“And she begins to flag.”

“Not a bit of it,” cried the excited boy. “The old daisy-cropper looks as fresh as a rose. Hurrah, boys! let us run down to the wharf, and see what becomes of her.”

Off scampered the juveniles; and on floated the cow, calm and self-possessed in the midst of danger. After passing safely through the arch of the bridge, she continued to steer herself out of the current, and nearer to the shore, and finally effected a landing in Front-street, where she quietly walked on shore, to the great admiration of the youngsters, who received her with rapturous shouts of applause. One lad seized her by the tail, another grasped her horns, while a third patted her dripping neck, and wished her joy of her safe landing. Not Venus herself, when she rose from the sea, attracted more enthusiastic admirers than did the poor Irishman’s cow. A party, composed of all the boys in the place, led her in triumph through the streets, and restored her to her rightful owner, not forgetting to bestow upon her three hearty cheers at parting.

A little black boy, the only son of a worthy negro, who had been a settler for many years in Belleville, was not so fortunate as the Irishman’s cow. He was pushed, it is said accidentally, from the broken bridge, by a white boy of his own age, into that hell of waters, and it was many weeks before his body was found; it had been carried some miles down the bay by the force of the current. Day after day you might see his unhappy father, armed with a long pole, with a hook attached to it, mournfully pacing the banks of the swollen river, in the hope of recovering the remains of his lost child. Once or twice we stopped to speak to him, but his heart was too full to answer. He would turn away, with the tears rolling down his sable cheeks, and resume his melancholy task.

What a dreadful thing is this prejudice against race and colour! How it hardens the heart, and locks up all the avenues of pity! The premature death of this little negro excited less interest in the breasts of his white companions than the fate of the cow, and was spoken of with as little concern as the drowning of a pup or a kitten.

Alas! this river Moira has caused more tears to flow from the eyes of heart-broken parents than any stream of the like size in the province. Heedless of danger, the children will resort to its shores, and play upon the timbers that during the summer months cover its surface. Often have I seen a fine child of five or six years old, astride of a saw-log, riding down the current, with as much glee as if it were a real steed he bestrode. If the log turns, which is often the case, the child stands a great chance of being drowned.

Oh, agony unspeakable! The writer of this lost a fine talented boy of six years – one to whom her soul clave – in those cruel waters. But I will not dwell upon that dark hour, the saddest and darkest in my sad eventful life. Many years ago, when I was a girl myself, my sympathies were deeply excited by reading an account of the grief of a mother who had lost her only child, under similar circumstances. How prophetic were those lines of all that I suffered during that heavy bereavement! –

THE MOTHER’S LAMENT.

“Oh, cold at my feet thou wert sleeping, my boy,
    And I press on thy pale lips in vain the fond kiss!
Earth opens her arms to receive thee, my joy,
    And all my past sorrows were nothing to this.
The day-star of hope ‘neath thine eye-lid is sleeping,
No more to arise at the voice of my weeping.

“Oh, how art thou changed, since the light breath of morning
    Dispersed the soft dewdrops in showers from the tree!
Like a beautiful bud my lone dwelling adorning,
    Thy smiles call’d up feelings of rapture in me:
I thought not the sunbeams all gaily that shone
On thy waking, at night would behold me alone.

“The joy that flash’d out from thy death-shrouded eyes,
    That laugh’d in thy dimples, and brighten’d thy cheek,
Is quench’d – but the smile on thy pale lip that lies,
    Now tells of a joy that no language can speak.
The fountain is seal’d, the young spirit at rest,
Oh, why should I mourn thee, my lov’d one – my blest!”

The anniversary of that fatal day gave birth to the following lines, with which I will close this long chapter: –

THE EARLY LOST.

“The shade of death upon my threshold lay,
    The sun from thy life’s dial had departed;
A cloud came down upon thy early day,
    And left thy hapless mother broken-hearted –

My boy – my boy!

“Long weary months have pass’d since that sad day.
    But naught beguiles my bosom of its sorrow;
Since the cold waters took thee for their prey,
    No smiling hope looks forward to the morrow –

My boy – my boy!

“The voice of mirth is silenced in my heart,
    Thou wert so dearly loved – so fondly cherish’d;
I cannot yet believe that we must part, –
    That all, save thine immortal soul, has perish’d –

My boy – my boy!

“My lovely, laughing, rosy, dimpled, child,
    I call upon thee, when the sun shines clearest;
In the dark lonely night, in accents wild,
    I breathe thy treasured name, my best and dearest –

My boy – my boy!

“The hand of God has press’d me very sore –
Oh, could I clasp thee once more as of yore,
    And kiss thy glowing cheeks’ soft velvet bloom,
I would resign thee to the Almighty Giver
Without one tear, – would yield thee up for ever,
    And people with bright forms thy silent tomb.
But hope has faded from my heart – and joy
Lies buried in thy grave, my darling boy!”

LOCAL IMPROVEMENTS – SKETCHES OF SOCIETY

“Prophet spirit! rise and say,
  What in Fancy’s glass you see –
A city crown this lonely bay?”
  “No dream – a bright reality.
Ere half a century has roll’d
  Its waves of light away,
The beauteous vision I behold
  Shall greet the rosy day;
And Belleville view with civic pride
  Her greatness mirror’d in the tide.”

                                              S.M.

The town of Belleville, in 1840, contained a population of 1,500 souls, or thereabouts. The few streets it then possessed were chiefly composed of frame houses, put up in the most unartistic and irregular fashion, their gable ends or fronts turned to the street, as it suited the whim or convenience of the owner, without the least regard to taste or neatness. At that period there were only two stone houses and two of brick in the place. One of these wonders of the village was the court-house and gaol; the other three were stores. The dwellings of the wealthier portion of the community were distinguished by a coat of white or yellow paint, with green or brown doors and window blinds; while the houses of the poorer class retained the dull grey, which the plain boards always assume after a short exposure to the weather.

In spite of the great beauty of the locality, it was but an insignificant, dirty-looking place. The main street of the town (Front-street, as it is called) was only partially paved with rough slabs of limestone, and these were put so carelessly down that their uneven edges, and the difference in their height and size, was painful to the pedestrian, and destruction to his shoes, leading you to suppose that the paving committee had been composed of shoemakers. In spring and fall the mud was so deep in the centre of the thoroughfare that it required you to look twice before you commenced the difficult task of crossing, lest you might chance to leave your shoes sticking fast in the mud. This I actually saw a lady do one Sunday while crossing the church hill. Belleville had just been incorporated as the metropolitan town of the Victoria District, and my husband presided as Sheriff in the first court ever held in the place.

Twelve brief years have made a wonderful, an almost miraculous, change in the aspect and circumstances of the town. A stranger, who had not visited it during that period, could scarcely recognize it as the same. It has more than doubled its dimensions, and its population has increased to upwards of 4,500 souls. Handsome commodious stores, filled with expensive goods from the mother country and the States, have risen in the place of the small dark frame buildings; and large hotels have jostled into obscurity the low taverns and groceries that once formed the only places of entertainment.

In 1840, a wooded swamp extended almost the whole way from Belleville to Cariff’s Mills, a distance of three miles. The road was execrable; and only a few log shanties, or very small frame houses, occurred at intervals along the road-side. Now, Cariff’s Mills is as large as Belleville was in 1840, and boasts of a population of upwards of 1000 inhabitants.