e love of
our young Highland soldier and his betrothed knew no other interruption,
for absence served only to strengthen the affection which was founded on
gratitude and esteem.

Two long years passed, however, and the prospect of re-union was yet
distant, when an accident, which disabled Duncan from serving his
country, enabled him to retire with the usual little pension, and return
to Quebec to seek his affianced. Some changes had taken place during
that short period: the widow Perron was dead; Pierre, the gay,
lively-hearted Pierre, was married to the daughter of a lumberer; and
Catharine, who had no relatives in Quebec, had gone up the country with
her brother and his wife, and was living in some little settlement above
Montreal with them.

Thither Duncan, with the constancy of his nature, followed, and shortly
afterwards was married to his faithful Catharine. On one point they had
never differed, both being of the same religion. Pierre had seen a
good deal of the fine country on the shores of the Ontario; he had been
hunting with some friendly Indians between the great waters and the Rice
Lake, and he now thought if Duncan and himself could make up their minds
to a quiet life in the woods, there was not a better spot than the hill
pass between the plains and the big lake to fix themselves upon. Duncan
was of the same opinion when he saw the spot. It was not rugged and bare
like his own Highlands, but softer in character, yet his heart yearned
for the hill country. In those days there was no obstacle to taking
possession of any tract of land in the unsurveyed forests, therefore
Duncan agreed with his brother-in-law to pioneer the way with him, get a
dwelling put up and some ground prepared and "seeded down," and then to,
return for their wives and settle themselves down at once as farmers.
Others had succeeded, had formed little colonies, and become the heads
of villages in due time; why should not they? And now behold our two
backwoodsmen fairly commencing their arduous life; but it was nothing,
after all, to Pierre, by previous occupation a hardy lumberer, or the
Scottish soldier, accustomed to brave all sorts of hardships in a wild
country, himself a mountaineer, inured to a stormy climate, and scanty
fare, from his earliest youth. But it is not my intention to dwell upon
the trials and difficulties courageously met and battled with by our
settlers and their young wives.

There was in those days a spirit of re