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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Roughing it in the Bush, by Susanna Moodie
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+Title: Roughing it in the Bush
+
+Author: Susanna Moodie
+
+Release Date: August, 2003 [Etext# 4389]
+[This file was first posted on January 20, 2002]
+[Date last updated: January 18, 2004]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Roughing it in the Bush, by Susanna Moodie
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+This etext was produced by Andrew Sly
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+Notes on this Etext Edition.
+
+Thank you to The Celebration of Women Writers (Mary Mark Ockerbloom,
+Editor) for providing the source text. It has since been proof-read
+and modified by comparison with multiple editions.
+
+There is a great deal of variation between different editions
+ranging from differences in names, spelling and punctuation to
+differences in what chapters and poems are included. This text
+is not meant to be authoritative or to match a certain paper
+edition; rather, its aim is to be be readable and inclusive of
+various material that appears in different editions.
+
+
+
+
+ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH
+
+
+To Agnes Strickland
+Author of the "Lives of the Queens of England"
+This simple tribute of affection
+is dedicated by her sister
+Susanna Moodie
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+         Introduction to the Third Edition
+      I  A Visit to Grosse Isle
+     II  Quebec
+    III  Our Journey up the Country
+     IV  Tom Wilson's Emigration
+      V  Our First Settlement, and the Borrowing System
+     VI  Old Satan and Tom Wilson's Nose
+    VII  Uncle Joe and his Family
+   VIII  John Monaghan
+     IX  Phoebe R---, and our Second Moving
+      X  Brian, the Still-Hunter
+     XI  The Charivari
+    XII  The Village Hotel
+   XIII  The Land-Jobber
+    XIV  A Journey to the Woods
+     XV  The Wilderness, and our Indian Friends
+    XVI  Burning the Fallow
+   XVII  Our Logging-Bee
+  XVIII  A Trip to Stony Lake
+    XIX  The "Ould Dhragoon"
+     XX  Disappointed Hopes
+    XXI  The Little Stumpy Man
+   XXII  The Fire
+  XXIII  The Outbreak
+   XXIV  The Whirlwind
+    XXV  The Walk to Dummer
+   XXVI  A Change in our Prospects
+  XXVII  Adieu to the Woods
+ XXVIII  Canadian Sketches
+ Appendix A  Advertisement to the Third Edition
+ Appendix B  Canada: a Contrast
+ Appendix C  Jeanie Burns
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION
+
+Published by Richard Bentley in 1854
+
+
+In most instances, emigration is a matter of necessity, not of
+choice; and this is more especially true of the emigration of
+persons of respectable connections, or of any station or position
+in the world. Few educated persons, accustomed to the refinements
+and luxuries of European society, ever willingly relinquish those
+advantages, and place themselves beyond the protective influence of
+the wise and revered institutions of their native land, without the
+pressure of some urgent cause. Emigration may, indeed, generally be
+regarded as an act of severe duty, performed at the expense of
+personal enjoyment, and accompanied by the sacrifice of those local
+attachments which stamp the scenes amid which our childhood grew, in
+imperishable characters, upon the heart. Nor is it until adversity
+has pressed sorely upon the proud and wounded spirit of the
+well-educated sons and daughters of old but impoverished families,
+that they gird up the loins of the mind, and arm themselves with
+fortitude to meet and dare the heart-breaking conflict.
+
+The ordinary motives for the emigration of such persons may be
+summed up in a few brief words;--the emigrant's hope of bettering
+his condition, and of escaping from the vulgar sarcasms too often
+hurled at the less-wealthy by the purse-proud, common-place people
+of the world. But there is a higher motive still, which has its
+origin in that love of independence which springs up spontaneously
+in the breasts of the high-souled children of a glorious land. They
+cannot labour in a menial capacity in the country where they were
+born and educated to command. They can trace no difference between
+themselves and the more fortunate individuals of a race whose blood
+warms their veins, and whose name they bear. The want of wealth
+alone places an impassable barrier between them and the more
+favoured offspring of the same parent stock; and they go forth to
+make for themselves a new name and to find another country, to
+forget the past and to live in the future, to exult in the prospect
+of their children being free and the land of their adoption great.
+
+The choice of the country to which they devote their talents and
+energies depends less upon their pecuniary means than upon the
+fancy of the emigrant or the popularity of a name. From the year
+1826 to 1829, Australia and the Swan River were all the rage. No
+other portions of the habitable globe were deemed worthy of notice.
+These were the El Dorados and lands of Goshen to which all
+respectable emigrants eagerly flocked. Disappointment, as a matter
+of course, followed their high-raised expectations. Many of the
+most sanguine of these adventurers returned to their native shores
+in a worse condition than when they left them. In 1830, the great
+tide of emigration flowed westward. Canada became the great
+land-mark for the rich in hope and poor in purse. Public newspapers
+and private letters teemed with the unheard-of advantages to be
+derived from a settlement in this highly-favoured region.
+
+Its salubrious climate, its fertile soil, commercial advantages,
+great water privileges, its proximity to the mother country, and
+last, not least, its almost total exemption from taxation--that
+bugbear which keeps honest John Bull in a state of constant
+ferment--were the theme of every tongue, and lauded beyond all
+praise. The general interest, once excited, was industriously
+kept alive by pamphlets, published by interested parties, which
+prominently set forth all the good to be derived from a settlement
+in the Backwoods of Canada; while they carefully concealed the toil
+and hardship to be endured in order to secure these advantages.
+They told of lands yielding forty bushels to the acre, but they
+said nothing of the years when these lands, with the most careful
+cultivation, would barely return fifteen; when rust and smut,
+engendered by the vicinity of damp over-hanging woods, would blast
+the fruits of the poor emigrant's labour, and almost deprive him
+of bread. They talked of log houses to be raised in a single day,
+by the generous exertions of friends and neighbours, but they never
+ventured upon a picture of the disgusting scenes of riot and low
+debauchery exhibited during the raising, or upon a description of
+the dwellings when raised--dens of dirt and misery, which would, in
+many instances, be shamed by an English pig-sty. The necessaries of
+life were described as inestimably cheap; but they forgot to add
+that in remote bush settlements, often twenty miles from a market
+town, and some of them even that distance from the nearest
+dwelling, the necessaries of life which would be deemed
+indispensable to the European, could not be procured at all, or,
+if obtained, could only be so by sending a man and team through
+a blazed forest road,--a process far too expensive for frequent
+repetition.
+
+Oh, ye dealers in wild lands--ye speculators in the folly and
+credulity of your fellow men--what a mass of misery, and of
+misrepresentation productive of that misery, have ye not to answer
+for! You had your acres to sell, and what to you were the worn-down
+frames and broken hearts of the infatuated purchasers? The public
+believed the plausible statements you made with such earnestness,
+and men of all grades rushed to hear your hired orators declaim
+upon the blessings to be obtained by the clearers of the
+wilderness.
+
+Men who had been hopeless of supporting their families in comfort
+and independence at home, thought that they had only to come out
+to Canada to make their fortunes; almost even to realise the story
+told in the nursery, of the sheep and oxen that ran about the
+streets, ready roasted, and with knives and forks upon their backs.
+They were made to believe that if it did not actually rain gold,
+that precious metal could be obtained, as is now stated of
+California and Australia, by stooping to pick it up.
+
+The infection became general. A Canada mania pervaded the middle
+ranks of British society; thousands and tens of thousands for the
+space of three or four years landed upon these shores. A large
+majority of the higher class were officers of the army and navy,
+with their families--a class perfectly unfitted by their previous
+habits and education for contending with the stern realities of
+emigrant life. The hand that has long held the sword, and been
+accustomed to receive implicit obedience from those under its
+control, is seldom adapted to wield the spade and guide the plough,
+or try its strength against the stubborn trees of the forest. Nor
+will such persons submit cheerfully to the saucy familiarity of
+servants, who, republicans in spirit, think themselves as good as
+their employers. Too many of these brave and honourable men were
+easy dupes to the designing land-speculators. Not having counted
+the cost, but only looked upon the bright side of the picture held
+up to their admiring gaze, they fell easily into the snares of
+their artful seducers.
