Before the winter fairly sets in, we generally have ten days or a fortnight of the Indian summer; indeed, it is the sure harbinger of winter. The air is mild and temperate; a haze, resembling smoke, pervades the atmosphere, that at times obscures the sun, which, when visible, is of a blood-red colour. Various causes have been assigned for this appearance, but none very satisfactory.
Towards the end of November this year, the ice was strong enough to bear the weight of a man, and the ground was soon whitened with snow, but not in sufficient depth to make good sleighing. Just a week before Christmas, we had a fall of eight or ten inches, which made pretty good going: the sleighs were, of course, in immediate requisition.
A family sleigh is made to carry from six to ten persons; the more stylish ones from four to six; a cutter, or single sleigh, two. These are all for pleasure, but every farmer is obliged to have a lumber-sleigh for general use. A much larger load can be drawn on runners in winter than on wheels in summer. Sleighing is, without doubt, the most delightful mode of travelling you can possibly conceive, but it takes several falls of snow to make the sleighing good. All the inequalities must be filled up and levelled, but the snow soon packs solid by the constant friction of the sleigh-runner. The horses are each provided with a ring of bells, the sound of which is not unmusical; and I am assured is delightful indeed to the ears of the anxious wife, watching for the return of her husband from a winter journey. Some years ago, when the country was unsettled, the females of the family had some cause for fear, since the absence of the father, son, or husband, was not always followed by his safe return; and the snow-storm, or the wolves, were thought of with alarm, till the music of the sleigh-bells announced the safety of the beloved absentee.
In no country on the face of the earth does the torch of wedded love beam brighter than in Canada, where the husband always finds “the wife dearer than the bride.” I have seen many an accomplished and beautiful English girl, “forgetting with her father’s house,” the amusements of a fashionable life, to realize with a half-pay officer or “younger brother,” the purer, holier pleasures of domestic love in this country, where a numerous issue, the fruits of their union, are considered a blessing and a source of wealth, instead of bringing with them, as in the old country, an increase of care.
CHAPTER VII.
EMPLOYMENTS OF A MAN OF EDUCATION IN THE COLONY.—YANKEE WEDDING.—MY COMMISSION.—WINTER IN CANADA.—HEALTHINESS OF THE CANADIAN CLIMATE.—SERACH FOR LAND.—PURCHASE WILD LAND AT DOURO.—MY FLITTING.—PUT UP A SHANTY.—INEXPERIENCE IN CLEARING.—PLAN-HEAPS.
The employments of a respectable Canadian settler are certainly of a very multifarious character, and he may be said to combine, in his own person, several professions, if not trades. A man of education will always possess an influence, even in bush society: he may be poor, but his value will not be tested by the low standard of money, and notwithstanding his want of the current coin of the realm, he will be appealed to for his judgment in many matters, and will be inducted into several offices, infinitely more honourable than lucrative. My friend and father-in-law, being mild in manners, good-natured, and very sensible, was speedily promoted to the bench, and was given the colonelcy of the second battalion of the Durham Militia.
At this time there was no place of worship nearer than Port Hope, where the marriage ceremony could be legally performed. According to the Colonial law, if a magistrate resides more than eighteen miles from a church, he is empowered to marry parties applying to him for that purpose, after three written notices have been put up in the most public places in the township, with the names and residences of the parties for at least a fortnight previous to the marriage. I witnessed several of these marriages during my stay in Darlington, some of which were highly amusing.
One morning a near neighbour presented himself and a very pretty young woman, as candidates for matrimony. He was an American by birth, and a shrewd, clever, sensible person. After the ceremony, the bridegroom invited me to partake of the wedding-dinner, and I went.
The dinner was very good, though not served exactly in the English fashion. We, however, managed to enjoy ourselves very much. After tea, dancing commenced, to the music of two fiddles, when country-dances, reels, and French fours were all performed with much spirit. The music was very good, the dancing but indifferent. I could not help thinking