On that spot where our Indian camp then stood, are now pleasant open
meadows, with an avenue of fine pines and balsams; showing on the eminence
above, a large substantial dwelling-house surrounded by a luxuriant orchard
and garden, the property of a naval officer, [Footnote: Lt. Rubidge,
whose interesting account of his early settlement may be read in a letter
inserted in Captain Basil Hall's Letters from Canada.] who with the
courage and perseverance that mark brave men of his class, first ventured
to break the bush and locate himself and his infant family in the lonely
wilderness, then far from any beaten road or the haunts of his fellow-men.
But at the period of which I write, the axe of the adventurous settler had
not levelled one trunk of that vast forest, neither had the fire scathed
it; no voices of happy joyous children had rung through those shades, nor
sound of rural labour nor bleating flock awakened its echoes.
All the remainder of that sad day, Catharine sat on the grass under a shady
tree, her eyes mournfully fixed on the slow flowing waters, and wondering
at her own hard fate in being thus torn from her home and its dear inmates.
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