The Canadian Brothers; Or, The Prophecy Fulfilled: A Tale of the Late American War — Volume 1Richardson, Major (John)
History
The Canadian Brothers; Or, The Prophecy Fulfilled: A Tale of the Late American War — Volume 1
Richardson, Major (John)
United States -- History -- War of 1812 -- Fiction; War stories
By the officers whom the hospitality of Colonel D'Egville
almost daily assembled beneath his roof, this announcement
was received with dismay, and especially by Molineux,
and Villiers who had so suffered themselves to be fascinated
by the amiable daughters of General Hull, as to have
found it necessary to hold a consultation (decided however
in the negative.) whether they should, or should not
tempt them to remain, by making an offer of their hands.
It was also observed that these young ladies, who at
first, had been ail anxiety to rejoin their parent,
evinced no particular satisfaction in the intimation of
speedy departure thus given to them. Miss Montgomerie on
the contrary, whose anxiety throughout, to quit Detroit,
had been no less remarkable than her former impatience
to reach it, manifested a pleasure that amounted almost
to exultation: and yet it was observed that by a strange
apparent contradiction, her preference for Gerald from
that moment became more and more divested of disguise.
There are few spots in the world, perhaps, that unite so
many inducements to the formation of those sociable little
reunions which come under the denomination of pic-nics,
as the small islands adorning most of the American rivers.
Owing to the difficulty of procuring summer carriages,
and in some decree to the rudeness of the soil, in the
Upper Province especially, boats are in much more general
use; and excursions on the water, are as common to that
class "whose only toil is pleasure." as cockney trips to
Richmond, or to any other of the thousand and one places
of resort, which have sprung into existence, within twenty
miles of the Metropolis of England. Not confined, however,
to picking daisies for their doxies, as these said cockneys
do, or carving their vulgar names on every magnificent
tree, that spreads its gorgeous arms to afford them the
temporary shelter of a home, the men severally devote
themselves, for a period of the day, to manlier exercises.
The woods, abounding with game, and the rivers with fish
of the most delicate flavor--the address of the hunter
and the fisher, is equally called into action; since upon
their exertions, primarily depend the party for the fish
and fowl portion of their rural dinner. Guns and rods
are, therefore, as indispensable part of the freightage,
as the dried venison and bear hams, huge turkies, pasties,
&c. which together with wines, spirits, and cider ad
libitum, form the mass of alimentary matter; not to forget
the some half dozen old novels, constituting the several
libraries of the females of the party, and collected
together for general amusement on these occasions. Bands,
it is true, they possess not, but they have the music of
their own, and boatmen's voices, and the rippling of the
current over the pebbly shallow, or the impetuous dashing
of some distant waterfall--while on every side the eye
is arrested by images of grandeur, which dispose the
heart to benevolence, towards man, and the soul to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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