Chapter 9

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun? Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk? At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse? Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust? And loved so well a high behaviour, In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained, Nobility more nobly to repay? O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine!

Emerson

MERCY TO ANIMALS

I would not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path; But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will tread aside, and let the reptile live. The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes A visitor unwelcome into scenes Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove, The chamber, or refectory, may die. A necessary act incurs no blame. The sum is this: if man's convenience, health, Or safety interfere, his rights and claims Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs. Else they are all--the meanest things that are-- As free to live, and to enjoy that life, As God was free to form them at the first, Who in His sovereign wisdom made them all. Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons To love it, too.

Cowper

THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS

The Americans inaugurated their Declaration of Independence by enacting that all the United Empire Loyalists--that is the adherents to connection with the mother country--were rebels and traitors; they followed the recognition of Independence by England with an order exiling such adherents from their territories. But while this policy depleted the United States of some of their best blood, it laid the foundation of the settlement and the institutions of the country which has since become the great, free, and prosperous Dominion of Canada.

Upper Canada was then unknown, or known only as a region of dense wilderness and swamps; of venomous reptiles and beasts of prey; of numerous and fierce Indian tribes; of intense cold in winter; and with no redeeming feature except abundance of game and fish.

After the war of Independence, many Loyalists went to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and settled there. The British Commander of New York, having found out that Upper Canada was capable of supporting a numerous population along the great river and the lakes, undertook to send colonies of Loyalists there.

Five vessels were procured and furnished to convey the first colony from New York. They sailed round the coasts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and up the St. Lawrence to Sorel, where they arrived in October, 1783. Here they wintered, having built themselves huts, or shanties, and in May, 1784, they continued their voyage in boats, and reached their destination, Cataraqui, afterwards Kingston, in the month of July.

Other bands of Loyalists came by land over the military highway to Lower Canada, as far as Plattsburg, and then northward to Cornwall and up the St. Lawrence, along the north side of which many of them settled.

But the most common route was by way of the Hudson and the Mohawk Rivers, through Oneida Lake and down the Oswego River to Lake Ontario. Flat-bottomed boats, specially built or purchased for the purpose by the Loyalists, were used in this journey. The portages, over which the boats had to be hauled and all their contents carried, are said to have been thirty miles long.

On reaching Oswego, some of the Loyalists coasted along the eastern shore of Lake Ontario to Kingston, and thence up the Bay of Quinte; others went westward along the south shore of the lake to Niagara and Queenston. Some conveyed their boats over the portage of ten or twelve miles to Chippewa, thence up the river and into Lake Erie, settling chiefly in what was called "Long Point Country," now the County of Norfolk.

This journey of hardship, privation, and exposure occupied from two to three months. The obstacles encountered may readily be imagined in a country where the primeval forest covered the earth, and where the only path was the river or the lake. The parents and family of the writer of this history were from the middle of May to the middle of July making the journey in an open boat. Generally two or more families would unite in one company, and thus assist each other in carrying their boats and goods over the portages.

"These excellent men," wrote Sir Richard Bonnycastle, "were willing to sacrifice life and fortune rather than forego the enviable distinction of being British subjects." The stern adherence of the Pilgrim Fathers to their principles was quite equalled by the stern adherence of the Loyalists to their principles; but the privations and hardships experienced by many of the Loyalist patriots for years after the first settlement in Canada were much more severe than anything experienced by the Puritans during the first years of their settlement in Massachusetts.

Canada has, indeed, a noble parentage, the remembrance of which its inhabitants may well cherish with respect, affection, and pride.

Egerton Ryerson: "The Loyalists of America and their Times." (Adapted)

OFT, IN THE STILLY NIGHT

Oft, in the stilly night, Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me; The smiles, the tears, Of boyhood's years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone, Now dimmed and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! Thus, in the stilly night, Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Sad Memory brings the light Of other days around me.

When I remember all The friends, so linked together, I've seen around me fall, Like leaves in wintry weather; I feel like one, Who treads alone Some banquet-hall deserted, Whose lights are fled, Whose garlands dead, And all but he departed! Thus, in the stilly night, Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Sad Memory brings the light Of other days around me.

Moore

THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA'S HALLS

The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled. So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er, And hearts that once beat high for praise, Now feel that pulse no more.

No more to chiefs and ladies bright The harp of Tara swells; The chord alone, that breaks at night, Its tale of ruin tells. Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives, Is when some heart indignant breaks, To show that still she lives.