+
+To prove their zeal as colonists, they were induced to purchase
+large tracts of wild land in remote and unfavourable situations.
+This, while it impoverished and often proved the ruin of the
+unfortunate immigrant, possessed a double advantage to the seller.
+He obtained an exorbitant price for the land which he actually
+sold, while the residence of a respectable settler upon the spot
+greatly enhanced the value and price of all other lands in the
+neighbourhood.
+
+It is not by such instruments as those I have just mentioned, that
+Providence works when it would reclaim the waste places of the
+earth, and make them subservient to the wants and happiness of its
+creatures. The Great Father of the souls and bodies of men knows
+the arm which wholesome labour from infancy has made strong, the
+nerves which have become iron by patient endurance, by exposure
+to weather, coarse fare, and rude shelter; and He chooses such,
+to send forth into the forest to hew out the rough paths for the
+advance of civilization. These men become wealthy and prosperous,
+and form the bones and sinews of a great and rising country. Their
+labour is wealth, not exhaustion; its produce independence and
+content, not home-sickness and despair. What the Backwoods of
+Canada are to the industrious and ever-to-be-honoured sons of
+honest poverty, and what they are to the refined and accomplished
+gentleman, these simple sketches will endeavour to portray. They
+are drawn principally from my own experience, during a sojourn of
+nineteen years in the colony.
+
+In order to diversify my subject, and make it as amusing as
+possible, I have between the sketches introduced a few small poems,
+all written during my residence in Canada, and descriptive of the
+country.
+
+In this pleasing task, I have been assisted by my husband, J. W.
+Dunbar Moodie, author of "Ten Years in South Africa."
+
+BELLEVILLE, UPPER CANADA
+
+
+
+CANADA
+
+  Canada, the blest--the free!
+  With prophetic glance, I see
+  Visions of thy future glory,
+  Giving to the world's great story
+  A page, with mighty meaning fraught,
+  That asks a wider range of thought.
+  Borne onward on the wings of Time,
+  I trace thy future course sublime;
+  And feel my anxious lot grow bright,
+  While musing on the glorious sight;--
+  My heart rejoicing bounds with glee
+  To hail thy noble destiny!
+
+  Even now thy sons inherit
+  All thy British mother's spirit.
+  Ah! no child of bondage thou;
+  With her blessing on thy brow,
+  And her deathless, old renown
+  Circling thee with freedom's crown,
+  And her love within thy heart,
+  Well may'st thou perform thy part,
+  And to coming years proclaim
+  Thou art worthy of her name.
+  Home of the homeless!--friend to all
+  Who suffer on this earthly ball!
+  On thy bosom sickly care
+  Quite forgets her squalid lair;
+  Gaunt famine, ghastly poverty
+  Before thy gracious aspect fly,
+  And hopes long crush'd, grow bright again,
+  And, smiling, point to hill and plain.
+
+  By thy winter's stainless snow,
+  Starry heavens of purer glow,
+  Glorious summers, fervid, bright,
+  Basking in one blaze of light;
+  By thy fair, salubrious clime;
+  By thy scenery sublime;
+  By thy mountains, streams, and woods;
+  By thy everlasting floods;
+  If greatness dwells beneath the skies,
+  Thou to greatness shalt arise!
+
+  Nations old, and empires vast,
+  From the earth had darkly pass'd
+  Ere rose the fair auspicious morn
+  When thou, the last, not least, wast born.
+  Through the desert solitude
+  Of trackless waters, forests rude,
+  Thy guardian angel sent a cry
+  All jubilant of victory!
+  "Joy," she cried, "to th' untill'd earth,
+  Let her joy in a mighty birth,--
+  Night from the land has pass'd away,
+  The desert basks in noon of day.
+  Joy, to the sullen wilderness,
+  I come, her gloomy shades to bless,
+  To bid the bear and wild-cat yield
+  Their savage haunts to town and field.
+  Joy, to stout hearts and willing hands,
+  That win a right to these broad lands,
+  And reap the fruit of honest toil,
+  Lords of the rich, abundant soil.
+
+  "Joy, to the sons of want, who groan
+  In lands that cannot feed their own;
+  And seek, in stern, determined mood,
+  Homes in the land of lake and wood,
+  And leave their hearts' young hopes behind,
+  Friends in this distant world to find;
+  Led by that God, who from His throne
+  Regards the poor man's stifled moan.
+  Like one awaken'd from the dead,
+  The peasant lifts his drooping head,
+  Nerves his strong heart and sunburnt hand,
+  To win a potion of the land,
+  That glooms before him far and wide
+  In frowning woods and surging tide
+  No more oppress'd, no more a slave,
+  Here freedom dwells beyond the wave.
+
+  "Joy, to those hardy sires who bore
+  The day's first heat--their toils are o'er;
+  Rude fathers of this rising land,
+  Theirs was a mission truly grand.
+  Brave peasants whom the Father, God,
+  Sent to reclaim the stubborn sod;
+  Well they perform'd their task, and won
+  Altar and hearth for the woodman's son.
+  Joy, to Canada's unborn heirs,
+  A deathless heritage is theirs;
+  For, sway'd by wise and holy laws,
+  Its voice shall aid the world's great cause,
+  Shall plead the rights of man, and claim
+  For humble worth an honest name;
+  Shall show the peasant-born can be,
+  When call'd to action, great and free.
+  Like fire, within the flint conceal'd,
+  By stern necessity reveal'd,
+  Kindles to life the stupid sod,
+  Image of perfect man and God.
+
+  "Joy, to thy unborn sons, for they
+  Shall hail a brighter, purer day;
+  When peace and Christian brotherhood
+  Shall form a stronger tie than blood--
+  And commerce, freed from tax and chain,
+  Shall build a bridge o'er earth and main;
+  And man shall prize the wealth of mind,
+  The greatest blessing to mankind;
+  True Christians, both in word and deed,
+  Ready in virtue's cause to bleed,
+  Against a world combined to stand,
+  And guard the honour of the land.
+  Joy, to the earth, when this shall be,
+  Time verges on eternity."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A VISIT TO GROSSE ISLE
+
+
+
+  Alas! that man's stern spirit e'er should mar
+  A scene so pure--so exquisite as this.
+
+
+The dreadful cholera was depopulating Quebec and Montreal when our
+ship cast anchor off Grosse Isle, on the 30th of August 1832, and
+we were boarded a few minutes after by the health-officers.
+
+One of these gentlemen--a little, shrivelled-up Frenchman--from
+his solemn aspect and attenuated figure, would have made no bad
+representative of him who sat upon the pale horse. He was the only
+grave Frenchman I had ever seen, and I naturally enough regarded
+him as a phenomenon. His companion--a fine-looking fair-haired
+Scotchman--though a little consequential in his manners, looked
+like one who in his own person could combat and vanquish all the
+evils which flesh is heir to. Such was the contrast between these
+doctors, that they would have formed very good emblems, one, of
+vigorous health, the other, of hopeless decay.
+
+Our captain, a rude, blunt north-country sailor, possessing
+certainly not more politeness than might be expected in a bear,
+received his sprucely dressed visitors on the deck, and, with very
+little courtesy, abruptly bade them follow him down into the cabin.
+
+The officials were no sooner seated, than glancing hastily round
+the place, they commenced the following dialogue:--
+
+"From what port, captain?"
+
+Now, the captain had a peculiar language of his own, from which he
+commonly expunged all the connecting links. Small words, such as
+"and" and "the," he contrived to dispense with altogether.
+
+"Scotland--sailed from port o' Leith, bound for Quebec, Montreal--
+general cargo--seventy-two steerage, four cabin passengers--brig
+Anne, one hundred and ninety-two tons burden, crew eight hands."
+
+Here he produced his credentials, and handed them to the strangers.
+The Scotchman just glanced over the documents, and laid them on the
+table.
+
+"Had you a good passage out?"
+
+"Tedious, baffling winds, heavy fogs, detained three weeks on
+Banks--foul weather making Gulf--short of water, people out of
+provisions, steerage passengers starving."
