Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Juliet Sutherland,
Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading
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Preface
The interesting tale contained in this volume of romantic adventure inthe forests of Canada, was much appreciated and enjoyed by a large circleof young readers when first published, under the title of "The CanadianCrusoes." After being many years out of print, it will now, we hope andbelieve, with a new and more descriptive title, prove equally attractiveto our young friends of the present time.
"The morning had shot her bright streamers on high,
O'er Canada, opening all pale to the sky,
Still dazzling and white was the robe that she wore,
Except where the ocean wave lashed on the shore"
Jacobite Song
There lies, between the Rice Lake and the Ontario, a deep and fertilevalley, surrounded by lofty wood-crowned hills, clothed chiefly withgroves of oak and pine, the sides of the hills and the alluvialbottoms display a variety of noble timber trees of various kinds, asthe useful and beautiful maple, beech, and hemlock. This beautiful andhighly picturesque valley is watered by many clear streams, whence itderives its appropriate appellation of "Cold Springs."
At the period my little history commences, this now highly cultivatedspot was an unbroken wilderness,—all but two clearings, where dweltthe only occupiers of the soil,—which previously owned no otherpossessors than the wandering hunting tribes of wild Indians, to whomthe right of the hunting grounds north of Rice Lake appertained,according to their forest laws.
I speak of the time when the neat and flourishing town of Cobourg, nowan important port on Lake Ontario, was but a village in embryo,—if itcontained even a log-house or a block-house, it was all that itdid,—and the wild and picturesque ground upon which the fastincreasing village of Port Hope is situated had not yielded one foresttree to the axe of the settler. No gallant vessel spread her sails towaft the abundant produce of grain and Canadian stores along thewaters of that noble sheet of water; no steamer had then furrowed itsbosom with her iron paddles, bearing the stream of emigration towardsthe wilds of our northern and western forests, there to render alonely trackless desert a fruitful garden. What will not time and theindustry of man, assisted by the blessing of a merciful God, effect?To him be the glory and honour; for we are taught that "unless theLord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it: withoutthe Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
But to my tale. And first it will be necessary to introduce to theacquaintance of my young readers the founders of our little settlementat Cold Springs.
Duncan Maxwell was a young Highland soldier, a youth of eighteen, atthe famous battle of Quebec, where, though only a private, he receivedthe praise of his colonel for his brave conduct. At the close of thebattle Duncan was wounded; and as the hospital was full at the time,he was billeted in the house of a poor French Canadian widow in theQuebec suburb. Here, though a foreigner