Zenas, crouched by the chimney-jamb, roasting chestnuts and "popping" corn; Sandy, with the characteristic thrift of his countrymen, set about repairing a broken whip-stock and fitting it with a new lash; Tom Loker idly whittled a stick, and Miss Katharine drew up her low rocking-chair beside her father, and proceeded to nimbly knit a stout-ribbed stocking, intended for his comfort—for girls in those days knew how to knit, ay, and card the wool and spin the yarn too.
"Now, Tom, tell us all about Hull's surrender," said Zenas, to whom the stirring story was already an oft-told tale.
"Wall, after I seed you, three months agone," said Tom, nodding to Neville, and taking a fresh stick to whittle, "we trudged on all that day and the next to Long P'int, an' a mighty long p'int it wuz to reach, too. Never wuz so tired in my life. Follering the plough all day wuz nothing to it. But when we got to the P'int, we found the Gineral there. An' he made us a rousin' speech that put new life into every man of us, an' we felt that we could foller him anywheres. As ther wuz no roads to speak of, and the Gineral had considerable stores, he seized all the boats he could find."
"Requiseetioned, they ca' it," interjected Sandy.
"Wall, it's purty much the same, I reckon," continued Tom, "an' a queer lot o' boats they wuz—fishin' boats, Durham boats, scows [Footnote: In the absence of roads, boats were much used for carrying corn and flour to and from the mills, and for the conveyance of farm produce.]—a'most anythin' that 'ud float. Ther' wuz three hundred of us at the start, an' we picked up more on the way. Wall, we sailed an' paddled a matter o' two hundred miles to Fort Malden, an' awful cramped it wuz, crouchin' all day in them scows; an' every night we camped on shore, but sometimes the bank wuz so steep an' the waves so high we had to sail on for miles to find a creek we could run into, an' once we rowed all night. As we weathered P'int Pelee, the surf nearly swamped us."
"What a gran' feed we got frae thae gallant Colonel Talbot!" interjected Sandy McKay. "D'ye mind his bit log bothie perched like a craw's nest atop o' yon cliff. The 'Castle o' Malahide,' he ca'd it, no less. How he speered gin there were ony men frae Malahide in the auld kintry wi' us! An' a prood man he was o' his ancestry sax hunnerd years lang syne. Methinks he's the gran'est o' the name himsel'—the laird o' a score o' toonships a' settled by himsel'. Better yon than like the gran' Duke o' Sutherland drivin' thae puir bodies frae hoose an' hame. Lang suld Canada mind the gran' Colonel Talbot [Footnote: Posterity has not been ungrateful to the gallant colonel. In the towns of St. Thomas and Talbotville, his name is commemorated, and it is fondly cherished in the grateful traditions of many an early settler's family. He died at London, at the age of eighty, in 1853.] But was na it fey that him as might hae the pick an' choice o' thae braw dames o' Ireland suld live his lane, wi' out a woman's han' to cook his kail or recht up his den, as he ca'd it."
"I've been at his castle," said Neville, "and very comfortable it is: He lives like a feudal lord,—allots land, dispenses justice, marries the settlers, reads prayers on Sunday, and rules the settlement like a forest patriarch." "Tell about Tecumseh," said Zenas, in whose eyes that distinguished chief divided the honours with General Brock.
"Wall," continued Loker, "at Malden there wuz a grand pow-wow, an' the Indians wore their war-paint and their medals, and Tecumseh made a great harangue. He was glad, he said, their great father across the sea had woke up from his long sleep an' sent his warriors to help his red children, who would shed the last drop of their blood in fighting against the 'Merican long knives." "And they'll do it, too," chimed in Zenas, in unconscious prophecy of the near approaching death of that brave chief and many of his warriors.
"An' Tecumseh," continued the narrator, "drawed a map of Detroit an' the 'Merican fort on a piece o' birch bark, as clever, I heered the Gineral say, as an officer of engineers."
"But was na yon a gran' speech thae General made us when we were tauld tae attack thae fort?" exclaimed Sandy with martial enthusiasm. "Mon, it made me mind o' Wallace an' his 'Scots wham Bruce hae aften led.' I could ha' followed him 'gainst ony odds, though odds eneuch there were—near twa tae ane, an' thae big guns an' thae fort tae their back."