We accordingly rode on smartly, till we could perceive a slight glimmering of light through the trees, which we knew to be Springer’s clearing. We then halted, one on each side of the road, but entirely concealed from view by the thick underbrush. As soon as we heard the party coming, we set up a most unearthly yell, which made the woods fairly ring again. We could hear the Doctor cry out, “The wolves! the wolves! ride for your life, man,” and he then galloped off in the direction from which they had just come.
Poor Smith shouted after him at the top of his voice, imploring the Doctor, for God’s sake, not to leave him. “Oh Lord!” we heard him say, as he rode after the Doctor, “I shall surely be devoured by the ravenous wretches. Help—help! Doctor—stop!” and such like piteous ejaculations.
The Doctor, who had ridden ahead, as soon as he heard his victim approach, commenced in the same key as we had done before, and a dismal howling we all made. Fear now compelled poor Smith to wheel the mare round and ride back, whereupon we again greeted him with a second edition, even—if that were possible—more diabolical than the first, which terminated the fun sooner than we expected; for, losing all presence of mind, he let his steed get off the track into the woods, and, consequently, he was swept off by the branches. We heard him fall and roar for help, which we left the Doctor to administer, and made the best of our way to Springer’s, where, half an hour after, we were joined by our fellow-travellers, one of whom had scarcely recovered from his fright, and still looked as pale as a ghost. Two or three glasses of whiskey-punch, however, soon restored him to his natural complexion.
I do not know if he ever found out the trick we had so successfully played him; but if he did, he kept it to himself, rightly judging that if the story got wind he would never hear the last of it.
Springer had only one spare bed, which we resigned in favour of the accountant, as some little compensation for the fright he had sustained. The Doctor and I took possession of the barn, where we found plenty of fresh hay, which we infinitely preferred to the spare bed and its familiars. There we slept delightfully, till a chorus of cocks (or roosters, as the more delicate Americans would call them) awakened us from our repose, to the wrathful indignation of Dunlop, who anathematized them for “an unmusical ornithological set of fiends.”
We made an early breakfast off fried sausages, and the never-failing ham and eggs, and were soon again in the saddle. We took the nearest road to Plum Creek, where we left our horses, and proceeded for the remaining four miles on foot, through a magnificent forest.
We were now in that part of the township of Wilmot belonging to the Canada Company, which did not then contain a single farm, but has been since completely settled. At length, we came to a narrow valley, some fifty or sixty feet below the level of the country through which we had been travelling, in the centre of which flowed the Nith, sparkling in the sun: the wild grapes hanging in rich festoons from tree to tree, gave an air of rural beauty to the scene. For the convenience of foot-passengers, some good Samaritan had felled a tree directly across the stream, which at that place was not more than fifty feet wide. The current was swift, though not more than four or five feet deep.
Here a small misfortune happened to the Doctor, who was an inveterate snuff-taker, and carried a large box he called a coffin—I presume from its resemblance to that dreary receptacle.
While in the act of crossing the temporary bridge, and at the same time regaling his olfactory nerves with a pinch of the best Irish, his famous coffin slipped from his grasp and floated away majestically down the swift-flowing waters of the sylvan Nith.
The Doctor was a man of decision: he hesitated not even for a moment, but pitched himself headlong into the stream, from which he quickly emerged with his recovered treasure. It is but justice to my friend Dunlop, to remind the reader that his extravagant affection for his snuff-box is not without a parallel in history, since Louis XVIII has recorded with his own royal hand an attachment to his tabatiere, equally eccentric and misplaced.