A few days afterwards, on an alarm that the Germans had entered Amiens, we all took refuge in Calais, where, as soon as the war broke out, I had taken the precaution to secure apartments. We had most of our property hastily packed up and placed in store. In Calais we remained till nearly the beginning of winter, when my son-in-law took his family back to Guiñes and we returned to our house. In fact it began to be recognised that Calais was too far out of the way, and presented too little temptation to a conquering army to make it likely we should be molested.
The spring of 1871 brought great changes, both public and private. The war ended, but France was no longer the same country to us. My eldest son had left us to take a situation in London in the office of the kind friends who had known him from boyhood, and whose father, recently dead, had been our neighbour for fifteen years, his beautiful garden and pleasure-grounds joining our more humble premises.
Before the summer was over, my son-in-law, whose health suffered from his scholastic duties, made up his mind to emigrate to Canada, and to join my youngest son who, after many misfortunes, had settled on the “free-grant lands” of Muskoka, and who wrote frequently to urge other members of the family to come out before all the good land near his location was taken up. At this time he was himself thriving, but immediately after suffered great reverses. He had a rheumatic fever which lasted many weeks, and threw him back in his farming; he lost one of his two cows from the carelessness of a neighbour, and most of his crops from the dry season and their being put in too late, and was only beginning to recover when his sister and her family arrived, having with them his affianced wife.
My eldest daughter and myself were thus left alone in France, and were obliged to give up our cherished home, my reduced income being quite insufficient to maintain it.
Virulent small-pox and other epidemics, the result of effluvia from the battle-fields, broke out, and I had dangerous illness in my own family. Provisions rose to an enormous price, taxation greatly increased, and the country bid fair to be long in an unsettled condition. Under these circumstances we, too, began to think of emigration; and finding that my eldest son, always accustomed to a domestic circle, was very dull in London without one, and at the same time not disinclined to try farming, being fond of an outdoor active life, we came to the decision to emigrate.
He relinquished his excellent situation, his employers behaving with the greatest kindness and liberality. We read up a few books on emigration which invariably paint it in the brightest colours, and being quite ignorant of the expense of so long a journey, of the hardships of the “Bush,” and of the absolute necessity for a sum of money to begin with, we came out hoping in our innocence that strong hearts, willing hands, and the pension of an officer’s widow would be inexhaustible riches in the wilderness.
The problem remains to be solved whether we can continue our farming without capital, or whether we shall be compelled to go to one of the large towns in Canada or the “States,” to seek for remunerative employment.
