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TITLE: AN ALGONQUIN MAIDEN
AUTHOR: G. MERCER ADAM
EBOOK: E06454 (O'Briens Book Cellar)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

AN ALGONQUIN MAIDEN

A ROMANCE OF THE EARLY DAYS OF UPPER CANADA

BY

G. MERCER ADAM AND A. ETHELWYN WETHERALD

Entered according to Act of Parliament, in the year one thousand eight
hundred and eighty-six, by GRAEME MERCER ADAM and AGNES ETHELWYN
WETHERALD, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture, Ottawa.

TO THE VETERAN PUBLISHER, John Lovell, Esq., OF MONTREAL, WHO HAS
SPENT A LONG AND BUSY LIFE IN THE VARIED SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY, THIS
MODEST EFFORT IN THE FIELD OF CANADIAN FICTION IS AFFECTIONATELY AND
ADMIRINGLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHORS.

CONTENTS.

  CHAPTER I.

The Young Master of Pine Towers

  CHAPTER II.

An Upper Canadian Household

  CHAPTER III.

"When Summer Days were Fair"

  CHAPTER IV.

Indian Annals and Legends

  CHAPTER V.

The Algonquin Maiden

  CHAPTER VI.

Catechisings

  CHAPTER VII.

An Accident

  CHAPTER VIII.

Convalescence

  CHAPTER IX.

On the Way to the Capital

  CHAPTER X.

York and the Maitlands

  CHAPTER XI.

After "The Ball"

  CHAPTER XII.

A Kiss and its Consequences

  CHAPTER XIII.

Rival Attractions

  CHAPTER XIV.

"Muddy Little York"

  CHAPTER XV.

Politics at the Capital

  CHAPTER XVI.

Love's Protestations

  CHAPTER XVII.

A Picnic in the Woods

  CHAPTER XVIII.

The Commodore Surrenders

  CHAPTER XIX.

At Stamford Cottage

  CHAPTER XX.

The Coming of Wanda

  CHAPTER XXI.

The Passing of Wanda

  CHAPTER XXII.

Love's Rewards

AN ALGONQUIN MAIDEN.

CHAPTER I.

THE YOUNG MASTER OF PINE TOWERS.

It was a May morning in 1825--spring-time of the year, late spring-time
of the century. It had rained the night before, and a warm pallor in
the eastern sky was the only indication that the sun was trying to
pierce the gray dome of nearly opaque watery fog, lying low upon that
part of the world now known as the city of Toronto, then the town of
Little York. This cluster of five or six hundred houses had taken up a
determined position at the edge of a forest then gloomily forbidding
in its aspect, interminable in extent, inexorable in its resistance to
the shy or to the sturdy approaches of the settler. Man _versus_
nature--the successive assaults of perishing humanity upon the almost
impregnable fortresses of the eternal forests--this was the struggle
of Canadian civilization, and its hard-won triumphs were bodied forth
in the scattered roofs of these cheap habitations. Seen now through
soft gradations of vapoury gloom, they took on a poetic significance,
as tenderly intangible as the romantic halo which the mist of years
loves to weave about the heads of departed pioneers, who, for the most
part, lived out their lives in plain, grim style, without any thought
of posing as "conquering heroes" in the eyes of succeeding generations.

From the portico of one of these dwellings, under a wind-swayed sign
which advertised it to be a place of rest and refreshment, stepped a
man of more than middle age, whose nervous gait and anxious face
betokened a mind ill at ease. He had the look and air of a highly
respectable old servitor,--one who had followed the family to whom he
was bound by ties of life-long service to a country of which he
strongly disapproved, not because it offered a poor field for his own
advancement, but because, to his mind, its crude society and narrow
opportunities ill became the distinction of the Old World family to
whose fortunes he was devoted. Time had softened these prejudices, but
had failed to melt them; and if they had a pardonable fashion of
congealing under the stress of the Canadian winter, they generally
showed signs of a thaw at the approach of spring. At the present
moment he had no thought, no eyes, for anything save a mist-enshrouded
speck far off across the waters of Lake Ontario. All the impatience
and longing of the week just past found vent through his eyes, as he
watched that pale, uncertain, scarcely visible mote on the horizon. As
he reached the shore the fog lifted a little, and a great sunbeam,
leaping from a cloud, illumined for a moment the smooth expanse of
water; but the new day was as yet chary of its gifts. It was very
still. The woods and waves alike were tranced in absolute calm. The
unlighted heavens brooded upon the silent limpid waters and the
breathless woods, while between them, with restless step, and heart as
gloomy as the morning, with secret, sore misgiving, paced the old
servant, his attention still riveted upon that distant speck. The
sight of land and home to the gaze of a long absent wanderer, wearied
with ocean, is not more dear than the first glimpse of the approaching
sail to watching eyes on shore.

Was it in truth the packet vessel for whose coming he had yearningly
waited, or the dark wing of a soaring bird, or did it exist only in
imagination? The tide of his impatience rose anew as the dim object
slowly resolved itself into the semblance of a sail, shrouded in the
pale, damp light of early morning. Unwilling to admit to his usually
grave unimpressible self the fact that he was restless and disturbed,
he reduced his pace to a dignified march, extended his chosen beat to
a wider margin of the sandy shore, and, parting the blighted branches
of a group of trees, that bore evidence of the effect of constant
exposure to lake winds, he affected to examine them critically. But
the hand that touched the withered leaves trembled, and his sight was
dimmed with something closely resembling the morning's mist. When he
again raised his eyes to that white-sailed vessel it looked to his
hopeless gaze absolutely becalmed. The slow moments dragged heavily
along. The mantle of fog was wholly lifted at last, and the lonely
watcher was enveloped in the soft beauty of the morning. A light cloud
hung motionless, as though spell-bound, above the mute and moveless
trees, while before him the dead blue slopes of heaven were unbroken
by a single flying bird, the wide waste of water unlighted, save by
that unfluttering sail.

And now, like a visible response to his silent but seemingly
resistless longing, a boat was rapidly pushed away from the larger
craft, and the swift flash and fall of the oars kept time to the
pulsing in the old man's breast. Again ensued that inglorious conflict
between self-respecting sobriety of demeanour and long suppressed
emotion, which ended only when the boat grated on the sand, and a
blonde stalwart youth leaped ashore. The old man fell upon his neck
with tears and murmured ejaculations of gratitude and welcome; but
young impatient hands pushed him not ungently aside, and a youthful
voice, high and intense from anxiety, urgently exclaimed:

"My mother! How is my mother?"

"She yet breathes, thank God. She has been longing for your coming as

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