+
+"Any case of sickness or death on board?"
+
+"All sound as crickets."
+
+"Any births?" lisped the little Frenchman.
+
+The captain screwed up his mouth, and after a moment's reflection
+he replied, "Births? Why, yes; now I think on't, gentlemen, we had
+one female on board, who produced three at a birth."
+
+"That's uncommon," said the Scotch doctor, with an air of lively
+curiosity. "Are the children alive and well? I should like much to
+see them." He started up, and knocked his head--for he was very
+tall--against the ceiling. "Confound your low cribs! I have nearly
+dashed out my brains."
+
+"A hard task, that," looked the captain to me. He did not speak,
+but I knew by his sarcastic grin what was uppermost in his
+thoughts. "The young ones all males--fine thriving fellows. Step
+upon deck, Sam Frazer," turning to his steward; "bring them down
+for doctors to see." Sam vanished, with a knowing wink to his
+superior, and quickly returned, bearing in his arms three fat,
+chuckle-headed bull-terriers, the sagacious mother following
+close at his heels, and looked ready to give and take offence on
+the slightest provocation.
+
+"Here, gentlemen, are the babies," said Frazer, depositing his
+burden on the floor. "They do credit to the nursing of the brindled
+slut."
+
+The old tar laughed, chuckled, and rubbed his hands in an ecstacy
+of delight at the indignation and disappointment visible in the
+countenance of the Scotch Esculapius, who, angry as he was, wisely
+held his tongue. Not so the Frenchman; his rage scarcely knew
+bounds--he danced in a state of most ludicrous excitement, he
+shook his fist at our rough captain, and screamed at the top of his
+voice--
+
+"Sacre, you bete! You tink us dog, ven you try to pass your puppies
+on us for babies?"
+
+"Hout, man, don't be angry," said the Scotchman, stifling a laugh;
+"you see 'tis only a joke!"
+
+"Joke! me no understand such joke. Bete!" returned the angry
+Frenchman, bestowing a savage kick on one of the unoffending pups
+which was frisking about his feet. The pup yelped; the slut barked
+and leaped furiously at the offender, and was only kept from biting
+him by Sam, who could scarcely hold her back for laughing; the
+captain was uproarious; the offended Frenchman alone maintained
+a severe and dignified aspect. The dogs were at length dismissed,
+and peace restored.
+
+After some further questioning from the officials, a Bible was
+required for the captain to take an oath. Mine was mislaid, and
+there was none at hand.
+
+"Confound it!" muttered the old sailor, tossing over the papers
+in his desk; "that scoundrel, Sam, always stows my traps out of
+the way." Then taking up from the table a book which I had been
+reading, which happened to be Voltaire's History of Charles XII.,
+he presented it, with as grave an air as he could assume, to the
+Frenchman. Taking for granted that it was the volume required, the
+little doctor was too polite to open the book, the captain was duly
+sworn, and the party returned to the deck.
+
+Here a new difficulty occurred, which nearly ended in a serious
+quarrel. The gentlemen requested the old sailor to give them a few
+feet of old planking, to repair some damage which their boat had
+sustained the day before. This the captain could not do. They
+seemed to think his refusal intentional, and took it as a personal
+affront. In no very gentle tones, they ordered him instantly to
+prepare his boats, and put his passengers on shore.
+
+"Stiff breeze--short sea," returned the bluff old seaman; "great
+risk in making land--boats heavily laden with women and children
+will be swamped. Not a soul goes on shore this night."
+
+"If you refuse to comply with our orders, we will report you to the
+authorities."
+
+"I know my duty--you stick to yours. When the wind falls off, I'll
+see to it. Not a life shall be risked to please you or your
+authorities."
+
+He turned upon his heel, and the medical men left the vessel in
+great disdain. We had every reason to be thankful for the firmness
+displayed by our rough commander. That same evening we saw eleven
+persons drowned, from another vessel close beside us while
+attempting to make the shore.
+
+By daybreak all was hurry and confusion on board the Anne.
+I watched boat after boat depart for the island, full of people
+and goods, and envied them the glorious privilege of once more
+standing firmly on the earth, after two long months of rocking
+and rolling at sea. How ardently we anticipate pleasure, which
+often ends in positive pain! Such was my case when at last indulged
+in the gratification so eagerly desired. As cabin passengers, we
+were not included in the general order of purification, but were
+only obliged to send our servant, with the clothes and bedding we
+had used during the voyage, on shore, to be washed.
+
+The ship was soon emptied of all her live cargo. My husband went
+off with the boats, to reconnoitre the island, and I was left alone
+with my baby in the otherwise empty vessel. Even Oscar, the
+Captain's Scotch terrier, who had formed a devoted attachment to
+me during the voyage, forgot his allegiance, became possessed of
+the land mania, and was away with the rest. With the most intense
+desire to go on shore, I was doomed to look and long and envy every
+boatful of emigrants that glided past. Nor was this all; the ship
+was out of provisions, and I was condemned to undergo a rigid fast
+until the return of the boat, when the captain had promised a
+supply of fresh butter and bread. The vessel had been nine weeks at
+sea; the poor steerage passengers for the two last weeks had been
+out of food, and the captain had been obliged to feed them from the
+ship's stores. The promised bread was to be obtained from a small
+steam-boat, which plied daily between Quebec and the island,
+transporting convalescent emigrants and their goods in her upward
+trip, and provisions for the sick on her return.
+
+How I reckoned on once more tasting bread and butter! The very
+thought of the treat in store served to sharpen my appetite, and
+render the long fast more irksome. I could now fully realise all
+Mrs. Bowdich's longings for English bread and butter, after her
+three years' travel through the burning African deserts, with her
+talented husband.
+
+"When we arrived at the hotel at Plymouth," said she, "and were
+asked what refreshment we chose--'Tea, and home-made bread and
+butter,' was my instant reply. 'Brown bread, if you please, and
+plenty of it.' I never enjoyed any luxury like it. I was positively
+ashamed of asking the waiter to refill the plate. After the
+execrable messes, and the hard ship-biscuit, imagine the luxury of
+a good slice of English bread and butter!"
+
+At home, I laughed heartily at the lively energy with which that
+charming woman of genius related this little incident in her
+eventful history--but off Grosse Isle, I realised it all.
+
+As the sun rose above the horizon, all these matter-of-fact
+circumstances were gradually forgotten, and merged in the
+surpassing grandeur of the scene that rose majestically before me.
+The previous day had been dark and stormy, and a heavy fog had
+concealed the mountain chain, which forms the stupendous background
+to this sublime view, entirely from our sight. As the clouds rolled
+away from their grey, bald brows, and cast into denser shadow the
+vast forest belt that girdled them round, they loomed out like
+mighty giants--Titans of the earth, in all their rugged and awful
+beauty--a thrill of wonder and delight pervaded my mind. The
+spectacle floated dimly on my sight--my eyes were blinded with
+tears--blinded with the excess of beauty. I turned to the right and
+to the left, I looked up and down the glorious river; never had I
+beheld so many striking objects blended into one mighty whole!
+Nature had lavished all her noblest features in producing that
+enchanting scene.
+
+The rocky isle in front, with its neat farm-houses at the eastern
+point, and its high bluff at the western extremity, crowned with
+the telegraph--the middle space occupied by tents and sheds for the
+cholera patients, and its wooded shores dotted over with motley
+groups--added greatly to the picturesque effect of the land scene.
+Then the broad, glittering river, covered with boats darting to and
+fro, conveying passengers from twenty-five vessels, of various size
+and tonnage, which rode at anchor, with their flags flying from the
+mast-head, gave an air of life and interest to the whole. Turning
+to the south side of the St. Lawrence, I was not less struck with
+its low fertile shores, white houses, and neat churches, whose
+slender spires and bright tin roofs shone like silver as they
+caught the first rays of the sun. As far as the eye could reach, a
+line of white buildings extended along the bank; their background
+formed by the purple hue of the dense, interminable forest. It was
+a scene unlike any I had ever beheld, and to which Britain contains
+no parallel. Mackenzie, an old Scotch dragoon, who was one of our
+passengers, when he rose in the morning, and saw the parish of St.
