Galt in her holiday attire is the most charming of places. Last week she opened those big Scotch Canadian arms of hers and took to her hospitable heart all the pleasure-seekers, the idlers, the strangers and pilgrims who flocked from near and far to participate in the summer carnival that has proved a revelation to outsiders.
Some of these small western towns are considered so provincial by their more metropolitan sisters that they too seldom have sufficient mention even in the city press; but just give these seemingly dull places an opportunity to show what they can do in the way of entertaining guests, of decorating their streets, of filling their thoroughfares with thousands upon thousands of sight-seers, of sports and parades and music and general gaiety, and perhaps, like pretty little grey stone Galt they will surprise and please the most critical visitor. We had spent two delightful days, and two jolly late-to-bed nights, we had been hospitably received and liberally entertained. Some of our party had carried off the handsomest cups in the canoe regatta, leaving Galt and Toronto cupless and prizeless in many of the races, and now we must return to sleepy old Brantford, for the carnival was over and Lent had come, and one cannot have cakes and ale forever.
It was a great mind that bethought itself of the advisability of running the river home, instead of being transmitted thereto by the unromantic medium of a hot, crowded excursion train. So, accordingly, at 11.30 Saturday morning, we ran our heaviest canoe out of the natty little club house, portaged the dam with the assistance of some stalwart Galt arms, and in another moment were tossing on the rapids that scamper between the rocky edges the town has crept so closely to.
The owner of a sweet, dark, girlish face threw us a farewell kiss from the shore, and that magnificent athlete Galt may well be so proud of—whom none can pass with a single paddle, brought with him his scarcely less athletic brother, and were the last to wave their hats and call out to us: “Here's luck.”
But Galt, with its warm hearts, its pretty maidens and bright men, its handsome arches and gay bunting, is floating far behind us, the old Grand River scurries eastward, whirling us along between the daintiest green banks and softest shores in Ontario. An hour brings some scenery that promises bolder outlines, and in ten minutes more we sight a little old-time village; we are suffering from thirst, for through some negligence we had forgotten to bring anything to drink, or anything to drink from, so we pull up at the hillside hamlet and our stern paddle goes to explore for lemons. O! Glenmorris, thou unreliable one, with thy musical name and empty inn!
Our would-be Stanley returns, like Hiawatha, “empty-handed, heavy-hearted.” Glenmorris is too righteous to contain even a lemon or a bottle of ginger ale. But as soon as we are afloat once more, we forget our grievances and lose ourselves in the exquisite touches of color and outline that only Ontario, when wedded to June, can produce. We almost inhale the beauty, it is so full and opulent. The sense of sight is insufficient to absorb the humanizing loveliness of these wild, uninhabited shores. But we rush onward so restlessly through the many twists and twirls of the stream, that while we engineer our little craft between the omnipresent boulders, our pet bit of scenery has floated far behind us.
And now a sweet, far sound reaches our ears, and the blood leaps excitedly into our cheeks—does the world of music contain anything as witching as the harmony and laughter of falling waters? Does the finest orchestral combination, or the most perfect human voice command a tone, or a scale of tones as entrancing and fascinating as the cadence of rapids swirling before you down stream?
We toss off our Tam-o'-Shanters, grasp our paddles more powerfully and shoot to the brink of a dam that stretches horizontally ahead, for a second our brave little canoe trembles on the brow of the rushing hill of water, then down it plunges—tossed like a feather in a tornado. The great waves at the foot of the dam recurl over the turtle deck, and a shower of big, glassy drops splash into our faces and deluge our flannels.
Our sturdy Peterboro' shivers like an aspen, but there is a strong muscle at the stern paddle, and with bow straight ahead, it dashes gaily into a mile of comparatively calm water. Still to forward we hear the purling voice of the Five-Mile Rapid, frolicking and roystering over its rocky bed. Just here the river melts into a crescent, between such high, wild, densely wooded banks that one is reminded of some of those rugged, sequestered lakes in Muskoka.
One last, hurried glimpse at this possible Eden, and we dart like an arrow into the boiling eleven-linked rapid; no sooner are we out of the first then we are into the second, and at the end of the chain we are quite ready for luncheon and our much longed-for drink. We land and make a bolt for some water that we see trickling from the bank overhead—on closer inspection we discover it is a petrifactive spring, shells and mosses and branches lie about in every degree of petrifaction. We hesitate. Will this delicious looking water transform our interior economy into stone? The evil would be scarcely greater than this terrible thirst in our throats, so we drink from a cup made of our palms, and come what may, for the present at least we are grateful for this icy, limpid draught, as pure in its unconventional serving as the childhood it recalls.
We loll and rest for an hour and a half, then re-embark, reaching the town of Paris at 4 p.m. Fifteen miles more of curling waves, of alternate rugged and velvet scenery, of a free wind on which great lazy cranes rise with slowly flapping wings at our nearing, or the occasional whispers of land-locked springs falling over shelving rocks and watery green ferns, of sweet summer airs where the aroma of dark cedars and belated spring flowers interweaves, and then we see tall steeples that we recognize, and hear familiar-toned bells ringing six o'clock. In two minutes more we are in the Brantford Canoe Club house, having made a run of thirty-five to forty miles with five hours facile paddling.
We are very brown and horribly untidy, but our Bohemian afternoon has surpassed anything that the gaiety of the most brilliant Canadian city could give us.
Aye—even yet the echo of those rollicking waters sings me to slumber at night, and I dream the winds are splashing the waves across the gunwale, drenching my uncovered head and collarless throat with coolest spray from the old Grand River, which a gifted young Canadian describes as “glistening in its doublings and windings like a silver serpent.”