CHAPTER XX.  FOUND OUT.
1833.
A solemn stillness pervaded the once happy home on the hill, a stillness broken only by the sighing of the wind through the poplar trees.
The stately, noble form of the queen of the household, who held sway over so many hearts, lay sleeping beneath the daisies in the cemetery not far distant. She had never been well after the shock occasioned by the sudden death of her eldest son.
One by one the young people went forth to homes of their own. Abbie, having awakened at last to a realization of the truth of her father's prediction regarding Thomas Brigham, had long since married that wealthy lumberman.
In his loneliness and sorrow came a call to the Chief to higher and harder work in his country's service. The County of York, in which Hull was situated, had a sufficiently large population to entitle it to representation in the Legislative Assembly, and, as the representation of the Province had been increased to eighty-four members, the electors of the county were called upon to choose their representative.
Elections in those days were not so much a question of political opinion with the electors as personal preference and local considerations, so the Chief was elected by acclamation, and took his seat in the House as an independent member, the name of the constituency being changed to that of Ottawa County.
The members, who in those days had not the prospect of a large indemnity to nail them to their seats, frequently deserted the Legislative Hall long before the session was over, notwithstanding which the White Chief was ever in his place, and voted intelligently on the burning questions of the day.
While attending session at Quebec, he sat down to breakfast on one occasion with the son of his old friend, Louis Joseph Papineau, who was Speaker of the House at the time, and who happened to be staying at the same hotel.
"I hear that a town is springing up like a mushroom on the opposite side of the river from Hull," said Mr. Papineau; "and that property on that side of the river has greatly enhanced in value."
"It has," replied the Chief. "The whole Carman grant, from the Rideau to the Chaudiere, comprising about one thousand acres, was sold to Hugh Fraser a few years ago for ten pounds. Later a man named Burroughs bought two hundred acres which he tried to sell to me for sufficient to pay his passage to England, in order to secure a legacy which had been left him. I would not have accepted it as a gift at that time, for it was all marsh land. He succeeded in getting Nicholas Sparks to take it for ￡95, and I indorsed his notes for the amount. Not long since Sparks sold eighty acres of it to Colonel By for several thousand pounds sterling. The Colonel drained it, divided it into town lots, and is now asking a fabulous price for it.*
* The same eighty acres was disposed of by Colonel By a few years later for half a million pounds sterling.
"How is the town laid out?" asked Mr. Papineau.
"There are a few scattered houses on a street which has been called after the Duke of Wellington, about half a dozen at Le Breton Flats, and east of the canal there are two streets called Sussex and Rideau, on which there are quite a number of houses and four shops, kept by Scotchmen. There are also two civilian barracks, facing each other near Sussex Street, for the canal workers.
"I rode over a few days ago and was astonished to see the rapid progress the place is making. Crossing the wooden bridge at the Chaudiere, which Colonel By succeeded in building after many fruitless attempts, I drove through Le Breton's farm to the gully recently bridged by Lieutenant Pooley, then, skirting the cliff on which the Episcopal church is being erected on a lot given by Sparks, and passing the Scotch church, I drove through the woods along a corduroy road which wound round the foot of Barracks Hill, or the Military Reserve, to Sappers' Bridge, and found that the Colonel had so transformed the lower part of the town by drainage as to make it beyond recognition. The swamp and even the creek have disappeared. There is about half a mile of unbroken forest between the upper and lower parts of the town. The houses are built in the midst of huge old boulders and masses of rock, and are hidden from each other by lofty pines and thick underbrush."
"What is its population?" asked Mr. Papineau.
"I should say about two thousand," he replied. "And they are mostly of the lowest class of Irish, who are very awkward. What they are used to doing they do fairly well, but it seems impossible to teach them anything new. If they can dig out for themselves a mud cabin in the side of a hill they would never dream of building one of wood.
"Near the works is a place called Corktown, where the workmen have burrowed in the sandhills. Smoke is seen to rise out of holes which have been opened in the ground to answer the purpose of chimneys. In these miserable dwellings whole families are huddled together worse than in Ireland.
"McTaggart says," continued t............