“Well,” replied my hostess, “they were neither given me, nor sold to me, and I did not steal them.  I found the original stock in the following manner.  An old black hen most unexpectedly made her appearance one spring morning at our door; we hailed the stranger with surprise and delight; for we could not muster a single domestic fowl among our little colony at that time.  We never rightly knew by what means the hen came into our possession, but suppose some emigrant’s family going up the country must have lost or left her; she laid ten eggs, and hatched chickens from them; from this little brood we raised a stock, and soon supplied all our neighbours with fowls.  We prize the breed, not only on account of its fine size, but from the singular, and, as we thought, providential, manner in which we obtained it.”

I was much interested in the slight sketch given by the pastor one evening, as we all assembled round the blazing log-fire, that was piled half-way up the chimney, which reared its stone fabric so as to form deep recesses at either side of its abutments.

Alluding to his first settlement, he observed, “it was a desolate wilderness of gloomy and unbroken forest-trees when we first pitched our tent here:  at that time an axe had not been laid to the root of a tree, nor a fire, save by the wandering Indians, kindled in these woods.

“I can now point out the identical spot where my wife and little ones ate their first meal, and raised their feeble voices in thankfulness to that Almighty and merciful Being who had preserved them through the perils of the deep, and brought them in safety to this vast solitude.

“We were a little flock wandering in a great wilderness, under the special protection of our mighty Shepherd.

“I have heard you, my dear young lady,” he said, addressing the companion of my visit, “talk of the hardships of the bush; but, let me tell you, you know but little of its privations compared with those that came hither some years ago.

“Ask these, my elder children and my wife, what were the hardships of a bush-settler’s life ten years ago, and they will tell you it was to endure cold, hunger, and all its accompanying evils; to know at times the want of every necessary article of food.  As to the luxuries and delicacies of life, we saw them not;—­how could we? we were far removed from the opportunity of obtaining these things:  potatoes, pork, and flour were our only stores, and often we failed of the two latter before a fresh supply could be procured.  We had not mills nearer than thirteen miles, through roads marked only by blazed lines; nor were there at that time any settlers near us.  Now you see us in a cleared country, surrounded with flourishing farms and rising villages; but at the time I speak of it was not so:  there were no stores of groceries or goods, no butchers’ shops, no cleared farms, dairies, nor orchards; for these things we had to wait with patience till industry should raise them.