"Oh, how I love the pleasant woods, when silence reigns around,
And the mighty shadows calmly sleep, like giants on the ground,
And the fire-fly sports her fairy lamp beside the moonlit stream,
And the lofty trees, in solemn state, frown darkly in the beam!"
S.M.
There was a poor woman on board the steamer, who was like myself in search of health, and was going to the West to see her friends, and to get rid of (if possible) a hollow, consumptive cough. She looked to me in the last stage of pulmonary consumption; but she seemed to hope everything from the change of air.
She had been for many years a resident in the woods, and had suffered great hardships; but the greatest sorrow she ever knew, she said, and what had pulled her down the most, was the loss of a fine boy, who had strayed away after her through the bush, when she went to nurse a sick neighbour; and though every search had been made for the child, he had never been found. "It is a many years ago," she said, "and he would be a fine young man now, if he were alive." And she sighed deeply, and still seemed to cling to the idea that he might possibly be living, with a sort of forlorn hope, that to me seemed more melancholy than the certainty of his death.
This brought to my recollection many tales that I had been told, while living in the bush, of persons who had perished in this miserable manner. Some of these tales may chance to interest my readers.
I was busy sewing one day for my little girl, when we lived in the township of Hamilton, when Mrs. H---, a woman whose husband farmed our farm on shares, came running in quite out of breath, and cried out--
"Mrs. M---, you have heard the good news?--One of the lost children is found!"