“Une cloture! une cloture!”—(a fence, a fence).
It was almost like life to the dead.
We spurred on, and indeed perceived a few straggling rails crowning a rising ground at no great distance.
Never did music sound so sweet as the crowing of a cock which at this moment saluted our ears.
Following the course of the inclosure down the opposite slope, we came upon a group of log-cabins, low, shabby, and unpromising in their appearance, but a most welcome shelter from the pelting storm.
“Whose cabins are these?” asked Mr. Kinzie, of a man who was cutting wood at the door of one.
“Hamilton’s,” was the reply; and he stepped forward at once to assist us to alight, hospitality being a matter of course in these wild regions.
We were shown into the most comfortable-looking of the buildings. A large fire was burning in the clay chimney, and the room was of a genial warmth, notwithstanding the apertures, many inches in width, beside the doors and windows. A woman in a tidy calico dress, and shabby black silk cap, trimmed with still shabbier lace, rose from her seat beside a sort of bread-trough, which fulfilled the office of cradle to a fine, fat baby. She made room for us at the fire, but was either too timid or too ignorant to relieve me of my wrappings and defences, now heavy with the snow.
I soon contrived, with my husband’s aid, to disembarrass myself of them; and having seen me comfortably disposed of, and in a fair way to be thawed after my freezing ride, he left me to see after his men and horses.