An Algonquin Maiden A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada by Adam, G. Mercer (Graeme Mercer), 1830-1912, Wetherald, A. Ethelwyn, 1857-1940

Eager to reach that home, which was on the shores of Lake Simcoe, the young Cadet bade the old servitor hasten to get their horses ready when they would instantly set forth. As they were about to mount, the younger of the two was accosted by an old friend, now an attache of Government House, who, learning of the arrival of the packet, and expecting the young master of Pine Towers, had strolled down to the landing-place to welcome the newcomer and ask him to partake of the Governor's hospitality. The young man, however, begged his friend to have him excused, and with dutiful messages of respect for the Governor and his household, and a cordial adieu to his former boon-companion, he rapidly set off for home, closely followed by his attendant.

Coming up the old military road, cut out between York and Holland Landing by His Majesty's corps of Queen's Rangers, under the _regime_ of Governor Simcoe, both horsemen fell into a brief silence, broken by sorrowful inquiries from the younger man regarding the subject which lay so close to the heart of each. "Dying!" he exclaimed in deep sadness, and with the utter incapacity of young and ardent life to conceive the reality of death. "And my own mother. It seems natural enough for other mothers to die--but mine! Heaven help us! We never know the meaning of grief until it comes to our own threshold."

The old steward viewed with a desolate stare the May landscape, brightly lit with sunshine and bloom, and said wearily:

"But what can one expect in this wretched, half-civilized country? Now in England--"

His voice lingered long upon that fondly loved word, and his young master concluded the sentence with,

"There would be little hope, but in this 'brave new world,' where the odour of the woods is a tonic, and the air brings healing and balm, how can death exist? Ah, Tredway, this is a beautiful country!"

"To me there is but one beautiful country--that is England." Again there was that lingering intonation.

Edward Macleod gave vent to a short melancholy laugh. The allurements of an old civilization were over-ripe to his taste. Promise appealed to his imagination; fulfilment was a dull fact. Along with the unmistakable evidences of birth and breeding in his person, there was in his fresh youth and buoyancy something joyously akin to the vigorous young life about him.

"England," said Tredway, with his disapproving regard fixed upon the wilderness around, "is a garden."

"And I take no delight in gardens," declared Edward. "I was never intended for a garden statue. This long day's journey under the giant trees of the wild, unconquered woods seems to gratify some savage instinct of my nature. The old country is well adapted to keep alive old customs, old notions, old traditions; but for me I am a Canadian, my mind is wearied with over-much civilization. I hate the English love of land for land's sake. That line of hills, swelling in massive curves, and crowned, not with a tottering ruin, serving to hang some legendary romance or faded rag of superstition upon, but with stately trees--that is my idea of the beautiful."