What little they heard of the progress of the war was satisfactory, and during the long, bright evenings, the day's work being done, the stringency of discipline was often relaxed. Then officers and men, with the exception of those on duty, would give themselves up to relaxation and pleasure.
Canoes had been purchased from the Indians, and swimming in the bay, as well as spinning over its waters, soon became of nightly occurrence, and none among the men enjoyed the sport better than Harold. So one evening, when the woods were green, he took Helen for their first long paddle. Captain Cummings and the Chaplain occupied a second canoe, while Sir George and Captain Payne enjoyed a quiet smoke as they strolled along the shore. The two birch-barks struck out past the northern end of the island and paddled abreast toward the mouth of the harbor. In the west the sun was setting in a golden flame behind the trees, while above them the blue vault was dotted with little grey clouds, fretted with spangles of silver. Scarcely a ripple disturbed the lake. Now and then a white gull flew from side to side, and a sportive pickerel splashed the water as he rose above the surface.
In a little while, Lieutenant Smith and the Doctor joined them, paddling over from the opposite shore. They had been hunting for partridge.
"Why not come with us for an hour's run?"
"All right," and they dropped to the opposite side of Harold's canoe.
"What a solitary outlook!" said Helen, casting her eye from shore to shore. "Not another boat to be seen, and on land nothing but woods."
"It's a mighty picturesque spot, though," said the Chaplain, who was using his paddle a few yards to the right. "It is like the sea of glass spoken of in Revelations, reflecting the sky of the Orient."
"Or like the paradise of the houries," cried Captain Cummings, "where the wood nymphs bathe in the lake and bask in the golden sunlight."
"It is the promise of a fertile country," said Lieutenant Smith, "which needs the woodsman's axe to clear it, and the toil of the settler to cover it with happy homes."
"Yes, and to make it yield its thirty, sixty and a hundred fold," echoed the Chaplain.
"Mon Dieu! but you are all wrong," exclaimed Beaumont, taking off his hat and shaking his curly head. "It is just the forest of Penetang, where the Iroquois and Hurons fought for ages, and where the Jesuits of my people shed their life's blood and died among a race of unbelievers."