+Thomas for the first time, exclaimed: "Weel, it beats a'! Can thae
+white clouts be a' houses? They look like claes hung out to drie!"
+There was some truth in this odd comparison, and for some minutes,
+I could scarcely convince myself that the white patches scattered
+so thickly over the opposite shore could be the dwellings of a
+busy, lively population.
+
+"What sublime views of the north side of the river those habitans
+of St. Thomas must enjoy," thought I. Perhaps familiarity with the
+scene has rendered them indifferent to its astonishing beauty.
+
+Eastward, the view down the St. Lawrence towards the Gulf, is the
+finest of all, scarcely surpassed by anything in the world. Your
+eye follows the long range of lofty mountains until their blue
+summits are blended and lost in the blue of the sky. Some of these,
+partially cleared round the base, are sprinkled over with neat
+cottages; and the green slopes that spread around them are covered
+with flocks and herds. The surface of the splendid river is
+diversified with islands of every size and shape, some in wood,
+others partially cleared, and adorned with orchards and white
+farm-houses. As the early sun streamed upon the most prominent of
+these, leaving the others in deep shade, the effect was strangely
+novel and imposing. In more remote regions, where the forest has
+never yet echoed to the woodman's axe, or received the impress of
+civilisation, the first approach to the shore inspires a melancholy
+awe, which becomes painful in its intensity.
+
+
+  Land of vast hills and mighty streams,
+  The lofty sun that o'er thee beams
+  On fairer clime sheds not his ray,
+  When basking in the noon of day
+  Thy waters dance in silver light,
+  And o'er them frowning, dark as night,
+  Thy shadowy forests, soaring high,
+  Stretch forth beyond the aching eye,
+  And blend in distance with the sky.
+
+  And silence--awful silence broods
+  Profoundly o'er these solitudes;
+  Nought but the lapsing of the floods
+  Breaks the deep stillness of the woods;
+  A sense of desolation reigns
+  O'er these unpeopled forest plains.
+  Where sounds of life ne'er wake a tone
+  Of cheerful praise round Nature's throne,
+  Man finds himself with God--alone.
+
+
+My daydreams were dispelled by the return of the boat, which
+brought my husband and the captain from the island.
+
+"No bread," said the latter, shaking his head; "you must be content
+to starve a little longer. Provision-ship not in till four
+o'clock." My husband smiled at the look of blank disappointment
+with which I received these unwelcome tidings, "Never mind, I have
+news which will comfort you. The officer who commands the station
+sent a note to me by an orderly, inviting us to spend the afternoon
+with him. He promises to show us everything worthy of notice on the
+island. Captain --- claims acquaintance with me; but I have not the
+least recollection of him. Would you like to go?"
+
+"Oh, by all means. I long to see the lovely island. It looks a
+perfect paradise at this distance."
+
+The rough sailor-captain screwed his mouth on one side, and gave
+me one of his comical looks, but he said nothing until he assisted
+in placing me and the baby in the boat.
+
+"Don't be too sanguine, Mrs. Moodie; many things look well at a
+distance which are bad enough when near."
+
+I scarcely regarded the old sailor's warning, so eager was I to go
+on shore--to put my foot upon the soil of the new world for the
+first time--I was in no humour to listen to any depreciation of
+what seemed so beautiful.
+
+It was four o'clock when we landed on the rocks, which the rays
+of an intensely scorching sun had rendered so hot that I could
+scarcely place my foot upon them. How the people without shoes bore
+it, I cannot imagine. Never shall I forget the extraordinary
+spectacle that met our sight the moment we passed the low range of
+bushes which formed a screen in front of the river. A crowd of many
+hundred Irish emigrants had been landed during the present and
+former day; and all this motley crew--men, women, and children, who
+were not confined by sickness to the sheds (which greatly resembled
+cattle-pens) were employed in washing clothes, or spreading them
+out on the rocks and bushes to dry.
+
+The men and boys were in the water, while the women, with their
+scanty garments tucked above their knees, were trampling their
+bedding in tubs, or in holes in the rocks, which the retiring
+tide had left half full of water. Those who did not possess
+washing-tubs, pails, or iron pots, or could not obtain access to a
+hole in the rocks, were running to and fro, screaming and scolding
+in no measured terms. The confusion of Babel was among them. All
+talkers and no hearers--each shouting and yelling in his or her
+uncouth dialect, and all accompanying their vociferations with
+violent and extraordinary gestures, quite incomprehensible to the
+uninitiated. We were literally stunned by the strife of tongues. I
+shrank, with feelings almost akin to fear, from the hard-featured,
+sun-burnt harpies, as they elbowed rudely past me.
+
+I had heard and read much of savages, and have since seen, during
+my long residence in the bush, somewhat of uncivilised life; but
+the Indian is one of Nature's gentlemen--he never says or does a
+rude or vulgar thing. The vicious, uneducated barbarians who form
+the surplus of over-populous European countries, are far behind the
+wild man in delicacy of feeling or natural courtesy. The people who
+covered the island appeared perfectly destitute of shame, or even
+of a sense of common decency. Many were almost naked, still more
+but partially clothed. We turned in disgust from the revolting
+scene, but were unable to leave the spot until the captain had
+satisfied a noisy group of his own people, who were demanding a
+supply of stores.
+
+And here I must observe that our passengers, who were chiefly
+honest Scotch labourers and mechanics from the vicinity of
+Edinburgh, and who while on board ship had conducted themselves
+with the greatest propriety, and appeared the most quiet, orderly
+set of people in the world, no sooner set foot upon the island than
+they became infected by the same spirit of insubordination and
+misrule, and were just as insolent and noisy as the rest.
+
+While our captain was vainly endeavouring to satisfy the
+unreasonable demands of his rebellious people, Moodie had discovered
+a woodland path that led to the back of the island. Sheltered by
+some hazel-bushes from the intense heat of the sun, we sat down by
+the cool, gushing river, out of sight, but, alas! not out of
+hearing of the noisy, riotous crowd. Could we have shut out the
+profane sounds which came to us on every breeze, how deeply should
+we have enjoyed an hour amid the tranquil beauties of that retired
+and lovely spot!
+
+The rocky banks of the island were adorned with beautiful
+evergreens, which sprang up spontaneously in every nook and
+crevice. I remarked many of our favourite garden shrubs among
+these wildings of nature: the fillagree, with its narrow, dark
+glossy-green leaves; the privet, with its modest white blossoms
+and purple berries; the lignum-vitae, with its strong resinous
+odour; the burnet-rose, and a great variety of elegant unknowns.
+
+Here, the shores of the island and mainland, receding from each
+other, formed a small cove, overhung with lofty trees, clothed from
+the base to the summit with wild vines, that hung in graceful
+festoons from the topmost branches to the water's edge. The dark
+shadows of the mountains, thrown upon the water, as they towered to
+the height of some thousand feet above us, gave to the surface of
+the river an ebon hue. The sunbeams, dancing through the thick,
+quivering foliage, fell in stars of gold, or long lines of dazzling
+brightness, upon the deep black waters, producing the most novel
+and beautiful effects. It was a scene over which the spirit of
+peace might brood in silent adoration; but how spoiled by the
+discordant yells of the filthy beings who were sullying the purity
+of the air and water with contaminating sights and sounds!
+
+We were now joined by the sergeant, who very kindly brought us
+his capful of ripe plums and hazel-nuts, the growth of the island;
+a joyful present, but marred by a note from Captain ---, who had
+found that he had been mistaken in his supposed knowledge of us,
+and politely apologised for not being allowed by the health-officers
+to receive any emigrant beyond the bounds appointed for the
+performance of quarantine.
+
+I was deeply disappointed, but my husband laughingly told me that
+I had seen enough of the island; and turning to the good-natured
+soldier, remarked, that "it could be no easy task to keep such wild
+savages in order."
