Like all other amusements, skating in Canada waxes and wanes in popular estimation, according to the mysterious laws of human impulse. One winter skating will be voted "not the thing," and the rinks will be deserted; the next, they will be crowded, and even the heads of families will be fishing out their rusty "acmes" from the lumber-closet, and renewing their youth in the icy arena. As a means of exercise during the long, weary months of winter, when the deep snow renders walking a toil devoid of pleasure, and the muscles are aching for employment, the skating-rink is an unspeakable boon, especially to him whose lot it is to endure much "dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood." An hour's brisk spinning around will clear the befogged brain, brace up the lax frame, and give a keenness to the appetite that nothing else could do. Then the rink has its social as well as its sanitary advantages. During the winter months it affords both sexes a pleasant and convenient rendezvous, where, unhampered by the conventionalities of the ball-room, and aided by the cheerful inspiration of the exercise, they can enjoy one another's society with a frequency otherwise unattainable. On band-days, indeed, the rink becomes converted into a spacious salle d'assemblée, where the numbered programme of musical selections enables Corydon to make engagements in advance with Phyllis, and thus insure the prosperous prosecution of his suit.
A carnival on ice—and every rink has one or more during the season—affords a rarely interesting and brilliant spectacle. For these occasions the building dons its gala dress, the gaunt rafters are hung with banners, the walls are hidden beneath variegated bunting and festooned with spruce embroidery, lights gleam brightly from every nook and corner, and the ice is prepared with special care. Then, as the motley crowd glides swiftly by, one may behold representatives of every clime and nation mingling together in perfect amity. It is true the tawny Spaniard, the dark-eyed Italian, the impassive Turk, the appalling Zulu, the soft and silent Hindu, and others whose home lies beneath the southern skies, betray a familiarity with the ice which seems to cast some doubt upon its genuineness.
But when his Satanic Majesty himself, with barbed tail and cloven hoof, confesses to an intimacy with the mazy evolutions of the "Philadelphia grape-vine," the incongruity attaching to visitors from cooler climes appears less striking, and they may go on their way unchallenged. Sometimes masks are de rigueur at these carnivals, and then the inevitable clown and harlequin have unlimited license, till even Quakers and friars, infected by their bad example, vie with them in mad pranks, and the fun soon waxes furious. Masked or unmasked, the carnival skaters have a joyous time, and the hours steal away with cruel haste.
Such are some of the phases of ice-skating in Canada. If this article has seemed to be devoted principally to indoor skating, it is because that can be pursued through so much greater a portion of the winter than the outdoor kind. Skating in its perfection is of course only to be had in the open air, and my most delightful recollections are associated with the Dartmouth lakes, of happy memory. Connected with the same lakes, however, there is a recollection too thrilling to be delightful, and which, in view of what might have been, brings a shudder even now while I rehearse it.
It happened in my college days. I had been skating all the afternoon, and, as the dusk grew on apace, found myself away down at the head of the second lake, full six miles from the point where I had got on the ice; so, girding up my loins, I set my face towards home, and struck out lustily. After going about one hundred yards, I thought I heard the sound of my name come faintly to me over the ice.
Wheeling sharply about I saw nothing, except a dark form some distance away, which through the gathering gloom resembled a log or tree-branch; and I was just about to start off again, when once more my name was called, this time so clearly as to leave no chance for doubt, the sound evidently coming from the seeming log. Hastening over to it with all speed, I was startled to find the professor of classics at my college—who did not allow the loss of an arm to debar him from the pleasure of skating—lying on the ice, with his left leg broken sharp and clear a few inches above the ankle, the result of a sudden and heavy fall. Here, indeed, was a trying situation for a mere lad to cope with. We were alone in a wilderness of ice, and six miles away from the nearest house. The shadows of night were fast closing around us. Those six miles had to be gotten over in some way, and there was not a moment to be lost. Hurrying to the shore I cut down a small spruce tree. Upon this the helpless sufferer was laid as gently as possible, and bound to it with straps. Then upon this rude ambulance I slowly dragged him down the lake, while he, with splendid self-control, instead of murmuring at his terrible agony, charmed away my weariness by his unconquerable heroism. It was a toilsome task, but help came when we reached the first lake, and once the shore was gained, a long express waggon filled with mattresses made the homeward journey comparatively painless. "All is well that ends well." The broken leg soon mended, and the following winter found the professor skating as briskly as ever.
Yet I cannot help wondering sometimes with a shudder how it would have fared with the interpreter of Greece and Rome had not that first faint call reached my ears. A bitter cold night, a wide expanse of polished ice, a solitary man lying prone upon it with one arm missing at the shoulder, and one leg broken at the ankle—it were little less than a miracle if ice-skating in Canada had not been clouded by one more catastrophe that winter night.
THE WILD DOGS OF ATHABASCA.
Old Donald M'Tavish was a wonderfully interesting character. In the service of the Hudson Bay Company, which for nearly two hundred years held regal sway over the vast unknown north-west of Canada, he had spent half a century of arduous and exciting service, living far away from civilization, one of a mere handful of white men in the midst of a wilderness sparsely inhabited by the Indian and the half-breed, but abounding in deer, buffaloes, bears, wolves, and the smaller wild animals.
He had risen rapidly in the service, for he was a fearless, stanch, trustworthy man, and for the latter half of two terms had filled the important post of chief factor at different forts; for it was his somewhat undesirable if honourable lot to be sent to those stations that gave the most trouble and the least returns to the company. Such was his reputation for shrewdness, courage, and fidelity, that it was felt by the authorities that no other man could so soon set matters straight as Donald M'Tavish.