“She is fit for a more difficult position,” interjected Colonel Scott, “she has a mother-wit that stands her well alike in the circles of polished society and in the hour of danger and hardship.”
“Who is this that is such a paragon?” asked Mrs Scott, who had just come in.
“Mrs Morton.”
“Oh, say she is a true woman, and you say all. Mr Morton you have got a treasure.”
“I know it,” he replied, “and I will try to be worthy of her. She will be the benediction of the life I owe her.”
The day was fine and, for a wonder, the road was good, so that a large party, many of them on horseback, escorted the newly married pair to Lachine. As they drove past King’s Posts Morton recalled his first visit to it, the spy, and all the painful complications that had ensued, and now so happily ended. As they stood on the narrow deck of the bateau, and the wind, filling the huge sail, bore them away, a cheer rose, led by Colonel Scott. It was answered from the receding boat, and Maggie waved her handkerchief.
The journey was tedious and toilsome, but when they sailed into the bay on which Morton’s land was situated, saw its quality and fine situation, they felt they had been rewarded for coming so far. That Maggie proved an admirable help-mate need hardly be told, but what was remarkable is, that Morton became a successful farmer. Willing to put his hand to whatever there was to do, under his father-in-law’s tuition, he quickly became proficient, and when there was work to be done he did not say to his helpers “Go” but “Come,” and set them an example of cheerful and persevering exertion. Having land and enough to spare, he induced a good class of immigrants to buy from him, so that, before twenty years, his settlement was known as one of the most prosperous on Lake Ontario. Influential and public-spirited, Morton, as his circumstances grew easy and did not exact the same close attention to his personal affairs, took a leading part in laying the commercial and political foundations of Upper Canada, and Maggie was widely known in its best society. That they were a happy couple everybody knew, and their descendants are among the most prominent subjects of the Dominion.