After some little time had elapsed, Hector returned. The bark vessel had done its duty to admiration; it only wanted a very little improvement to make it complete. The water was cold and pure. Hector had spent a little time in deepening the mouth of the spring, and placing some stones about it. He described the ravine as being much deeper and wider and more gloomy than the one they occupied. The sides and bottom were clothed with magnificent oaks. It was a grand sight, he said, to stand on the jutting spurs of this great ravine, and look down upon the tops of the trees that lay below, tossing their rounded heads like the waves of a big sea. There were many lovely flowers-vetches of several kinds, blue, white, and pencilled, twining among the grass; a beautiful white-belled flower, that was like the "morning glory" (Convolvulus major), and scarlet cups [Footnote: Erichroma, or painted cup.] in abundance, with roses in profusion. The bottom of this ravine was strewed in places with huge blocks of black granite, cushioned with thick green moss; it opened out into a wide flat, similar to the one at the mouth of the valley of the "Big Stone."
Both Hector and his sister had insensibly imbibed a love of the grand and picturesque, by listening with untiring interest to their father's animated and enthusiastic descriptions of his Highland home, and the wild mountainous scenery that surrounded it. Though brought up in solitude and uneducated, there was nothing vulgar or rude in the minds or manners of these young people. Simple and untaught they were, but they were guileless, earnest, and unsophisticated; and if they lacked the knowledge that is learned from books, they possessed much that was useful and practical, which had been taught by experience and observation in the school of necessity.
For several days the pain and fever arising from her sprain rendered any attempt at removing Catharine from the valley of the "Big Stone" impracticable. The ripe fruit began to grow less abundant in their immediate vicinity; neither woodchuck, partridge, nor squirrel had been killed; and our poor wanderers now endured the agonizing pains of hunger. Continual exposure to the air by night and by day contributed not a little to increase the desire for food. It is true, there was the yet untried lake, "bright, boundless, and free," gleaming in silvery splendour, but in practice they knew nothing of the fisher's craft, though, as a matter of report, they were well acquainted with its mysteries, and had often listened with delight to the feats performed by their respective fathers in the art of angling, spearing, and netting.
"I have heard my father say that so bold and numerous were the fish in the lakes and rivers he used to fish in, that they could be taken by the hand with a crooked pin and coarse thread, or wooden spear; but that was in the Lower Province. And oh, what glorious tales I have heard him tell of spearing fish by torchlight!"
"The fish may be wiser or not so numerous in this lake," said Hector, "however, if Kate can bear to be moved, we will go down to the shore and try our luck. But what can we do? we have neither hook nor line provided."
Louis nodded his head, and sitting down on a projecting root of a scrub oak, produced from the depths of his capacious pocket a bit of tin, which he carefully selected from among a miscellaneous hoard of treasures. "Here," said he, holding it up to the view as he spoke,—"here is the slide of an old powder-flask, which I picked up from among some rubbish my sister had thrown out the other day."
"I fear you will make nothing of that," said Hector; "a bit of bone would be better. If you had a file now, you might do something."
"Stay a moment, Monsieur Hec; what do you call this?" and Louis triumphantly handed out of his pocket the very instrument in question, a few inches of a broken, rusty file; very rusty, indeed, it was, but still it might be made to answer in such ingenious hands as those of our young French Canadian.
"I well remember, Katty, how you and Mathilde laughed at me for treasuring up this old thing months ago.—Ah, Louis, Louis, you little knew the use it was to be put to then," he added thoughtfully, apostrophizing himself; "how little do we know what is to befall us in our young days!"
"God knows it all," said Hector gravely; "we are under his good guidance."