The vision of
waving cloak and flying steed vanished in the green aisles of the
forest.
Along the Oak Ridges--situate some thirty miles from York--which the
two horsemen now neared, a Huguenot settlement had been formed about
the close of the eighteenth century. The settlers were French officers
of the noblesse order, who, during the French Revolution, when the
royalist cause became desperate, emigrated to England, thence to
Canada, where, by the bounty of the Crown, they were given grants of
land in this portion of the Province of Upper Canada. Here many of
these _emigres_ had made clearings on the Ridges, and reared _chateaux_
for themselves and their households after the manner of their ancestral
homes in Languedoc and Brittany. Into the grounds of one of these
mansions had the younger horseman disappeared to pay his hurried
respects to the stately dame who was its owner, and who, with her fair
daughter, were intimate friends of the Macleod family.
Almost before the old man had time to wonder what mad freak had kept
his young master so long from the beaten road, he was at his side
again.
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