Moore

HUDSON STRAIT

Hudson Strait opens from the Atlantic between Resolution Island on the north and the Button Islands on the south. From point to point, this end of the strait is forty-five miles wide. At the other end, the west side, between Digges' Island and Nottingham Island, is a distance of thirty-five miles. From east to west, the straits are four hundred and fifty miles long--wider at the east where the south side is known as Ungava Bay, contracting at the west, to the Upper Narrows. The south side of the strait is Labrador; the north, Baffin's Land. Both sides are lofty, rocky, cavernous shores lashed by a tide that rises in places as high as thirty-five feet and runs in calm weather ten miles an hour. Pink granite islands dot the north shore in groups that afford harbourage, but all shores present an adamant front, edges sharp as a knife or else rounded hard to have withstood and cut the tremendous ice jam of a floating world suddenly contracted to forty miles, which Davis Strait pours down at the east end and Fox Channel at the west.

Seven hundred feet is considered a good-sized hill; one thousand feet, a mountain. Both the north and the south sides of the straits rise two thousand feet in places. Through these rock walls ice has poured and torn and ripped a way since the ice age preceding history, cutting a great channel to the Atlantic. Here, the iron walls suddenly break to secluded silent valleys, moss-padded, snow-edged, lonely as the day Earth first saw light. Down these valleys pour the clear streams of the eternal snows, burnished as silver against the green, setting the silence echoing with the tinkle of cataracts over some rock wall, or filling the air with the voice of many waters at noontide thaw. One old navigator--Coates--describes the beat of the angry tide at the rock base and the silver voice of the mountain brooks, like the treble and bass of some great cathedral organ sounding its diapason to the glory of God in this peopleless wilderness.

Perhaps the kyacks of some solitary Eskimo, lashed abreast twos and threes to prevent capsizing, may shoot out from some of these bog-covered valleys like sea-birds; but it is only when the Eskimos happen to be hunting here, or the ships of the whalers and fur traders are passing up and down--that there is any sign of human habitation on the straits.

Walrus wallow on the pink granite islands in huge herds. Polar bears flounder from icepan to icepan. The arctic hare, white as snow but for the great bulging black eye, bounds over the boulders. Snow buntings, whistling swans, snow geese, ducks in myriads--flacker and clacker and hold solemn conclave on the adjoining rocks, as though this were their realm from the beginning and for all time.

Of a tremendous depth are the waters of the straits. Not for nothing has the ice world been grinding through this narrow channel for billions of years. No fear of shoals to the mariner. Fear is of another sort. When the ice is running in a whirlpool and the incoming tide meets the ice jam and the waters mount thirty-five feet high and a wind roars between the high shores like a bellows--then it is that the straits roll and pitch and funnel their waters into black troughs where the ships go down. "Undertow," the old Hudson's Bay captains called the suck of the tide against the ice wall; and that black hole, where the lumpy billows seemed to part like a passage between wall of ice and wall of water, was what the mariners feared. The other great danger was just a plain crush, getting nipped between two icepans rearing and plunging like fighting stallions, with the ice blocks going off like pistol shots or smashed glass. No child's play is such navigating either for the old sailing vessels of the fur traders or the modern ice-breakers propelled by steam! Yet, the old sailing vessels and the whaling fleets have navigated these straits for two hundred years.

Agnes C. Laut: "The Conquest of the Great Northwest."

Good name in man and woman, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.

Shakespeare

SCOTS WHA HAE

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led; Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victorie. Now's the day, and now's the hour; See the front o' battle lour: See approach proud Edward's power-- Chains and slaverie!

Wha will be a traitor knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? Wha sae base as be a slave? Let him turn and flee! Wha for Scotland's King and law Freedom's sword will strongly draw, Free-man stand, or free-man fa', Let him follow me!

By Oppression's woes and pains! By your sons in servile chains, We will drain our dearest veins, But they shall be free! Lay the proud usurpers low! Tyrants fall in every foe! Liberty's in every blow! Let us do, or die!

Burns

ST. AMBROSE CREW WIN THEIR FIRST RACE

(The chief characters in this sketch are Miller, the tyrannical little cockswain of the crew; old Jervis, the captain; Tom Brown, number two, who is rowing his first race; Hardy, a friend of Tom's and one of the best oarsmen in the college--also Jack, the college dog. Though there are several crews in the race the real struggle is between the boats from St. Ambrose and Exeter Colleges. If St. Ambrose can drive the nose of its boat against the Exeter boat--"bump it"--it wins.)

Hark!--the first gun. The report sent Tom's heart into his mouth again. Several of the boats pushed off at once into the stream; and the crowds of men on the bank began to be agitated, as it were, by the shadow of the coming excitement. The St. Ambrose fingered their oars, put a last dash of grease on their rowlocks, and settled their feet against the stretchers.

"Shall we push her off?" asked Bow.

