. Say you will make me the happiest man on the Chateaugay and we will never part.”
“I say it is time to go and get dinner ready. Father, poor man, will be starving. Mr Morton, did you ever hoe potatoes for a forenoon?”
“Nonsense; speak the word and end my anxiety.”
“Oh, I’m not anxious. If you had hoed for half a day you would know what hunger was.”
“My hunger today is of another sort.”
“Ah, well, boys ought to learn to restrain their appetites.”
“Play with me no more. Let me know my fate. Give me my answer.”
“Won’t it be time enough when the minister asks?”
* * * * *
It was not much of a dinner that Maggie cooked, for she boiled the potatoes without salt and fried the pork to a crisp. It did not much matter, however, for of the three the father was the only one who had an appetite, and he did not complain. When done, he left to resume his task, and the young couple were alone. At supper he was told all, when he quietly rose, gripped Morton by the hand and said nothing. Next day the two sons arrived, and, on learning the news, by way of congratulation, slapped Maggie on the back until she declared it was sore. There were long discussions over Morton’s plans. He told them he had obtained promotion after Lundy’s Lane, and as captain his commission was worth a good deal; he would sell it, and then, as a retired officer, he would be entitled to a grant of land in Upper Canada. He proposed they should all leave and go with him. To this father and sons were much inclined, for the fact that the place they occupied was subject to seigniorial rent they did not like. It was arranged Morton should go to Quebec and sell his commission and by the time he returned they would be ready to join him.
Four days after he had left, Maggie received a letter from him, enclosing one from Mrs Scott. He said he found that Colonel Scott had arrived in Montreal, and, after winding up some ordnance business there, meant to sail for England with the Fall fleet. Mrs Scott sent a pressing invitation to Maggie to come and stay with her until Morton returned from Quebec. Maggie went, expecting to stay ten days or so, but her visit lengthened out to the end of August. They were happy weeks, spent in enjoyable society and in the delightful task of the preparation that is the prelude to a happy marriage. Morton at last got back, and had not merely the money obtained for his commission, but a patent for a large tract of land on the shore of Lake Ontario, obtained by him in a personal interview with Sir George Prevost, the gallant Gordon Drummond, his old commander, accompanying him and pressing his claim to generous recognition. Leaving Maggie in Montreal, he went again to the Chateaugay to tell all was ready. While there, he took a run up to Four Corners, his business being to visit the poor widow whose only son had been slain in the skirmish that led to his imprisonment. He found her and not only made sure she would be cared for but instituted steps to secure a pension, for congress was considering the question of relief to those who had suffered by the war. During his stay at Four Corners, he lived with Mr Douglass, and repaid with earnest gratitude the advances he had made him while living in misery in the stable, which sad abode he looked into with a swelling heart. On the morning after his return, they were ready to embark in the three canoes that were in waiting to convey them and their belongings, when the old man was missed. Morton, guessing where he was, went to seek him, and found him kneeling by the grave of his wife. Reverently approaching, he whispered the boatmen were anxious to start, assisted him to rise, and, leaning heavily on his arm, led him to the canoe where he was to sit. One last look at the shanty his hands had built and the fields they had cleared, and a bend in the river shut them out from his sight forever. Resuming his wonted contented cheerfulness, he adapted himself to the change, and rose still higher in Morton’s esteem. When they reached the Basin, the wind was favorable for the bateau that was waiting to leave on her trip to Lachine, and there they arrived late in the evening. The following morning Morton left for Montreal with Mr Forsyth, the sons remaining to stow away the outfit in the bateau, which done, they also journeyed to the same place. That evening there was a quiet little party at Colonel Scott’s quarters, and next morning a larger assemblage, for every officer off duty in the town was present, to see the army chaplain unite the happy pair. When all was over and Maggie had gone to prepare for the journey, Morton received congratulations that he knew were sincere. “Why,” said Major Fitzjames, “she is fit to be a Duchess.”
“She is fit for a more difficult position,” interjected Colonel Scott, “she has a mother-wit that stands her well alike in the circles of polished society and in the hour of danger and hardship.”
“Who is this that is such a paragon?” asked Mrs Scott, who had just come in.
“Mrs Morton.”
“Oh, say she is a true woman, and you say all. Mr Morton you have got a treasure.”
“I know it,” he replied, “and I will try to be worthy of her. She will be the benediction of the life I owe her.”
The day was fine and, for a wonder, the road was good, so that a large party, many of them on horseback, escorted the newly married pair to Lachine. As they drove past King’s Posts Morton recalled his first visit to it, the spy, and all the painful complications that had ensued, and now so happily ended. As they stood on the narrow deck of the bateau, and the wind, filling the huge sail, bore them away, a cheer rose, led by Colonel Scott. It was answered from the receding boat, and Maggie waved her handkerchief.
The journey was tedious and toilsome, but when they sailed into the bay on which Morton’s land was situated, saw its quality and fine situation, they felt they had been rewarded for coming so far. That Maggie proved an admirable help-mate need hardly be told, but what was remarkable is, that Morton became a successful farmer. Willing to put his hand to whatever there was to do, under his father-in-law’s tuition, he quickly became proficient, and when there was work to be done he did not say to his helpers “Go” but “Come,” and set them an example of cheerful and persevering exertion. Having land and enough to spare, he induced a good class of immigrants to buy from him, so that, before twenty years, his settlement was known as one of the most prosperous on Lake Ontario. Influential and public-spirited, Morton, as his circumstances grew easy and did not exact the same close attention to his personal affairs, took a leading part in laying the commercial and political foundations of Upper Canada, and Maggie was widely known in its best society. That they were a happy couple everybody knew, and their descendants are among the most prominent subjects of the Dominion.