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 citizenship 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 anticipations 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-fashioned, 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 Woodpecker,” 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 grassy mound and bit of massive 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 passion, 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 assembly 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, passing, 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 shores!”