Part 35 (1/2)

The chief charm of Beauvoir is in its beautiful level lawn and deep overhanging woods, recalling vividly to mind the many beautiful homes of merry England. Mr. Dobell the proprietor is largely engaged in mercantile operations, and for many years past has carried on the most extensive business in the lumber trade.

In 1865 we alluded as follows to this bright Canadian Home, which the shadow of death was soon to darken:

”Crowning a sloping lawn, intersected by a small stream, and facing the Etchemin Mills, you notice on the south side of the St. Lewis road, next to Clermont, a neat dwelling hid amongst huge pines and other forest trees; that is one of our oldest English country seats. Family memories of three generations consecrate the spot. Would you like a glimpse of domestic life as enjoyed at Sillery? then follow that bevy of noisy, rosy- cheeked boys in Lennoxville caps, with gun and rod in hand, hurrying down those steep, narrow steps leading from the bank to the Cove below. How they scamper along, eager to walk the deck of that trim little craft, the _Falcon_, anch.o.r.ed in the stream, and sitting like a bird on the bosom of the famed river. Wait a minute and you will see the mainsail flutter in the breeze. Now our rollicking young friends have marched past ruins of ”chapel, convent, hospital,” &c., on the beach; you surely did not expect them to look glum and melancholy. Of course they knew all about ”Monsieur Puiseaux,” ”le Chevalier de Sillery,” ”the house where dwelt Emily Montague”; but do not, if you have any respect for that thrice happy age, the halcyon days of jackets and frills, befog their brains with the musty records of departed years. Let the lads enjoy their summer vacation, radiant, happy, heedless of the future. Alas! it may yet overtake them soon enough! What care could contract their brow? Have they not fed for the day their rabbits, their pigeons, their guinea-pigs? Is not that faithful Newfoundland dog ”Boatswain,” who saved from drowning one of their school-mates, is he not as usual their companion on s.h.i.+p-board or ash.o.r.e? There, now, they drop down the stream for a long day's cruise round the Island of Orleans. Next week, peradventure, you may hear of the _Falcon_ and its jolly crew having sailed for Portneuf, Murray Bay, the Saguenay or Bersimis, to throw a cast for salmon, sea-trout or mackerel, in some sequestered pool or sheltered bay.

”There we'll drop our lines, and gather Old Ocean's treasures in.”

Are they not glorious, handsome, manly fellows, our Sillery boys? No wonder we are all proud of them, of the twins as much as the rest, and more so perhaps. ”Our Parish” you must know, is renowned for the proportion in which it contributes to the census: twins--a common occurrence; occasionally, triplets.

Such we knew this Canadian home in the days of the late Henry Lemesurier.

_MONTAGUE COTTAGE._

”I knew by the smoke which so gracefully curled, Above the green wood that a cottage was near.”

--_Moore's Woodp.e.c.k.e.r._

Facing Sillery hill, on the north side of ”Sans Bruit,” formerly the estate of Lieut.-Col. the Hon. Henry Caldwell, Mr. Alfred P. Wheeler, [245] the Tide Surveyor of H. M. Customs, Quebec, built in 1880, a comfortable and pleasing little cottage. He has called it Montague Cottage [246] in memory of Wolfe's brave a.s.sistant Quarter Master General Col.

Caldwell, of Sans Bruit, the Col. Rivers of ”The Novel and the preferred suitor of Emily Montague who addressed her romantic 'Sillery letters to Col. Rivers from a house not far from the Hill of Sillery.

It is stated in all the old Quebec Guide Books that the house in which the 'divine Emily then dwelt stood on the foot of Sillery Hill, close to Mrs.

Graddon's property at Kilmarnock, her friend Bella Fermor probably lived near her. Vol. I of the Work, page 61, states; ”I am at present at an extremely pretty farm on the banks of the River St. Lawrence, the house stands as the foot of a steep mountain covered with a variety of trees forming a verdant sloping wall, which rises in a kind of regular confusion, shade above shade a woody theatre, and has in front this n.o.ble river, on which s.h.i.+ps continually pa.s.sing present to the delighted eye the most charming picture imaginable. I never saw a place so formed to inspire that pleasing la.s.situde, that divine inclination to saunter, which may not improperly be called the luxurious indolence of the country. I intend to build a temple here to the charming G.o.ddess of laziness. A gentleman is coming down the winding path on the side of the hill, whom by his air I take to be your brother. Adieu. I must receive him, my father is in Quebec. Yours,

ARABELLA FERMOR.

_THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE._

On the 22nd March 1769, a novelist of some standing Mrs. Frances Brooks an officer's lady, [247] author of _Lady Julia Mandeville_ published in London a work in four volumes, which she dedicated to His Excellency the Governor of Canada, Guy Carleton afterwards Lord Dorchester, under the t.i.tle of the _History of Emily Montague_ being a series of letters addressed from Sillery by Emily Montague the heroine of the tale, to her lively and witty friend Bella Fermor--to some military admirers in Quebec, Montreal, and New York--to some British n.o.blemen, friends of her father.

This novel, whether it was through the writer's _entourage_ in the world or her _entree_ to fas.h.i.+onable circles, or whether on account of its own intrinsic literary worth, had an immense success in its day. The racy description it contains of Canadian scenery, and colonial life, mixed with the fas.h.i.+onable gossip of our Belgravians of 1766, seven years after the conquest, caused several English families to emigrate to Canada. Some settled in the neighborhood of Quebec, at Sillery, it is said. Whether they found all things _couleur-de- rose_, as the clever Mrs. Brooke had described them,--whether they enjoyed as much Arcadian bliss as the Letters of _Emily Montague_ had promised--it would be very ungallant for us to gainsay, seeing that Mrs. Brooke is not present to vindicate herself. As to the literary merit of the novel, this much we will venture to a.s.sert, that setting aside the charm of a.s.sociation, we doubt that _Emily Montague_ if republished at present, would make the fortune of her publisher. Novel writing, like other things, has considerably changed since 1766, and however much the florid Richardson style may have pleased the great grandfathers of the present generation, it would scarcely chime in with the taste of readers in our sensational times.

In Mrs. Brooke's day Quebecers appear to have amused themselves pretty much as they do now, a century later. In the summer, riding, driving boating, pic-nics at Lake St. Charles, the Falls of Montmorenci, &c.

In winter tandems, sleigh drives, toboganing at the ice cone, tomycod fis.h.i.+ng on the St. Charles, Chateau b.a.l.l.s; the formation of a _pont_ or ice-bridge and its breaking up in the spring--two events of paramount importance. The military, later on, the promoters of conviviality, sport and social amus.e.m.e.nts; in return obtaining the _entree_ to the houses of the chief citizens; toying with every English rosebud or Gallic-lily, which might strew their path in spite of paternal and maternal admonitions from the other side of the Atlantic; occasionally leading to the hymeneal altar a Canadian bride, and next introducing her to their horror-stricken London relatives, astounded to find out that our Canadian belles, were neither the colour of copper, nor of ebony; in education and accomplishments, their equals--sometimes their superiors when cla.s.s is compared to cla.s.s. Would you like a few extracts from this curious old Sillery novel? Bella Fermor, one of Emily Montague's familiars, and a most ingrained _coquette_, thus writes from Sillery in favour of a military protege on the 16th September, 1766, to the ”divine” Emily, who had just been packed oft to Montreal to recover from a love fit.

”Sir George is handsome as an Adonis ... you allow him to be of an amiable character; he is rich, young, well-born, and he loves you...”

All in vain thus to plead Sir. George's cause, a das.h.i.+ng Col. Rivers (meant, we were told, by the Hon. W. Sheppard, to personify Col. Henry Caldwell, of Belmont) had won the heart of Emily, who preferred true love to a coronet. Let us treasure up a few more sentences fallen from Emily's light-hearted confidante. A postscript to a letter runs thus-- ”Adieu, Emily, I am going to ramble in the woods and pick berries with a little smiling civil captain [we can just fancy we see some of our fair acquaintances' mouths water at such a prospect], who is enamoured of me. A pretty rural amus.e.m.e.nt for lovers.” Decidedly; all this in the romantic woodlands of Sillery, a sad place it must be confessed, when even boarding school misses, were they to ramble thus, could scarcely escape contracting the _scarlet_ fever. Here goes another extract:--

(BELLA FERMOR TO MISS RIVERS. LONDON)

”Sillery, Sept. 20th, (1766)--10 o'clock.

”Ah! we are vastly to be pitied; no beaux at all at the general's, only about six to one; a pretty proportion, and what I hope always to see. We--the ladies I mean--drink chocolate with the general to- morrow, and he gives us a ball on Thursday; you would not know Quebec again. Nothing but smiling faces now: all gay as never was--the sweetest country in the world. Never expect to see me in England again; one is really somebody here. I have been asked to dance by only twenty-seven. ...”

Ah! who would not forgive the frolicsome Bella all her flirtations?

But before we dismiss this pleasant record of other days, yet another extract, and we have done.

(BELLA FERMOR TO LUCY RIVERS)

”Sillery--Eight in the evening.