“Aye, sic a place for decent folk,” returned the drunken body, shaking her head.  “One needs a drap o’ comfort, captain, to keep up one’s heart ava.”

The captain set up one of his boisterous laughs as he pushed the boat from the shore.  “Hollo!  Sam Frazer! steer in, we have forgotten the stores.”

“I hope not, captain,” said I; “I have been starving since daybreak.”

“The bread, the butter, the beef, the onions, and potatoes are here, sir,” said honest Sam, particularizing each article.

“All right; pull for the ship.  Mrs. Moodie, we will have a glorious supper, and mind you don’t dream of Grosse Isle.”

In a few minutes we were again on board.  Thus ended my first day’s experience of the land of all our hopes.

OH!  CAN YOU LEAVE YOUR NATIVE LAND?

A Canadian Song

  Oh! can you leave your native land
    An exile’s bride to be;
  Your mother’s home, and cheerful hearth,
    To tempt the main with me;
  Across the wide and stormy sea
    To trace our foaming track,
  And know the wave that heaves us on
    Will never bear us back?

  And can you in Canadian woods
    With me the harvest bind,
  Nor feel one lingering, sad regret
    For all you leave behind? 
  Can those dear hands, unused to toil,
    The woodman’s wants supply,
  Nor shrink beneath the chilly blast
    When wintry storms are nigh?

  Amid the shades of forests dark,
    Our loved isle will appear
  An Eden, whose delicious bloom
    Will make the wild more drear. 
  And you in solitude will weep
    O’er scenes beloved in vain,
  And pine away your life to view
    Once more your native plain.

  Then pause, dear girl! ere those fond lips
    Your wanderer’s fate decide;
  My spirit spurns the selfish wish—­
    You must not be my bride. 
  But oh, that smile—­those tearful eyes,
    My firmer purpose move—­
  Our hearts are one, and we will dare
    All perils thus to love!

[This song has been set to a beautiful plaintive air, by my husband.]

CHAPTER II

QUEBEC

  Queen of the West!—­upon thy rocky throne,
    In solitary grandeur sternly placed;
  In awful majesty thou sitt’st alone,
    By Nature’s master-hand supremely graced. 
  The world has not thy counterpart—­thy dower,
  Eternal beauty, strength, and matchless power.

  The clouds enfold thee in their misty vest,
    The lightning glances harmless round thy brow;
  The loud-voiced thunder cannot shake thy nest,
    Or warring waves that idly chafe below;
  The storm above, the waters at thy feet—­
  May rage and foam, they but secure thy seat.