+
+"You may well say that, sir--but our night scenes far exceed those
+of the day. You would think they were incarnate devils; singing,
+drinking, dancing, shouting, and cutting antics that would surprise
+the leader of a circus. They have no shame--are under no
+restraint--nobody knows them here, and they think they can speak
+and act as they please; and they are such thieves that they rob one
+another of the little they possess. The healthy actually run the
+risk of taking the cholera by robbing the sick. If you have not
+hired one or two stout, honest fellows from among your fellow
+passengers to guard your clothes while they are drying, you will
+never see half of them again. They are a sad set, sir, a sad set.
+We could, perhaps, manage the men; but the women, sir!--the women!
+Oh, sir!"
+
+Anxious as we were to return to the ship, we were obliged to remain
+until sun-down in our retired nook. We were hungry, tired, and out
+of spirits; the mosquitoes swarmed in myriads around us, tormenting
+the poor baby, who, not at all pleased with her first visit to the
+new world, filled the air with cries, when the captain came to tell
+us that the boat was ready. It was a welcome sound. Forcing our way
+once more through the still squabbling crowd, we gained the landing
+place. Here we encountered a boat, just landing a fresh cargo of
+lively savages from the Emerald Isle. One fellow, of gigantic
+proportions, whose long, tattered great-coat just reached below the
+middle of his bare red legs, and, like charity, hid the defects of
+his other garments, or perhaps concealed his want of them, leaped
+upon the rocks, and flourishing aloft his shilelagh, bounded and
+capered like a wild goat from his native mountains. "Whurrah! my
+boys!" he cried, "Shure we'll all be jintlemen!"
+
+"Pull away, my lads!" said the captain. Then turning to me, "Well,
+Mrs. Moodie, I hope that you have had enough of Grosse Isle. But
+could you have witnessed the scenes that I did this morning--"
+
+Here he was interrupted by the wife of the old Scotch dragoon,
+Mackenzie, running down to the boat and laying her hand familiarly
+upon his shoulder, "Captain, dinna forget."
+
+"Forget what?"
+
+She whispered something confidentially in his ear.
+
+"Oh, ho! the brandy!" he responded aloud. "I should have thought,
+Mrs. Mackenzie, that you had had enough of that same on yon
+island?"
+
+"Aye, sic a place for decent folk," returned the drunken body,
+shaking her head. "One needs a drap o' comfort, captain, to keep up
+one's heart ava."
+
+The captain set up one of his boisterous laughs as he pushed the
+boat from the shore. "Hollo! Sam Frazer! steer in, we have
+forgotten the stores."
+
+"I hope not, captain," said I; "I have been starving since
+daybreak."
+
+"The bread, the butter, the beef, the onions, and potatoes are
+here, sir," said honest Sam, particularizing each article.
+
+"All right; pull for the ship. Mrs. Moodie, we will have a glorious
+supper, and mind you don't dream of Grosse Isle."
+
+In a few minutes we were again on board. Thus ended my first day's
+experience of the land of all our hopes.
+
+
+OH! CAN YOU LEAVE YOUR NATIVE LAND?
+
+A Canadian Song
+
+  Oh! can you leave your native land
+    An exile's bride to be;
+  Your mother's home, and cheerful hearth,
+    To tempt the main with me;
+  Across the wide and stormy sea
+    To trace our foaming track,
+  And know the wave that heaves us on
+    Will never bear us back?
+
+  And can you in Canadian woods
+    With me the harvest bind,
+  Nor feel one lingering, sad regret
+    For all you leave behind?
+  Can those dear hands, unused to toil,
+    The woodman's wants supply,
+  Nor shrink beneath the chilly blast
+    When wintry storms are nigh?
+
+  Amid the shades of forests dark,
+    Our loved isle will appear
+  An Eden, whose delicious bloom
+    Will make the wild more drear.
+  And you in solitude will weep
+    O'er scenes beloved in vain,
+  And pine away your life to view
+    Once more your native plain.
+
+  Then pause, dear girl! ere those fond lips
+    Your wanderer's fate decide;
+  My spirit spurns the selfish wish--
+    You must not be my bride.
+  But oh, that smile--those tearful eyes,
+    My firmer purpose move--
+  Our hearts are one, and we will dare
+    All perils thus to love!
+
+[This song has been set to a beautiful plaintive air,
+by my husband.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+QUEBEC
+
+
+
+  Queen of the West!--upon thy rocky throne,
+    In solitary grandeur sternly placed;
+  In awful majesty thou sitt'st alone,
+    By Nature's master-hand supremely graced.
+  The world has not thy counterpart--thy dower,
+  Eternal beauty, strength, and matchless power.
+
+  The clouds enfold thee in their misty vest,
+    The lightning glances harmless round thy brow;
+  The loud-voiced thunder cannot shake thy nest,
+    Or warring waves that idly chafe below;
+  The storm above, the waters at thy feet--
+  May rage and foam, they but secure thy seat.
+
+  The mighty river, as it onward rushes
+    To pour its floods in ocean's dread abyss,
+  Checks at thy feet its fierce impetuous gushes,
+    And gently fawns thy rocky base to kiss.
+  Stern eagle of the crag! thy hold should be
+  The mountain home of heaven-born liberty!
+
+  True to themselves, thy children may defy
+    The power and malice of a world combined;
+  While Britain's flag, beneath thy deep blue sky,
+    Spreads its rich folds and wantons in the wind;
+  The offspring of her glorious race of old
+  May rest securely in their mountain hold.
+
+
+On the 2nd of September, the anchor was weighed, and we bade a long
+farewell to Grosse Isle. As our vessel struck into mid-channel, I
+cast a last lingering look at the beautiful shores we were leaving.
+Cradled in the arms of the St. Lawrence, and basking in the bright
+rays of the morning sun, the island and its sister group looked
+like a second Eden just emerged from the waters of chaos. With what
+joy could I have spent the rest of the fall in exploring the
+romantic features of that enchanting scene! But our bark spread her
+white wings to the favouring breeze, and the fairy vision gradually
+receded from my sight, to remain for ever on the tablets of memory.
+
+The day was warm, and the cloudless heavens of that peculiar azure
+tint which gives to the Canadian skies and waters a brilliancy
+unknown in more northern latitudes. The air was pure and elastic,
+the sun shone out with uncommon splendour, lighting up the changing
+woods with a rich mellow colouring, composed of a thousand
+brilliant and vivid dyes. The mighty river rolled flashing and
+sparkling onward, impelled by a strong breeze, that tipped its
+short rolling surges with a crest of snowy foam.
+
+Had there been no other object of interest in the landscape than
+this majestic river, its vast magnitude, and the depth and
+clearness of its waters, and its great importance to the colony,
+would have been sufficient to have riveted the attention, and
+claimed the admiration of every thinking mind.
+
+Never shall I forget that short voyage from Grosse Isle to Quebec.
+I love to recall, after the lapse of so many years, every object
+that awoke in my breast emotions of astonishment and delight.
+What wonderful combinations of beauty, and grandeur, and power,
+at every winding of that noble river! How the mind expands with
+the sublimity of the spectacle, and soars upward in gratitude
+and adoration to the Author of all being, to thank Him for having
+made this lower world so wondrously fair--a living temple,
+heaven-arched, and capable of receiving the homage of all
+worshippers.
+
+Every perception of my mind became absorbed into the one sense
+of seeing, when, upon rounding Point Levi, we cast anchor before
+Quebec. What a scene!--Can the world produce such another?
+Edinburgh had been the beau ideal to me of all that was beautiful
+in Nature--a vision of the northern Highlands had haunted my dreams
+across the Atlantic; but all these past recollections faded before
+the _present_ of Quebec.
+
+Nature has lavished all her grandest elements to form this
+astonishing panorama. There frowns the cloud-capped mountain, and
+below, the cataract foams and thunders; wood, and rock, and river
+combine to lend their aid in making the picture perfect, and worthy
+of its Divine Originator.
