To the right and left, as we passed north, was a wet swamp, filled with cedars of all shapes and sizes, and strewn plentifully with granitic boulders: a strip of land held in light esteem by the passers-by, in the early day, as seeming to be irreclaimable for agricultural purposes.
But how admirably reclaimable in reality the acres hereabout were for the choicest human purposes, was afterwards seen, when, for example, the house and grounds known as Foxley Grove, came to be established. By the outlay of some money and the exercise of some discrimination, a portion of this same cedar swamp was rapidly converted into pleasure ground, with labyrinths of full-grown shrubbery ready-prepared by nature's hand. Mr. James Bealey Harrison, who thus transformed the wild into a garden and plaisaunce, will be long remembered for his skill and taste in the culture of flowers and esculents choice and rare: as well as for his eminence as a lawyer and jurist.
He was a graduate of Cambridge; and before his emigration to Canada, had attained distinction at the English bar. He was the author of a work well known to the legal profession in Great Britain and here, entitled "An Analytical Digest of all the Reported Cases determined in the House of Lords, the several Courts of the Courts of the Common Law in Banc and Nisi Prius, and the Court of Bankruptcy, from Michaelmas Term, 1756, to Easter Term, 1843; including also the Crown Cases Referred: in Four Volumes." During the régime of Sir George Arthur, Mr. Harrison was Secretary of the Province and a member of the Executive Council; and at a later period he was Judge of the County and Surrogate Courts. The memory of Judge Harrison as an English Gentleman, genial, frank and straightforward, is cherished among his surviving contemporaries.
On turning westward into Dundas Street proper, we were soon in the midst of a magnificent pine forest, which remained long undisturbed. The whole width of the allowance for road was here for a number of miles completely cleared. The highway thus well-defined was seen bordered on the right and left with a series of towering columns, the outermost ranges of an innumerable multitude of similar tall shafts set at various distances from each other, and circumscribing the view in an irregular manner on both sides, all helping to bear up aloft a matted awning of deep-green, through which, here and there, glimpses of azure could be caught, looking bright and cheery. The yellow pine predominated, a tree remarkable for the straightness and tallness of its stems, and for the height at which its branches begins.
No fence on either hand intervened between the road and the forest; the rider at his pleasure, could rein his horse aside at any point and take a canter in amongst the columns, the underwood being very slight. Everywhere, at the proper season, the ground was sprinkled with wild flowers—with the wild lupin and the wild columbine; and everywhere, at all times, the air was more or less fragrant with resinous exhalations.
In the heart of the forest, midway between York and the bridge over the Humber, was another famous resting place for teams—the Peacock Tavern—a perfect specimen of a respectable wayside hostelry of the olden time, with very spacious driving-houses and other appropriate outbuildings on an extensive scale.
Not far from the Peacock a beaten track branched off westerly, which soon led the equestrian into the midst of beautiful oak woods, the trees constituting it of no great magnitude, but as is often the case on sandy plains, of a gnarled, contorted aspect, each presenting a good study for the sketcher. This track also conducted to the Humber, descending to the valley of that stream where its waters, now become shallow but rapid, passed over sheets of shale. Here the surroundings of the bridle-road and foot-path were likewise picturesque, exhibiting rock plentifully amidst and beneath the foliage and herbage.
Here in the vale of the Humber stood a large Swiss-like structure of hewn logs, with two tiers of balcony on each of its sides. This was the house of Mr. John Scarlett. It was subsequently destroyed by fire. Near by were mills and factories also belonging to Mr. Scarlett. He was well connected in England; a man of enlightened views and fine personal presence. He loved horses and was much at home in the saddle. A shrewd observer when out among his fellow men, at his own fireside he was a diligent student of books.