"No; I can give you another minute," said Miller, who was sitting, watch in hand, in the stern; "only be smart when I give the word."

The captain turned on his seat, and looked up the boat. His face was quiet, but full of confidence, which seemed to pass from him into the crew. Tom felt calmer and stronger, as he met his eye. "Now mind, boys, don't quicken," he said, cheerily; "four short strokes to get way on her, and then, steady. Here, pass up the lemon."

And he took a sliced lemon out of his pocket, put a small piece in his own mouth, and then handed it to Blake, who followed his example, and passed it on. Each man took a piece; and just as Bow had secured the end, Miller called out,--

"Now, jackets off, and get her head out steadily."

The jackets were thrown on shore, and gathered up by the boatman in attendance. The crew poised their oars, Number Two pushing out her head, and the captain doing the same for the stern. Miller took the starting-rope in his hand.

"How the wind catches her stern," he said; "here, pay out the rope one of you. No, not you--some fellow with a strong hand. Yes, you'll do," he went on, as Hardy stepped down the bank and took hold of the rope; "let me have it foot by foot as I want it. Not too quick; make the most of it--that'll do. Two and Three, just dip your oars in to give her way."

The rope paid out steadily, and the boat settled to her place. But now the wind rose again, and the stern drifted in towards the bank.

"You _must_ back her a bit, Miller, and keep her a little further out or our oars on stroke side will catch the bank."

"So I see; curse the wind. Back her, one stroke all. Back her, I say!" shouted Miller.

It is no easy matter to get a crew to back her an inch just now, particularly as there are in her two men who have never rowed a race before, except in the torpids, and one who has never rowed a race in his life.

However, back she comes; the starting-rope slackens in Miller's left hand, and the stroke, unshipping his oar, pushes the stern gently out again.

There goes the second gun! one short minute more, and we are off. Short minute, indeed! you wouldn't say so if you were in the boat, with your heart in your mouth and trembling all over like a man with the palsy. Those sixty seconds before the starting-gun in your first race--why, they are a little lifetime.

"By Jove, we are drifting in again," said Miller, in horror. The captain looked grim but said nothing; it was too late now for him to be unshipping again. "Here, catch hold of the long boat-hook and fend her off."

Hardy, to whom this was addressed, seized the boat-hook, and, standing with one foot in the water, pressed the end of the boat-hook against the gunwale, at the full stretch of his arm, and so, by main force, kept the stern out. There was just room for stroke oars to dip, and that was all. The starting-rope was as taut as a harp-string; will Miller's left hand hold out?

It is an awful moment. But the coxswain, though almost dragged backwards off his seat, is equal to the occasion. He holds his watch in his right hand with the tiller rope. "Eight seconds more only. Look out for the flash. Remember, all eyes in the boat."

There it comes, at last--the flash of the starting-gun. Long before the sound of the report can roll up the river, the whole pent-up life and energy which has been held in leash, as it were, for the last six minutes, is loose, and breaks away with a bound and a dash which he who has felt it will remember for his life, but the like of which, will he ever feel again? The starting-ropes drop from the coxswains' hands, the oars flash into the water and gleam on the feather, the spray flies from them, and the boats leap forward.

The crowds on the bank scatter and rush along, each keeping as near as may be to its own boat. Some of the men on the towing-path, some on the very edge of, often in, the water; some slightly in advance, as if they could help to drag their boat forward; some behind, where they can see the pulling better; but all at full speed, in wild excitement, and shouting at the top of their voices to those on whom the honour of the college is laid.

"Well pulled, all!" "Pick her up there, Five!" "You're gaining every stroke!" "Time in the bows!" "Bravo, St. Ambrose!"

On they rushed by the side of the boats, jostling one another, stumbling, struggling, and panting along.

For a quarter of a mile along the bank the glorious, maddening hurly-burly extends, and rolls up the side of the stream.

