Canada -- Social life and customs; Ontario -- Description and travel
was frozen. Tarrying until midnight at the home of the object of his
affections, he left, alone and unarmed, to walk the three intervening
miles to his home. Getting over about one-half the distance, he heard
the distant baying of wolves. Fear would, it may be supposed, lend speed
to his feet, but thinking rightly that he could not outstrip the wolf on
foot, he walked quietly along, watching for a convenient tree for
climbing. In a very few minutes the wolves were upon him, in full cry,
eyes protruding, tongues lolling, and ready to devour him. A near-by
beech tree, which his arms could encircle, furnished him with the means
of escape. He climbed, and climbed, while the wolves surrounded him and
watched his every motion, never ceasing their dismal howls the live-long
night. Thus he kept his lonely vigil. To lose his hold for a single
second meant instant death. Great, however, as was the tension upon his
strained muscles, they held on. Morn tardily came at last, and with its
first peep the wolves left him and were seen no more. When they were
really gone, he said he for the first time began looking about him, and
found, with all his climbing, he had ascended a very few feet from the
ground, and but just out of reach of the wolves’ jaws as they made
frantic jumps to reach him. We may, however, be safe in assuming that
the scare and involuntary vigil did not do him much harm, for in the
March following (1807) he married the girl he went to visit that night,
and made no complaints of having been maltreated by wolves.
In dismissing Thomas Conant at this time, the author digresses to say
that he was born in the United States, and was only a small lad when
Roger Conant, his father, brought him here. He was a generous,
industrious citizen, and was always noted for being one of the best
natured men in Canada, and possessed ability of a very high order. He
was liked universally by all who knew him, and he pursued the ordinary
avocations of life, such as Canadians then pursued, up to the time of
his assassination (as before mentioned) during the Canadian Revolution,
on February 15th, 1838. He went down to the grave from the stroke of a
sword, wielded by a dragoon, and without any provocation other than
accusing the dragoon of being drunk, as he was and had been many times
previously when on duty as despatch bearer. But such was the state of
affairs in Canada in 1837-8 that no investigation was held, nor was the
murderer ever punished even in the mildest degree. The author asks the
reader’s indulgence when he says he is very certain that only his
grandfather’s (Thomas Conant) untimely death prevented him from leaving
a name after him high up in Canadian annals, for he was a man of grand
physique (6 feet 2 inches in height) and of commanding talents. He had a
well-balanced mind and had wealth at his command.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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