+
+The precipitous bank upon which the city lies piled, reflected in
+the still deep waters at its base, greatly enhances the romantic
+beauty of the situation. The mellow and serene glow of the autumnal
+day harmonised so perfectly with the solemn grandeur of the scene
+around me, and sank so silently and deeply into my soul, that my
+spirit fell prostrate before it, and I melted involuntarily into
+tears. Yes, regardless of the eager crowds around me, I leant upon
+the side of the vessel and cried like a child--not tears of sorrow,
+but a gush from the heart of pure and unalloyed delight. I heard
+not the many voices murmuring in my ears--I saw not the anxious
+beings that thronged our narrow deck--my soul at that moment was
+alone with God. The shadow of His glory rested visibly on the
+stupendous objects that composed that magnificent scene; words are
+perfectly inadequate to describe the impression it made upon my
+mind--the emotions it produced. The only homage I was capable of
+offering at such a shrine was tears--tears the most heartfelt and
+sincere that ever flowed from human eyes. I never before felt so
+overpoweringly my own insignificance, and the boundless might and
+majesty of the Eternal.
+
+Canadians, rejoice in your beautiful city! Rejoice and be worthy of
+her--for few, very few, of the sons of men can point to such a spot
+as Quebec--and exclaim, "She is ours!--God gave her to us, in her
+beauty and strength!--We will live for her glory--we will die to
+defend her liberty and rights--to raise her majestic brow high
+above the nations!"
+
+Look at the situation of Quebec!--the city founded on the rock that
+proudly holds the height of the hill. The queen sitting enthroned
+above the waters, that curb their swiftness and their strength to
+kiss and fawn around her lovely feet.
+
+Canadians!--as long as you remain true to yourselves and her, what
+foreign invader could ever dare to plant a hostile flag upon that
+rock-defended height, or set his foot upon a fortress rendered
+impregnable by the hand of Nature? United in friendship, loyalty,
+and love, what wonders may you not achieve? to what an enormous
+altitude of wealth and importance may you not arrive? Look at the
+St. Lawrence, that king of streams, that great artery flowing from
+the heart of the world, through the length and breadth of the land,
+carrying wealth and fertility in its course, and transporting from
+town to town along its beautiful shores the riches and produce of
+a thousand distant climes. What elements of future greatness and
+prosperity encircle you on every side! Never yield up these solid
+advantages to become an humble dependent on the great
+republic--wait patiently, loyally, lovingly, upon the illustrious
+parent from whom you sprang, and by whom you have been fostered
+into life and political importance; in the fulness of time she will
+proclaim your childhood past, and bid you stand up in your own
+strength, a free Canadian people!
+
+British mothers of Canadian sons!--learn to feel for their country
+the same enthusiasm which fills your hearts when thinking of the
+glory of your own. Teach them to love Canada--to look upon her as
+the first, the happiest, the most independent country in the world!
+Exhort them to be worthy of her--to have faith in her present
+prosperity, in her future greatness, and to devote all their
+talents, when they themselves are men, to accomplish this noble
+object. Make your children proud of the land of their birth, the
+land which has given them bread--the land in which you have found
+an altar and a home; do this, and you will soon cease to lament
+your separation from the mother country, and the loss of those
+luxuries which you could not, in honor to yourself, enjoy; you will
+soon learn to love Canada as I now love it, who once viewed it with
+a hatred so intense that I longed to die, that death might
+effectually separate us for ever.
+
+But, oh! beware of drawing disparaging contrasts between the colony
+and its illustrious parent. All such comparisons are cruel and
+unjust;--you cannot exalt the one at the expense of the other
+without committing an act of treason against both.
+
+But I have wandered away from my subject into the regions of
+thought, and must again descend to common work-a-day realities.
+
+The pleasure we experienced upon our first glance at Quebec was
+greatly damped by the sad conviction that the cholera-plague raged
+within her walls, while the almost ceaseless tolling of bells
+proclaimed a mournful tale of woe and death. Scarcely a person
+visited the vessel who was not in black, or who spoke not in tones
+of subdued grief. They advised us not to go on shore if we valued
+our lives, as strangers most commonly fell the first victims to
+the fatal malady. This was to me a severe disappointment, who felt
+an intense desire to climb to the crown of the rock, and survey
+the noble landscape at my feet. I yielded at last to the wishes
+of my husband, who did not himself resist the temptation in his
+own person, and endeavored to content myself with the means of
+enjoyment placed within my reach. My eyes were never tired of
+wandering over the scene before me.
+
+It is curious to observe how differently the objects which call
+forth intense admiration in some minds will affect others. The
+Scotch dragoon, Mackenzie, seeing me look long and intently at
+the distant Falls of Montmorency, drily observed,--
+
+"It may be a' vera fine; but it looks na' better to my thinken than
+hanks o' white woo' hung out o're the bushes."
+
+"Weel," cried another, "thae fa's are just bonnie; 'tis a braw
+land, nae doubt; but no' just so braw as auld Scotland."
+
+"Hout man! hauld your clavers, we shall a' be lairds here," said a
+third; "and ye maun wait a muckle time before they wad think aucht
+of you at hame."
+
+I was not a little amused at the extravagant expectations
+entertained by some of our steerage passengers. The sight of the
+Canadian shores had changed them into persons of great consequence.
+The poorest and the worst-dressed, the least-deserving and the most
+repulsive in mind and morals, exhibited most disgusting traits of
+self-importance. Vanity and presumption seemed to possess them
+altogether. They talked loudly of the rank and wealth of their
+connexions at home, and lamented the great sacrifices they had made
+in order to join brothers and cousins who had foolishly settled in
+this beggarly wooden country.
+
+Girls, who were scarcely able to wash a floor decently, talked of
+service with contempt, unless tempted to change their resolution by
+the offer of twelve dollars a month. To endeavour to undeceive them
+was a useless and ungracious task. After having tried it with
+several without success, I left it to time and bitter experience to
+restore them to their sober senses. In spite of the remonstrances
+of the captain, and the dread of the cholera, they all rushed on
+shore to inspect the land of Goshen, and to endeavour to realise
+their absurd anticipations.
+
+We were favoured, a few minutes after our arrival, with another
+visit from the health-officers; but in this instance both the
+gentlemen were Canadians. Grave, melancholy-looking men, who
+talked much and ominously of the prevailing disorder, and the
+impossibility of strangers escaping from its fearful ravages.
+This was not very consoling, and served to depress the cheerful
+tone of mind which, after all, is one of the best antidotes
+against this awful scourge. The cabin seemed to lighten, and
+the air to circulate more freely, after the departure of these
+professional ravens. The captain, as if by instinct, took an
+additional glass of grog, to shake off the sepulchral gloom
+their presence had inspired.
+
+The visit of the doctors was followed by that of two of the
+officials of the Customs--vulgar, illiterate men, who, seating
+themselves at the cabin table, with a familiar nod to the captain,
+and a blank stare at us, commenced the following dialogue:--
+
+Custom-house officer (after making inquiries as to the general
+cargo of the vessel): "Any good brandy on board, captain?"
+
+Captain (gruffly): "Yes."
+
+Officer: "Best remedy for the cholera known. The only one the
+doctors can depend upon."
+
+Captain (taking the hint): "Gentlemen, I'll send you up a dozen
+bottles this afternoon."
+
+Officer: "Oh, thank you. We are sure to get it genuine from you.
+Any Edinburgh ale in your freight?"
+
+Captain (with a slight shrug): "A few hundreds in cases. I'll send
+you a dozen with the brandy."
+
+Both: "Capital!"
+
+First officer: "Any short, large-bowled, Scotch pipes, with metallic
+lids?"
+
+Captain (quite impatiently): "Yes, yes; I'll send you some to smoke,
+with the brandy. What else?"
+
+Officer: "We will now proceed to business."
+
+My readers would have laughed, as I did, could they have seen how
+doggedly the old man shook his fist after these worthies as they
+left the vessel. "Scoundrels!" he muttered to himself; and then
+turning to me, "They rob us in this barefaced manner, and we dare
+not resist or complain, for fear of the trouble they can put us to.
+If I had those villains at sea, I'd give them a taste of brandy and
+ale that they would not relish."
