Of the murky night.
The bosom of the silent stream
With mimic stars is dotted free;
The waves reflect the double gleam,
The tall woods lighten in the beam,
Through darkness shining cheerily!
CHAPTER XVI
BURNING THE FALLOW
There is a hollow roaring in the air -
The hideous hissing of ten thousand flames,
That from the centre of yon sable cloud
Leap madly up, like serpents in the dark,
Shaking their arrowy tongues at Nature's heart.
It is not my intention to give a regular history of our residence
in the bush, but merely to present to my readers such events as
may serve to illustrate a life in the woods.
The winter and spring of 1834 had passed away. The latter was
uncommonly cold and backward; so much so that we had a very heavy
fall of snow upon the 14th and 15th of May, and several gentlemen
drove down to Cobourg in a sleigh, the snow lying upon the ground
to the depth of several inches.
A late, cold spring in Canada is generally succeeded by a burning
hot summer; and the summer of '34 was the hottest I ever remember.
No rain fell upon the earth for many weeks, till nature drooped and
withered beneath one bright blaze of sunlight; and the ague and
fever in the woods, and the cholera in the large towns and cities,
spread death and sickness through the country.
