of the States prisons, and that as soon as he was at liberty he came to Canada. Among those who passed and repassed during those stirring days in our country’s history, his place became noted for its good cheer. A stage occasionally essayed to make its way along this highway and, one day during the war it left at this man’s log hostelry a strange passenger. He was a man past middle age, dressed in clothing plain but of excellent quality, and was from the time of his landing at once installed as a guest at the log hotel. A couple of strongly bound trunks were the man’s only baggage.
As the days and nights flew by this strange guest was never averse to gather in the general bar-room and join in the ordinary gossip of the neighborhood with the assembled neighbors. He was, in fact, genial, well disposed, evidently well read, possessed a rich and inexhaustible fund of anecdote, and was ever the life of the bar-room gathering. Let the least allusion to politics, however, be made, and the stranger would shut his mouth as quickly as if his jaws were those of a trap when sprung by the tread of its intended victim upon its “trenches.” Then he would seek the solitude of his room and be seen no more for the evening. His days were spent with his gun or rod among the forests or along the streams, and many savory additions to the hotel fare were made by his voluntary contributions to it as a result of his sport. Gradually and almost imperceptibly he came to be kindly regarded by those who knew or supposed they knew him. The English tongue he spoke fairly well, but now and again a little foreign accent would crop out. This he always instantly corrected when he bethought himself of his error. All attempts to discover who he was were unavailing. Whether he was a Frenchman, a German or a Russian was always conjectured, but never transpired. Our transient guest did not in any way change his ordinary mode of life. During every fine day he followed his dog with his gun, and if he felt any uneasiness at his quiet life, or endured the least chagrin at his expatriation, he was exceedingly careful not in anywise to let it be known.
To all that part of Upper Canada he became at length an enigma and a general theme of conjecture as to who he was. Bets were wagered as to his origin, but owing to the sphinx-like lips of this strange man such bets had always to be withdrawn again, for there was no possibility of verifying any decision either way. He paid his bills to the landlord regularly, and left no cause of complaint against him.
One day, after he had been at the hostelry upwards of five years, the stage deposited at this log hotel an officer from the army of old France. He was every inch a soldier in dress, in looks and action. Having partaken of his dinner, he called the landlord to his side and asked if he had ever met a man of such and such a description. Now, to the landlord’s infinite surprise, the description this officer gave minutely corresponded with the mysterious stranger, but well knowing that the man had ever studiously avoided being recognized, he repudiated any knowledge of any such person. In the evening when the man returned he told him of the French officer and the enquiries he had made. He answered not a word, but ate his supper and retired to his room.
On the following morning, when the stage came along, going in the direction whence the French officer came, and in the opposite way to which he was bound, our strange guest came out of his room and asked to have his trunks strapped on the stage. With as few words as possible he paid all his reckonings with the landlord, quietly bade him and his household good-bye, climbed into the seat, and was gone forever. Nothing was ever heard of him again. He vanished from that part of Upper Canada as suddenly as he came into it. Where he came from or where he went to it is probable no one will ever know.
It was supposed by some that this person had been one of Napoleon the Great’s generals, and that after the defeat of Waterloo he had seized all he could find in his division military chest; when Napoleon had given himself up on board the Bellerophon he got on board another vessel and sailed for America, and had come away from the seaboard to this remote place to avoid the probability of anyone meeting and recognizing him; and that this French officer whose arrival and enquiries had caused his departure was upon his track to wreak some vengeance upon him either for the public wrong he had committed, or, it might be, a private one of so delicate a nature as to be without the cognizance of the law. Be that as it may, the man went as he came and left no sign, an unsolved enigma to all with whom he had come in contact while in the wilds of Canada.
CHAPTER VII.
Religious movements—Itinerant preachers—$50 a year—Camp-meetings—Weird scenes at night—Millerites—World coming to an end—Dissenters attempt to fly—Affrighted by a “sun-dog”—Destruction fails to materialize—The Mormons—An improvised Gabriel—Raising the dead—Converts—Salt Lake—An Irish refugee and his poem.
“On some fond breast the ’parting soul relies,
Some pious tears the closing eye requires,
E’en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E’en in our ashes live their wonted fires.”