+
+The day wore away, and the lengthened shadows of the mountains fell
+upon the waters, when the Horsley Hill, a large three-masted vessel
+from Waterford, that we had left at the quarantine station, cast
+anchor a little above us. She was quickly boarded by the
+health-officers, and ordered round to take up her station below the
+castle. To accomplish this object she had to heave her anchor; when
+lo! a great pine-tree, which had been sunk in the river, became
+entangled in the chains. Uproarious was the mirth to which the
+incident gave rise among the crowds that thronged the decks of
+the many vessels then at anchor in the river. Speaking-trumpets
+resounded on every side; and my readers may be assured that the
+sea-serpent was not forgotten in the multitude of jokes which
+followed.
+
+Laughter resounded on all sides; and in the midst of the noise
+and confusion, the captain of the Horsley Hill hoisted his
+colours downwards, as if making signals of distress, a mistake
+which provoked renewed and long-continued mirth.
+
+I laughed until my sides ached; little thinking how the Horsley
+Hill would pay us off for our mistimed hilarity.
+
+Towards night, most of the steerage passengers returned, greatly
+dissatisfied with their first visit to the city, which they
+declared to be a filthy hole, that looked a great deal better from
+the ship's side than it did on shore. This, I have often been told,
+is literally the case. Here, as elsewhere, man has marred the
+magnificent creation of his Maker.
+
+A dark and starless night closed in, accompanied by cold winds and
+drizzling rain. We seemed to have made a sudden leap from the
+torrid to the frigid zone. Two hours before, my light summer
+clothing was almost insupportable, and now a heavy and well-lined
+plaid formed but an inefficient screen from the inclemency of the
+weather. After watching for some time the singular effect produced
+by the lights in the town reflected in the water, and weary with a
+long day of anticipation and excitement, I made up my mind to leave
+the deck and retire to rest. I had just settled down my baby in her
+berth, when the vessel struck, with a sudden crash that sent a
+shiver through her whole frame. Alarmed, but not aware of the real
+danger that hung over us, I groped my way to the cabin, and thence
+ascended to the deck.
+
+Here a scene of confusion prevailed that baffles description. By
+some strange fatality, the Horsley Hill had changed her position,
+and run foul of us in the dark. The Anne was a small brig, and her
+unlucky neighbour a heavy three-masted vessel, with three hundred
+Irish emigrants on board; and as her bowspirit was directly across
+the bows of the Anne, and she anchored, and unable to free herself
+from the deadly embrace, there was no small danger of the poor brig
+going down in the unequal struggle.
+
+Unable to comprehend what was going on, I raised my head above my
+companion ladder, just at the critical moment when the vessels were
+grappled together. The shrieks of the women, the shouts and oaths
+of the men, and the barking of the dogs in either ship, aided the
+dense darkness of the night in producing a most awful and stunning
+effect.
+
+"What is the matter?" I gasped out. "What is the reason of this
+dreadful confusion?"
+
+The captain was raging like a chafed bull, in the grasp of several
+frantic women, who were clinging, shrieking, to his knees.
+
+With great difficulty I persuaded the women to accompany me below.
+The mate hurried off with the cabin light upon the deck, and we
+were left in total darkness to await the result.
+
+A deep, strange silence fell upon my heart. It was not exactly
+fear, but a sort of nerving of my spirit to meet the worst. The
+cowardly behaviour of my companions inspired me with courage.
+I was ashamed of their pusillanimity and want of faith in the
+Divine Providence. I sat down, and calmly begged them to follow
+my example.
+
+An old woman, called Williamson, a sad reprobate, in attempting
+to do so, set her foot within the fender, which the captain had
+converted into a repository for empty glass bottles; the smash
+that ensued was echoed by a shriek from the whole party.
+
+"God guide us," cried the ancient dame; "but we are going into
+eternity. I shall be lost; my sins are more in number than the
+hairs of my head." This confession was followed by oaths and
+imprecations too blasphemous to repeat.
+
+Shocked and disgusted at her profanity, I bade her pray, and not
+waste the few moments that might be hers in using oaths and bad
+language.
+
+"Did you not hear the crash?" said she.
+
+"I did; it was of your own making. Sit down and be quiet."
+
+Here followed another shock, that made the vessel heave and
+tremble; and the dragging of the anchor increased the uneasy
+motion which began to fill the boldest of us with alarm.
+
+"Mrs. Moodie, we are lost," said Margaret Williamson, the youngest
+daughter of the old woman, a pretty girl, who had been the belle
+of the ship, flinging herself on her knees before me, and grasping
+both my hands in hers. "Oh, pray for me! pray for me! I cannot,
+I dare not, pray for myself; I was never taught a prayer." Her
+voice was choked with convulsive sobs, and scalding tears fell in
+torrents from her eyes over my hands. I never witnessed such an
+agony of despair. Before I could say one word to comfort her,
+another shock seemed to lift the vessel upwards. I felt my own
+blood run cold, expecting instantly to go down; and thoughts of
+death, and the unknown eternity at our feet, flitted vaguely
+through my mind.
+
+"If we stay here, we shall perish," cried the girl, springing to
+her feet. "Let us go on deck, mother, and take our chance with the
+rest."
+
+"Stay," I said; "you are safer here. British sailors never leave
+women to perish. You have fathers, husbands, brothers on board, who
+will not forget you. I beseech you to remain patiently here until
+the danger is past." I might as well have preached to the winds.
+The headstrong creatures would no longer be controlled. They rushed
+simultaneously upon deck, just as the Horsley Hill swung off,
+carrying with her part of the outer frame of our deck and the
+larger portion of our stern. When tranquillity was restored,
+fatigued both in mind and body, I sunk into a profound sleep, and
+did not awake until the sun had risen high above the wave-encircled
+fortress of Quebec.
+
+The stormy clouds had all dispersed during the night; the air was
+clear and balmy; the giant hills were robed in a blue, soft mist,
+which rolled around them in fleecy volumes. As the beams of the sun
+penetrated their shadowy folds, they gradually drew up like a
+curtain, and dissolved like wreaths of smoke into the clear air.
+
+The moment I came on deck, my old friend Oscar greeted me with his
+usual joyous bark, and with the sagacity peculiar to his species,
+proceeded to shew me all the damage done to the vessel during the
+night. It was laughable to watch the motions of the poor brute, as
+he ran from place to place, stopping before, or jumping upon, every
+fractured portion of the deck, and barking out his indignation at
+the ruinous condition in which he found his marine home. Oscar had
+made eleven voyages in the Anne, and had twice saved the life of
+the captain. He was an ugly specimen of the Scotch terrier, and
+greatly resembled a bundle of old rope-yarn; but a more faithful or
+attached creature I never saw. The captain was not a little jealous
+of Oscar's friendship for me. I was the only person the dog had
+ever deigned to notice, and his master regarded it as an act of
+treason on the part of his four-footed favourite. When my arms were
+tired with nursing, I had only to lay my baby on my cloak on deck,
+and tell Oscar to watch her, and the good dog would lie down by
+her, and suffer her to tangle his long curls in her little hands,
+and pull his tail and ears in the most approved baby fashion,
+without offering the least opposition; but if any one dared to
+approach his charge, he was alive on the instant, placing his paws
+over the child, and growling furiously. He would have been a bold
+man who had approached the child to do her injury. Oscar was the
+best plaything, and as sure a protector, as Katie had.
+
+During the day, many of our passengers took their departure; tired
+of the close confinement of the ship, and the long voyage, they
+were too impatient to remain on board until we reached Montreal.
+The mechanics obtained instant employment, and the girls who were
+old enough to work, procured situations as servants in the city.
+Before night, our numbers were greatly reduced. The old dragoon and
+his family, two Scotch fiddlers of the name of Duncan, a Highlander
+called Tam Grant, and his wife and little son, and our own party,
+were all that remained of the seventy-two passengers that left the
+Port of Leith in the brig Anne.
+
+In spite of the earnest entreaties of his young wife, the said Tam
+Grant, who was the most mercurial fellow in the world, would insist
+upon going on shore to see all the lions of the place. "Ah, Tam!
