"Yes; and a burning shame it was for those who confiscated them!" rejoined Mrs. Sandford, who had some traditions of the kind in her own family. "And I know well enough you got these Yankee ideas from _that_ Mr. Winthrop!"
"Well," said Kate, calmly, "it was all for the best in the end, though, of course, it was hard for the people who were driven from their homes. But you see, if they had not _had_ to leave them, we might never have had this glorious 'Canada of ours,' of which we are so proud!"
"Yes," remarked Hugh, "Mr. Armstrong told me that the narrow and mistaken policy of the American leaders at that time was really the foundation of British Canada."
And then he went on give them some of the information he had got out of Mr. Armstrong's books, the preceding evening, in regard to the beautiful valley of the Trent, through which they were driving. He told them how Champlain, three centuries ago, had sung its praises at the Court of the _Grand Monarque_, as "a region very charming and delightful," where the park-like aspect of the trees suggested the previous occupancy of the country in bygone days by some superior race. Then, putting aside this pre-historic period, it was here that Champlain, on his way to his mistaken raid on the Iroquois, which was the beginning of so much strife and trouble, had joined his savage allies in an Indian "Chevy Chase"--in which, by mishap, he wounded one of his dusky friends. But these old stories have long ago been forgotten, in the interest of mines--gold and iron--which, found in the vicinity, have, as usual, somewhat deteriorated the region to which they have given an artificial stimulus. As they drove in from Trenton, a small place at the confluence of the Trent with the bay, in the soft falling dusk, Hugh entertained his companions by repeating some of his favorite passages from "Hiawatha;" and May, who was poetical and patriotic enough to be something of a student of Canadian poetry, repeated a sonnet by one of Canada's earliest singers, Charles Sangster, who, falling on evil days, has not achieved the fame which his genius deserved:--
"My footsteps press, where, centuries ago, The red man fought and conquered, lost and won; Where tribes and races, gone like last year's snow, Have found th' eternal hunting grounds, and run The fiery gauntlet of their active days, Till few are left to tell the mournful tale; And these inspire us with such wild amaze, They seem like spectres passing down a vale Steeped in uncertain moonlight on their way Towards some bourne where darkness blinds the day, And night is wrapped in mystery profound. We cannot lift the mantle of the past: We seem to wander over hallowed ground, We scan the trail of thought, but all is over-cast."