TORONTO OF OLD. 349 



Tjy a near relative of kinda-ed spirit. We give a pathetic extract from a speceimen of this 

 production, in the work just referred to: "Never shall I forget," says the essayist, "the 

 remeinbrance of a little incident which many will deem trifling and unimportant, but which 

 has been peculiarly interesting to my heart-, as giving origin to sentiments and rules of action 

 ■which have since been very dear to me. Besides a singular elegance of form and beauty of 

 plumage," continues the enthusiastic naturalist, "the eye of the common lapwing is peculiarly 

 soft and expressive ; it is large, black, and full of lustre, rolling, as 'it seems to do, in liquid 

 gems of devi', I had shot a bird of this beautiful species ; but, on taking it up, I found it was 

 not deai I had wounded its brea.st ; and some big drops of blood stained the pure whiteness 

 of its feathers. As I held the hapless bird in my hand, hundreds of its companions hovered 

 round my head, uttering continued slirieks of distress, and, by their plaintive cries, appeared 

 to bemoan the fate of one to whom they were connected by ties of the most tender and inter- 

 esting nature ;■ whilst the poor wounded bird continually moaned, with a kind of inward 

 wailing note, expressive of the keenest anguish ; and, ever and auon, it raised its drooping 

 head, and turning towards the wound in its breast, touched it with its bill, and then looked up 

 in my face, with an expression that I have no wish to forget, for it had power to touch my 

 heart whilst yet a boy, when a thousand dry precepts in the academical closet would have been 

 of no avail." The length of tliis extract will be pardoned for the sake of its deterrent drift in 

 respect to the wanton maiming and massacre of our feathered feUow-creatiires by the firearms 

 of sportsmen and missiles of thoughtless children. 



XX.— FROM DON STREET TO THE BRIDGK 

 Eastward from the house where we have been pausing, the road took a slight sweep to t!xe 

 south and then came back to its former course towards the Don bridge, descending in the 

 zneantime into the vaUey of a creek or watercourse, and ascending again from it on the other 

 side. Hereabout, to the left, standing on a picturesque knoll and surrounded by the natural 

 woods of the region, was a good sized two-storey dwelling ; this was the abode of Mr. David 

 McNab, sergeaut-at-arms to the House of Assembly, as his father had beeu before him. With 

 him resided several accomplished, kind-hearted sister.s, aU of handsome and even stately 

 presence ; one of them the belle of the day in society at York. Here were the quarters of the 

 Chief McXab, whenever he came up to York from his Canadian home on the Ottawa. It was 

 not alone when present at church that this remarkable gentleman attracted the public gaze ; 

 but also, when surrounded or followed by a group of his fair kinsfolk of York, he marched with 

 dignified steps along through the whole length of King Street, and down or up the Kingston 

 road to and from the McNab homestead here in the woocls near the Bon. In Ids visits to the 

 ■capital, the Chief always wore a modified highland costume, which well set oif his stalwart, 

 upright form : the blue bonnet and feather, and richly embossed dirk, always rendered him 

 consxjicuous, as well as the tartan of brilliant hues depending from his shoulder after obliquely 

 swathing his capacious chest : a bright scarlet vest with massive sUver buttons, and dress coat 

 always jauntily thrown back, added to the picturesqueness of the figure. It was always 

 evident at a glance that the Chief set a high value on himself. — '-May the MacXab of MacNabs 

 have the jileasure of taking wine with Lady Sarah Maitland ?" suddenly heard above the buzz 

 of conversation, pronounced in a very deep and measured tone by his manly voice, made mute 

 for a time, on one occasion, the dinner-table at Government House. So the gossip ran. An- 

 other story of the same class, but less likely, we should tkink, to be true, was, that seating 

 himself, without uncovering, in the Court-room one day, a messenger was sent to him by the 

 Chief Justice, Sir WDliam Campbell, on the Bench, requiring the removal of liis cap ; when the 

 answer returned, as he instantly rose and left the building, was, that " the ilacNab of MacNabs 

 doffs his bonnet to no man '." — At his home on the Chats the Emigrant. Laird did his best to 

 transplant the traditions and customs of by-gone days in the Highlands, but he found practical 

 Canada an unfriendly sod for romance and sentiment. Bouehette, in lus "British Dominions," 

 i. 82, thus refers to the Canadian abode of the Chief and to the settlement formed by the clan 

 lHacNab. "High up," [the Ottawa], he says, "on the bold and abrupt shore of the broad and 

 picturesque Lake of the Chats, the Highland Chief MacNab has selected a romantic residence, 

 KinneU Lodge, which he has succeeded, through the most unshaken perseverance, in renderiag 



