"A house amid the quiet country's shades,
With length'ning vistas, ever sunny glades,
Beauty and fragrance clustering o'er the wall.
A porch inviting, and an ample hall."
Claremont was founded by Lieut.-Governor R. E. Caron, and was his family mansion—ever since he left Spencer Grange which he had temporally leased,—until he was named Lt.-Governor of the Province of Quebec. We find in it, combined the taste and comfort which presides in Canadian homes; and in the fortunes of its founder, an illustration of the fact, that under the sway of Britain, the road to the highest honours has ever been open to colonists, irrespective of creed or nationality.
Claremont stands about one acre from the main road, three miles from Quebec, a handsome, comfortable and substantial villa. The umbrageous grove of trees which encloses it from view, is a plantation laid down by the late occupant about twenty-five years ago; its growth has been truly wonderful. The view from the veranda and rear of the house is magnificent in the extreme. To the west of the dwelling, environed in forest trees well protected against our northern "blizzards," lies the fruit, flower and vegetable garden, laid out originally by Madame Caron; watered by an unfailing spring, its dark rich soil produces most luxuriant vegetables, and Mr. Beckett's phlox, lilies, pansies, roses, generally stand well represented on the prize list of the Quebec Horticultural Society, of which Mr. Beckett is a most active member.
Claremont [242] is indicated by one of the most reliable of our historians, the Abbé Ferland, as the spot where one of the first Sillery missionaries, Frère Liégeois met with his end at the hands of some hostile Indians. This occurred in the spring of 1655. The missionary at the time was helping the colonists to build a small redoubt to protect their maize and wheat fields from the inroads of their enemies. On viewing, at Sillery, in 1881, Claremont the luxurious country seat of a successful merchant, memory reverts to the same locality two centuries back, when every tree of the locality might have concealed a ferocious Iroquois bent on his errand of death.
From the cupola of Claremont, a wondrous vista is revealed. The eye gazing northward, rests on the nodding pinnacles of the spruce, hemlock and surrounding pine. Towards the south-east and west you have before you nearly every object calculated to add effect to the landscape. Far below at your feet, rushes on the mighty St. Lawrence, with its fleet of merchantmen and rafts of timber; the church of St. Romuald, half way up the hill; facing you, the Etchemin stream, its mills, its piers, crowded with deals; to the west, the roaring Chaudière, "La Rivière Bruyante" of early times, in the remote distance, on a bright morning, are also plainly visible, the hills of the White Mountains of Maine.
THE WILD FLOWERS OF SILLERY.
"Everywhere about us are they glowing,
Some like stars, to tell us spring is born;
Others, their blue eyes, with tears o'erflowing,
Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn."
Are you an admirer of nature, and sweet flowers? Would you, most worthy friend, like to see some of the bright gems which spring, whilst dallying over the sequestered, airy heights and swampy marshes of our woods drops along our path? Follow, then, sketch book and pencil in hand, the fairy footsteps of one of the most amiable women which old England ever sent to our climes, accompany the Countess of Dalhousie on a botanizing tour through Sillery woods; you have her note book, if not herself, to go by. For May, see what an ample store of bright flowers scattered around you; fear not to lose yourself in thickets and underbrush; far from the beaten track a noble lady has ransacked the environs over and over again, sometimes alone, sometimes with an equally enthusiastic and intelligent friend, who hailed from Woodfield; [243] sweet flowers and beautiful ferns attract other noble ladies to this day in that wood. Are you anxious to possess the first-born of spring? Whilst virgin snow still whitens the fields, send a young friend to pluck for you, from the willow, its golden catkins:—
"The first gilt thing
Decked with the earliest pearls of spring."
The Gomin Wood will, with the dawn of May, afford you materials for a wreath, rich in perfume and wild in beauty. The quantity of wild flowers, to be found in the environs of Quebec has called forth the following remarks from one of Flora's most fervid votaries, a gentleman well known in this locality:—"A stranger," says he, "landing in this country, is much surprised to find the flowers which he has carefully cultivated in his garden at home, growing wild at his feet. Such as dog-tooth violets, trilliums and columbines. I was much excited when I discovered them for the first time; the trillium, for which I had paid three shillings and six-pence when in England, positively growing wild. I could scarcely believe that I had a right to gather them; having paid so much for one, I felt that it was property, valuable property running wild, and no one caring to gather it. No one? Yes! some did, for we carried all that we could find, and if the reader will stroll along the hedges on St. Lewis road he will find them in abundance: dark purple flowers, growing on a stalk naked to near the summit, where there is a whorl of three leaves, its sepals are three, petals three, stamens twice three, and its stigmas three, hence its name of trillium. We have a few of the white varieties. After the purple trillium has done flowering, we have the painted trillium of the woods; the trillium grandiflorum is abundant at Grosse Isle. The dog-tooth violet early arrested my attention; the spotted leaves and the bright yellow flowers, fully recurved in the bright sunshine, contrasted beautifully with the fresh green grass on the banks on which they are usually found, the bulbs are deep-seated, and the plant will at once, from the general appearance of the flower, be recognized as belonging to the lily family.