For the first ten strokes Tom was in too great fear of making a mistake to feel or hear or see. His whole soul was glued to the back of the man before him, his one thought to keep time and get his strength into the stroke. But, as the crew settled down into the well-known long sweep, what we may call consciousness returned; and, while every muscle in his body was straining, and his chest heaved, and his heart leaped, every nerve seemed to be gathering new life, and his senses to wake into unwonted acuteness. He caught the scent of wild thyme in the air, and found room in his brain to wonder how it could have got there, as he had never seen the plant near the river, or smelt it before. Though his eye never wandered from the back of Diogenes, he seemed to see all things at once. The boat behind, which seemed to be gaining;--it was all he could do to prevent himself from quickening on the stroke as he fancied that;--the eager face of Miller, with his compressed lips, and eyes fixed so earnestly ahead that Tom could almost feel the glance passing over his right shoulder; the flying banks and the shouting crowd; see them with his bodily eyes he could not, but he knew, nevertheless, that Grey had been upset and nearly rolled down the bank into the water in the first hundred yards, that Jack was bounding and scrambling and barking along by the very edge of the stream; above all, he was just as well aware as if he had been looking at it, of a stalwart form in cap and gown, bounding along, brandishing the long boat-hook, and always keeping just opposite the boat; and amid all the Babel of voices, and the dash and pulse of the stroke, and the labouring of his own breathing, he heard Hardy's voice coming to him again and again, and clear as if there had been no other sound in the air, "Steady, Two! steady! well pulled! steady, steady." The voice seemed to give him strength and keep him to his work. And what work it was! he had had many a hard pull in the last six weeks, but never aught like this.

But it can't last forever; men's muscles are not steel, or their lungs bulls' hide, and hearts can't go on pumping a hundred miles an hour long, without bursting. The St. Ambrose boat is well away from the boat behind, there is a great gap between the accompanying crowds; and now, as they near the Gut, she hangs for a moment or two in hand, though the roar from the bank grows louder and louder, and Tom is already aware that the St. Ambrose crowd is melting into the one ahead of them.

"We must be close to Exeter!" The thought flashes into him, and, it would seem, into the rest of the crew at the same moment; for, all at once, the strain seems taken off their arms again; there is no more drag; she springs to the stroke as she did at the start; and Miller's face, which had darkened for a few seconds, lightens up again.

Miller's face and attitude are a study. Coiled up into the smallest possible space, his chin almost resting on his knees, his hands close to his sides, firmly but lightly feeling the rudder, as a good horseman handles the mouth of a free-going hunter; if a coxswain could make a bump by his own exertions, surely he will do it. No sudden jerks of the St. Ambrose rudder will you see, watch as you will from the bank; the boat never hangs through fault of his, but easily and gracefully rounds every point. "You're gaining! you're gaining!" he now and then mutters to the captain, who responds with a wink, keeping his breath for other matters. Isn't he grand, the captain, as he comes forward like lightning, stroke after stroke, his back flat, his teeth set, his whole frame working from the hips with the regularity of a machine? As the space still narrows, the eyes of the fiery little coxswain flash with excitement, but he is far too good a judge to hurry the final effort before the victory is safe in his grasp.

The two crowds are mingled now, and no mistake; and the shouts come all in a heap over the water. "Now, St. Ambrose, six strokes more." "Now, Exeter, you're gaining; pick her up." "Mind the Gut, Exeter." "Bravo, St. Ambrose!" The water rushes by, still eddying from the strokes of the boat ahead. Tom fancies now he can hear their oars and the workings of their rudder, and the voice of their coxswain. In another moment both boats are in the Gut, and a perfect storm of shouts reaches them from the crowd, as it rushes madly off to the left to the footbridge, amidst which "Oh, well steered, well steered, St. Ambrose!" is the prevailing cry. Then Miller, motionless as a statue till now, lifts his right hand and whirls the tassel round his head. "Give it her now, boys; six strokes and we're into them." Old Jervis lays down that great broad back and lashes his oar through the water with the might of a giant, the crew catch him up in another stroke, the tight new boat answers to the spurt, and Tom feels a little shock behind him, and then a grating sound, as Miller shouts, "Unship oars, Bow and Three!" and the nose of the St. Ambrose boat glides quietly up the side of the Exeter till it touches their stroke oar.

"Take care where you're coming to." It is the coxswain of the bumped boat who speaks.

Tom finds himself within a foot or two of him when he looks round; and, being utterly unable to contain his joy, and yet unwilling to exhibit it before the eyes of a gallant rival, turns away towards the shore, and begins telegraphing to Hardy.

"Now, then, what are you at there in the bows? Cast her off, quick. Come, look alive! Push across at once out of the way of the other boats."

"I congratulate you, Jervis," says the Exeter stroke, as the St. Ambrose boat shoots past him. "Do it again next race and I shan't care."

Thomas Hughes: "Tom Brown at Oxford."

HUNTING SONG

Waken, lords and ladies gay, On the mountain dawns the day; All the jolly chase is here With hawk and horse and hunting-spear; Hounds are in their couples yelling, Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling, Merrily, merrily mingle they, 'Waken, lords and ladies gay.'

Waken, lords and ladies gay, The mist has left the mountain gray, Springlets in the dawn are steaming, Diamonds on the brake are gleaming, And foresters have busy been To track the buck in thicket green; Now we come to chant our lay, 'Waken, lords and ladies gay.'