turned his face in agonized apprehension of his fate, for he told us
afterwards he expected to be hanged, and that he was wanted. Dragging
him to where we stood the poor fellow collapsed at sight of his father
and fell on his neck. Hastening downstairs the jailer opened the wicket
and we were on the street. Hugh was dazed when he saw the jailer did not
follow 'Where are we going, father?' 'Going home.' 'Have I not to go
back to prison?' 'No, you are free.' Hugh broke down and cried. 'We will
have supper and then we will hitch up.' 'No, no,' sobbed Hugh, 'let us
go home now.' On shaking hands with them as the horse started, I saw
poor Hugh was thuroly humbled and penitent. It was not for a brief time,
for on going home he proved what his boyhood had promised, an obedient
son and steady worker. 'He never has now a word of complaint about what
is set on the table,' whispered his mother to me.

This ridiculous attempt at a revolution had one good and one bad effect.
The good, was a change in the government that made conditions more
tolerable; the bad, was in giving color to fastening upon Liberals the
stigma of disloyalty. The leaders in the attempted rising had declared
for separation from Britain, and those of them who escaped across the
frontier became avowed annexationists. What they were the Tories
asserted all Liberals were and the maintenance of British connection
depended upon their being kept out of office. The many years that have
passed have made that pretension traditional, and whenever there is an
election, I hear the charge of disloyalty imputed to Liberals and the
claim to exclusive loyalty made by their opponents.

The passing years have wrought a marvellous change in the face of the
country. Our drive up Yonge-street in 1825 was like a boat tracing a
narrow channel of the sea. On either hand was a continuous wall of
forest, and where an attempt had been made to push it back the uncarved
bush projected like rocky promontories. The houses passed at wide
intervals were shanties; the clearances in which they were set cluttered
with stumps. How different now. Handsome residences have replaced the
log-shanties, the bush has become a graceful fringe in the background of
smooth, well-tilled fields. Like the ocean which keeps no trace of the
keels that have furrowed its wastes, these beautiful fields are the
speechless bequest of the men and women who redeemed them from savagery
at the cost of painful privations, of