Hector and Louis were fourteen—strong, vigorous, industrious and hardy, both in constitution and habits. The girls were turned of twelve. It is not with Mathilde that our story is connected, but with the two lads and Catharine. With the gaiety and naïveté of the Frenchwoman, Catharine possessed, when occasion called it into action, a thoughtful and well-regulated mind, abilities which would well have repaid the care of mental cultivation; but of book-learning she knew nothing beyond a little reading, and that but imperfectly, acquired from her father’s teaching. It was an accomplishment which he had gained when in the army, having been taught by his colonel’s son, a lad of twelve years of age, who had taken a great fancy to him, and had at parting given him a few of his school-books, among which was a Testament, without cover or title-page. At parting, the young gentleman recommended its daily perusal to Duncan. Had the gift been a Bible, perhaps the soldier’s obedience to his priest might have rendered it a dead letter to him, but as it fortunately happened, he was unconscious of any prohibition to deter him from becoming acquainted with the truths of the Gospel. He communicated the power of perusing his books to his children Hector and Catharine, Duncan and Kenneth, in succession, with a feeling of intense reverence; even the labour of teaching was regarded as a holy duty in itself, and was not undertaken without deeply impressing the obligation he was conferring upon them whenever they were brought to the task. It was indeed a precious boon, and the children learned to consider it as the pearl beyond all price in the trials that awaited them in their eventful career. To her knowledge of religious truths young Catharine added an intimate acquaintance with the songs and legends of her father’s romantic country, which was to her even as fairyland; often would her plaintive ballads and old tales, related in the hut or the wigwam to her attentive auditors, wile away heavy thoughts; Louis and Mathilde, her cousins, sometimes wondered how Catharine had acquired such a store of ballads and wild tales as she could tell.
It was a lovely sunny day in the flowery month of June; Canada had not only doffed that “dazzling white robe” mentioned in the songs of her Jacobite emigrants, but had assumed the beauties of her loveliest season, the last week in May and the first three of June being parallel to the English May, full of buds and flowers and fair promise of ripening fruits. The high sloping hills surrounding the fertile vale of Cold Springs were clothed with the blossoms of the gorgeous scarlet enchroma, or painted-cup; the large pure white blossoms of the lily-like trillium; the delicate and fragile lilac geranium, whose graceful flowers woo the hand of the flower-gatherer only to fade almost within his grasp; the golden cyprepedium, or mocassin flower, so singular, so lovely in its colour and formation, waved heavily its yellow blossoms as the breeze shook the stems; and there, mingling with a thousand various floral beauties, the azure lupine claimed its place, shedding almost a heavenly tint upon the earth. Thousands of roses were blooming on the more level ground, sending forth their rich fragrance, mixed with the delicate scent of the feathery ceanothus, (New Jersey tea.) The vivid greenness of the young leaves of the forest, the tender tint of the springing corn, were contrasted with the deep dark fringe of waving pines on the hills, and the yet darker shade of the spruce and balsams on the borders of the creeks, for so our Canadian forest rills are universally termed. The bright glancing wings of the summer red-bird, the crimson-headed woodpecker, the gay blue-bird, and noisy but splendid plumed jay, might be seen among the branches; the air was filled with beauteous sights and soft murmuring melodies. Under the shade of the luxuriant hop-vines, that covered the rustic porch in front of the little dwelling, the light step of Catharine Maxwell might be heard mixed with the drowsy whirring of the big wheel, as she passed to and fro guiding the thread of yarn in its course: and now she sang snatches of old mountain songs, such as she had learned from her father; and now, with livelier air, hummed some gay French tune to the household melody of her spinning wheel, as she advanced and retreated with her thread, unconscious of the laughing black eye that was watching her movements from among the embowering foliage that shielded her from the morning sun.
“Come, ma belle cousine,” for so Louis delighted to call her. “Hector and I are waiting for you to go with us to the ‘Beaver Meadow.’ The cattle have strayed, and we think we shall find them there. The day is delicious, the very flowers look as if they wanted to be admired and plucked, and we shall find early strawberries on the old Indian clearing.”
Catharine cast a longing look abroad, but said, “I fear, Louis, I cannot go to-day, for see, I have all these rolls of wool to spin up, and my yarn to wind off the reel and twist; and then, my mother is away.”
“Yes, I left her with mamma.” replied Louis, “and she said she would be home shortly, so her absence need not stay you. She said you could take a basket and try and bring home some berries for sick Louise. Hector is sure he knows a spot where we shall get some fine ones, ripe and red.” As he spoke Louis whisked away the big wheel to one end of the porch, gathered up the hanks of yarn and tossed them into the open wicker basket, and the next minute the large, coarse, flapped straw hat, that hung upon the peg in the porch, was stuck not very gracefully on the top of Catharine’s head and tied beneath her chin, with a merry rattling laugh, which drowned effectually the small lecture that Catharine began to utter, by way of reproving the light-hearted boy.
“But where is Mathilde?”
“Sitting like a dear good girl, as she is, with sick Louise’s head on her lap, and would not disturb the poor sick thing for all the fruit and flowers in Canada. Marie cried sadly to go with us, but I promised her and petite Louise lots of flowers and berries if we get them, and the dear children were as happy as queens when I left them.”
“But stay, cousin, you are sure my mother gave her consent to my going? We shall be away chief part of the day. You know it is a long walk to the Beaver Meadow and back again,” said Catharine, hesitating as Louis took her hand to lead her out from the porch.
“Yes, yes, ma belle,” said the giddy boy, quickly; “so come along, for Hector is waiting at the barn; but stay, we shall be hungry before we return, so let us have some cakes and butter, and do not forget a tin-cup for water.”
Nothing doubting, Catharine, with buoyant spirits, set about her little preparations, which were soon completed; but just as she was leaving the little garden enclosure, she ran back to kiss Kenneth and Duncan, her young brothers. In the farm yard she found Hector with his axe on his shoulder. “What are you taking the axe for, Hector? you will find it heavy to carry,” said his sister.