“You are much more likely to hear it than to see it,” said May. “It is very hard to get a good look at one, for it seldom appears in daylight.”
But soon the fireflies and the whip-poor-will were left behind, and they were once more rattling over city streets. And then, after a substantial tea, they went to rest, for the steamer for Kingston was to start at six in the morning.
As the scenery of the Bay of Quinte depends very much on the weather, the little party were fortunate in having a lovely changeful morning, with soft mists and cloud-shadows that gave a charming variety of tint and tone to the beautiful bay and its fair, gently sloping shores. The little steamer “Hero” passed in rapid succession one picturesque point after another—the bay sometimes expanding into a broad, wind-rippled expanse; sometimes narrowing into calm reaches or inlets, mirroring the foliage on either side. At the head of the largest reach or arm of the bay, the steamer stopped at the pretty little town of Picton, nestling beneath a noble wooded hill, with gentler slopes rising about it in all directions. Whether Picton or Port Hope possessed the more picturesque site was a question they found it hard to decide. Returning down this long reach Hugh was seized with a desire to see the “Lake of the Mountain,” on the high table-land above the bay, of which he had often heard. And Kate, who considered nothing impossible, actually persuaded the obliging captain to keep the boat at the landing below it for half an hour, in order to give them time for a hurried visit. Mrs. Sandford, of course, graciously declined the climb, but the others hastened up the steep ascent, where a mill-race came rushing down the height, amid a lush growth of ferns that grew luxuriously among the dark, wet rocks, between which they picked their way. But, once at the top, what a glorious view! Right below their feet stretched the lovely reach—widening out into the broad bay at the end of a long promontory diversified with fields and farms and wooded shores. Close beside them, on the other hand, lay the lovely little lake they had come to see—calmly sleeping in the sunshine, with as little apparent mystery about it as if its very existence were not an unsolved problem; one supposition being, that, as it is at about the same level as Lake Erie, it may be fed by a secret communication with that distant sheet. But they had only a few minutes to stay beside the beautiful mysterious little tarn, and to enjoy the lovely view spread before their eyes, for the steamer just below was already whistling to recall them, and they hurried down to rejoin her,—somewhat warm and out of breath, but with all the satisfaction one feels in making the best of one’s opportunities.
As they left the reach, a sun-shower rolled up, accompanied with distant thunder; but it only seemed to add a bewitching variety to the tones of the distance, and of the water, and, when the sunshine broke out again, conjuring up an exquisite rainbow, and the light and shade chased each other over the golden fields of waving barley—the beauty of the bay with the perspective of the “Long Reach” in the distance, seemed still greater than before. The travelers were content to sit still, passively absorbing the charm of the hour, while they looked on in a dreamy fashion at the various points of interest; at Point Mississauga, named, of course, in honor of the former “lords of the soil,” whose “totem,” a crane, seemed to be appropriately keeping guard over the spot; then at the various villages and townships;—at Deseronto, a busy little lumbering place, named after an Indian chief, whose formidable name signifies “Thunder and Lightning;”—at a forsaken-looking little “Bath,” with its ambitious name, and at a long succession of “towns,” or rather townships, named, by the overflowing enthusiasm of the U. E. Loyalists, after the numerous olive branches of old George the Third. There is Ernestown and Adolphustown, and Ameliasburg and Marysburgh; and there is Amherst Island, named, like Picton, after an English general, and said to have been lost by a noble owner at a game of cards! Hugh declared that the loyalty and Britishness of everything were rather monotonous, and could not refrain from heartily wishing that these good people had not, in their zeal, undertaken to change to the commonplace name of Kingston the melodious Indian name of Cataraqui! For here they were now coming in sight of this old “limestone city”—the oldest settlement in Ontario, the cradle of British Canada—and, to May, surrounded with a halo of romance from its close association with the history and fortune of her brave but hapless hero, the dauntless explorer, LaSalle.
CHAPTER III—AMONG THE BEAUTIFUL ISLANDS.
And now they were rapidly approaching the gray, “limestone city,” which rises picturesquely on its slope behind its line of wharves, and elevators, and masts of vessels, with a certain quiet dignity not unbecoming its antiquity, and derived, partly from its harmonious gray coloring, and partly from the graceful towers and spires that form so prominent a feature in its aspect. And it was by no means easy for May to call up in imagination—as she tried to do—the wild, savage loneliness of the place, with its wooded slopes, as yet untouched by the hand of the settler, as it presented itself to LaSalle, when he first discovered the advantages of making Cataraqui his base of operations; or even as it was seen by the first detachment of U. E. Loyalists, when their batteaux, slowly making their way up the St. Lawrence, rounded the long promontory now surmounted by the ramparts of Fort Henry. One tall tower, seen long before any other evidence of a city appeared, belonged, the captain told them, to the Roman Catholic Cathedral. Presently, however, extensive piles of fine public buildings attracted their attention, which they found were unfortunately the shelter of lunacy and crime, Kingston being the seat of the Provincial Penitentiary, as well as of a large asylum. In welcome contrast, they were shown the Gothic tower of Queen’s University, rising above an entourage of trees, though far from being as imposing in its dimensions as these palaces of gloom. From thence, the eye wandered over other towers and domes and spires, relieved by masses of verdure, which led them easily to believe the captain’s report that Kingston is a very attractive city, especially when summer had embowered it in shade. And there were great schooners, under a full spread of canvas, and massive lake steamers and propellers, and little active steam-launches, flitting about, in striking contrast—May thought—to the stillness of the scene, broken only by the Iroquois canoes, when Frontenac’s flotilla came in state up the lonely river to found old Fort Frontenac.
“And what a glorious sheet of water around it!” exclaimed Hugh, taking in with an admiring gaze the westward blue expanse of lake and the great wide sweep of river studded with islands, stretching away to eastward, which they told him was the St. Lawrence, at last. And then, as they rounded the curve of the fine harbor, and saw before them, on the one side, the fine cut-stone front of the City Hall and on the other, on a long, green promontory, the Royal Military College, with its smart Norman towers, they observed a long bridge behind which the river Cataraqui winds its way down from the northeast, and forms this beautiful harbor by its confluence with the St. Lawrence. Six miles up its placid stream, they were told, the Rideau Canal had its beginning at a picturesque gorge where are the first massive stone locks, which form one of the finest pieces of masonry on the continent. This Rideau Canal binds together a chain of lovely little lakes, and finally meets the Rideau River, and so makes a convenient water-way to Ottawa,—designed, it is said, by the Duke of Wellington, as a means of intercommunication remote from the frontier.
“And where are the old Tête-du-pont barracks?” asked May, who had got that name, by heart, out of Parkman, that she might be able to fix for herself the site of the old French fort which Frontenac had inaugurated and La Salle had commanded. She was shown some gray stone buildings, enclosing a quadrangle, at the nearer end of the long, low bridge crossing the Cataraqui to the opposite plateau with the green slope beyond it, on which stood the main defences of Kingston,—Fort Henry above, and, near the Military College, certain round stone towers, which, scattered about the harbor, gave quite an air of military distinction to the place.
“I’m afraid none of them would be of much good, nowadays,” remarked a passenger, and Hugh laughingly assented, adding, “We may trust, I hope, that they will never be needed.”
“Not much danger, I think,” was the reply. “We may have a tiff with the ‘States’ once in a while; but there are too many Canadians there now! We can’t afford to quarrel.”