We were awakened this morning by the creaking of the guy ropes as they strained and dragged at their pegs. Our tent, beaten upon by the uncertain wind, flapped its wings like some strange white bird struggling in the teeth of a storm, and at fitful intervals hurried dashes of rain battered against the frail canvas that was the sole tissue between us and the Muskoka skies. We rolled ourselves snugly in our grey blankets, and watched with heavy eyes the little rills of water that crept under the wings and scurried over the rocks that made such sure footing for our stretchers. The grey lichens awakened, too, as the rain touched their spongy pores, while they drank the trickling drops until wet and surfeited they exhaled a warm, soft mist that arose and laid its shadowy finger on our too early awakened eyes.
Lulled in sleep once more I awoke the second time with a terrible start. The rain was still drip, drip, dripping on the cotton roof above me, but the wind had subsided and it was no sound from without that startled me, but only the rapid throb of my heart, for was I not re-living in my dreams the story of danger and peril that I heard yesterday, while up Lake Joseph with a merry crowd of Bohemians who were too light-hearted and jovial to feel the pathos of the superb scenery that had calmed me into a reverie that was almost “akin to pain.” I had laughed and sung and jested also for a time, but little by little my merriment left me, and by-and-bye I stole away “forward,” and crouching down alone by the wheel-house, I prepared to luxuriate in the great heart of Nature for the remainder of the afternoon.
“Will you not use the glasses?” asked a manly voice that vibrated with a pleasant and peculiar foreign accent. I looked upward to see that most courteous of sailors, Capt. Lawson of the Muskoka; and he was offering to me a superb pair of field-glasses that did me very efficient service during the next half hour, in spying out the minute beauties of Lake Joseph. After a time a prominent Toronto citizen idled along, and seeing the handsome glass in my hand, he remarked: “Did the captain tell you how he came by that?” I answered in the negative, and in five minutes more I was seated in the pilot house and was in possession of the whole story.
Capt. Lawson is a Norwegian by birth, of fine physique, sturdy and muscular as the ideal Norseman, with wonderfully clear grey eyes that nothing in lake or sky can escape. He says in all the seventeen years that he has sailed the Muskoka lakes that his heart never failed him but that once—when upon rounding an island he beheld a far-off yacht lean, dip, and capsize in one of the treacherous gales that are born almost daily in these rock-moulded straits.
Orders were immediately given for speed. Out of her course the Muskoka swung with the captain's unflinching hand on the wheel. Even with redoubled speed it seemed to that anxious sailor that she was barely crawling, and as they drew nearer his stalwart heart sickened with the terribleness of a fear that he would be too late. When at last the lifeboats were lowered it seemed almost impossible that they were in time to save the unfortunates. But the captain's promptitude and clear-headedness were rewarded. Four courageous men and four brave girls were swimming and struggling in a semi-exhausted state, yet never once losing their presence of mind. They secured the life-preservers instantly and were taken aboard, where the captain's humane attentions soon warmed them back to vitality and to a life-long gratitude toward one of the best and bravest sailors on our Canadian lakes. During the recital of the little story the captain was perfectly silent. It was only when we read aloud the gold lettered inscription on the morocco case of the glass that he spoke. It was simple enough, and ran:
Presented to
CAPTAIN H. P. LAWSON
of the
Steamer Muskoka,
as an acknowledgment of his gallant services
in saving life on Lake Joseph,
August 21st, 1889.
J. Herbert Mason. William Morris.
There was an odd strain in his voice as he said: “Even yet I wake in the night and see them struggling. It was awful to think we might be too late.” Then turning to the gentleman beside me he faltered: “I did not say much when you gave me the glass, there were too many people about. I had wished for it for years, but it is not I that could buy such a fine one.” He turned again to his wheel, with a soft mist overspreading his keen, kind eyes, and I slipped quietly out of the pilot house to join my gay companions, while my own eyes were—but here I am lying abed still musing on the incidents of yesterday. It is Sunday morning, no church, no fishing, no excursions in this deluging storm. I think it a good day to “write up” newspaper sketches and letters to far away friends, so I practically follow my thoughts until late in the afternoon when the rain slackens, and two of the boys come over from the next camp and invite themselves to tea. The noise and irrepressible gaiety of that pair banishes every idea of scribbling, and by-and-bye two of us paddle loving idlers slip out to stow ourselves away in our slender little canoe that bears us across the lake where we shall attend divine service in the crescent shaped village of Rosseau.
Up on the hills the bells are ringing for evensong, the Arabs are congregating from their various tents along the margin of the lake, the cottagers are clothed much as we see them on Sundays in the city, the campers are garmented in their clean white flannels and varicolored blazers. It is a quaint, nondescript crowd, but, artistic withal, and the atmosphere seems to reflect something of the color that prism-like radiates from the apparel of the worshippers. After a brief toil up the hillside during which the skies burned deeper and redder we turned towards the south-east to behold one of the most transcendent scenes that ever gladdened Canadian eyes. Muskoka is a land of glorious sunsets but she surpasses herself to-night, and we feel that even Italy cannot rival the magnificence of color and outline that lies about us.
The entire west and south are blood-hued, large ragged pieces of flame-colored cloud are breaking loose and drifting down from the embankments of vermillion that pile up, up, up to the very zenith—below the dead, calm lake, rock-environed, fir-enveloped, has absorbed the life-blood of the skies above. The clouds have huddled themselves blackly in the east, and from shore to shore a perfect, unbroken, brilliant rainbow arches over the tips of the distant rocks—embracing in its semi-circle three islands of transparent green and opaque gray. Above and about us the pine trees lift their tall, black heads, and through their outstretched arms we watch in silence the world bathed in its inimitable glory.
We forget our puny selves for the moment, but the slow, monotonous splash of oars at our feet, the church bell's lingering notes, and the flash of glory caught by the little gold cross on the prayer-book in our hand awakens us to the memory of the service we thought to attend. I look towards the little wooden church, then at the splendor about us, then at my comrade, who understands the unspoken question and replies reverentially, “You are right, we are nearer Heaven out here.” We turn simultaneously and retrace our steps over the rocky path to our canoe. Very quietly we paddle across the gold and garnet sea—our craft slipping, almost unconsciously to us, into that loveliest of streams, Shadow River, where we watch the rainbow pale as the clouds loose their crimson and swoon all colorless into the nightfall. Yes, we are nearer Heaven out here. We can creep very close to the feet of the tender Father who has made the earth so exquisite, our lips might have uttered more prayers had we knelt by the wooden benches in the little sanctuary, but here our hearts—aye, our very lives are a prayer that is surely too earnest, too devotional to ascend unheeded.