+Tam! ye will die o' the cholera," cried the weeping Maggie. "My
+heart will brak if ye dinna bide wi' me an' the bairnie." Tam was
+deaf as Ailsa Craig. Regardless of tears and entreaties, he jumped
+into the boat, like a wilful man as he was, and my husband went
+with him. Fortunately for me, the latter returned safe to the
+vessel, in time to proceed with her to Montreal, in tow of the
+noble steamer, British America; but Tam, the volatile Tam was
+missing. During the reign of the cholera, what at another time
+would have appeared but a trifling incident, was now invested with
+doubt and terror. The distress of the poor wife knew no bounds.
+I think I see her now, as I saw her then, sitting upon the floor
+of the deck, her head buried between her knees, rocking herself to
+and fro, and weeping in the utter abandonment of her grief. "He is
+dead! he is dead! My dear, dear Tam! The pestilence has seized upon
+him; and I and the puir bairn are left alone in the strange land."
+All attempts at consolation were useless; she obstinately refused
+to listen to probabilities, or to be comforted. All through the
+night I heard her deep and bitter sobs, and the oft-repeated name
+of him that she had lost.
+
+The sun was sinking over the plague-stricken city, gilding the
+changing woods and mountain peaks with ruddy light; the river
+mirrored back the gorgeous sky, and moved in billows of liquid
+gold; the very air seemed lighted up with heavenly fires, and
+sparkled with myriads of luminous particles, as I gazed my last
+upon that beautiful scene.
+
+The tow-line was now attached from our ship to the British America,
+and in company with two other vessels, we followed fast in her
+foaming wake. Day lingered on the horizon just long enough to
+enable me to examine, with deep interest, the rocky heights of
+Abraham, the scene of our immortal Wolfe's victory and death;
+and when the twilight faded into night, the moon arose in solemn
+beauty, and cast mysterious gleams upon the strange stern landscape.
+The wide river, flowing rapidly between its rugged banks, rolled in
+inky blackness beneath the overshadowing crags; while the waves in
+mid-channel flashed along in dazzling light, rendered more intense
+by the surrounding darkness. In this luminous track the huge
+steamer glided majestically forward, flinging showers of red
+earth-stars from the funnel into the clear air, and looking like
+some fiery demon of the night enveloped in smoke and flame.
+
+The lofty groves of pine frowned down in hearse-like gloom upon the
+mighty river, and the deep stillness of the night, broken alone by
+its hoarse wailings, filled my mind with sad forebodings--alas! too
+prophetic of the future. Keenly, for the first time, I felt that I
+was a stranger in a strange land; my heart yearned intensely for my
+absent home. Home! the word had ceased to belong to my present--it
+was doomed to live for ever in the past; for what emigrant ever
+regarded the country of his exile as his home? To the land he has
+left, that name belongs for ever, and in no instance does he bestow
+it upon another. "I have got a letter from home!" "I have seen a
+friend from home!" "I dreamt last night that I was at home!" are
+expressions of everyday occurrence, to prove that the heart
+acknowledges no other home than the land of its birth.
+
+From these sad reveries I was roused by the hoarse notes of the
+bagpipe. That well-known sound brought every Scotchman upon deck,
+and set every limb in motion on the decks of the other vessels.
+Determined not to be outdone, our fiddlers took up the strain,
+and a lively contest ensued between the rival musicians, which
+continued during the greater part of the night. The shouts of noisy
+revelry were in no way congenial to my feelings. Nothing tends so
+much to increase our melancholy as merry music when the heart is
+sad; and I left the scene with eyes brimful of tears, and my mind
+painfully agitated by sorrowful recollections and vain regrets.
+
+
+  The strains we hear in foreign lands,
+    No echo from the heart can claim;
+  The chords are swept by strangers' hands,
+    And kindle in the breast no flame,
+             Sweet though they be.
+  No fond remembrance wakes to fling
+    Its hallowed influence o'er the chords;
+  As if a spirit touch'd the string,
+    Breathing, in soft harmonious words,
+             Deep melody.
+
+  The music of our native shore
+    A thousand lovely scenes endears;
+  In magic tones it murmurs o'er
+    The visions of our early years;--
+             The hopes of youth;
+  It wreathes again the flowers we wreathed
+    In childhood's bright, unclouded day;
+  It breathes again the vows we breathed,
+    At beauty's shrine, when hearts were gay
+             And whisper'd truth;
+
+  It calls before our mental sight
+    Dear forms whose tuneful lips are mute,
+  Bright, sunny eyes long closed in night,
+    Warm hearts now silent as the lute
+             That charm'd our ears;
+  It thrills the breast with feelings deep,
+    Too deep for language to impart;
+  And bids the spirit joy and weep,
+    In tones that sink into the heart,
+             And melt in tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+OUR JOURNEY UP THE COUNTRY
+
+
+
+  Fly this plague-stricken spot! The hot, foul air
+  Is rank with pestilence--the crowded marts
+  And public ways, once populous with life,
+  Are still and noisome as a churchyard vault;
+  Aghast and shuddering, Nature holds her breath
+  In abject fear, and feels at her strong heart
+  The deadly pangs of death.
+
+
+Of Montreal I can say but little. The cholera was at its height,
+and the fear of infection, which increased the nearer we approached
+its shores, cast a gloom over the scene, and prevented us from
+exploring its infected streets. That the feelings of all on board
+very nearly resembled our own might be read in the anxious faces of
+both passengers and crew. Our captain, who had never before hinted
+that he entertained any apprehensions on the subject, now confided
+to us his conviction that he should never quit the city alive:
+"This cursed cholera! Left it in Russia--found it on my return to
+Leith--meets me again in Canada. No escape the third time." If the
+captain's prediction proved true in his case, it was not so in
+ours. We left the cholera in England, we met it again in Scotland,
+and, under the providence of God, we escaped its fatal visitation
+in Canada.
+
+Yet the fear and the dread of it on that first day caused me to
+throw many an anxious glance on my husband and my child. I had been
+very ill during the three weeks that our vessel was becalmed upon
+the Banks of Newfoundland, and to this circumstance I attribute my
+deliverance from the pestilence. I was weak and nervous when the
+vessel arrived at Quebec, but the voyage up the St. Lawrence, the
+fresh air and beautiful scenery were rapidly restoring me to health.
+
+Montreal from the river wears a pleasing aspect, but it lacks the
+grandeur, the stern sublimity of Quebec. The fine mountain that
+forms the background to the city, the Island of St. Helens in
+front, and the junction of the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa--which
+run side by side, their respective boundaries only marked by a
+long ripple of white foam, and the darker blue tint of the former
+river--constitute the most remarkable features in the landscape.
+
+The town itself was, at that period, dirty and ill-paved; and the
+opening of all the sewers, in order to purify the place and stop
+the ravages of the pestilence, rendered the public thoroughfares
+almost impassable, and loaded the air with intolerable effluvia,
+more likely to produce than stay the course of the plague, the
+violence of which had, in all probability, been increased by these
+long-neglected receptacles of uncleanliness.
+
+The dismal stories told us by the excise-officer who came to
+inspect the unloading of the vessel, of the frightful ravages of
+the cholera, by no means increased our desire to go on shore.
+
+"It will be a miracle if you escape," he said. "Hundreds of
+emigrants die daily; and if Stephen Ayres had not providentally
+come among us, not a soul would have been alive at this moment in
+Montreal."
+
+"And who is Stephen Ayres?" said I.
+
+"God only knows," was the grave reply. "There was a man sent from
+heaven, and his name was John."
+
+"But I thought this man was called Stephen?"
+
+"Ay, so he calls himself; but 'tis certain that he is not of the
+earth. Flesh and blood could never do what he has done--the hand of
+God is in it. Besides, no one knows who he is, or whence he comes.
+When the cholera was at the worst, and the hearts of all men stood
+still with fear, and our doctors could do nothing to stop its
+progress, this man, or angel, or saint, suddenly made his appearance
+in our streets. He came in great humility, seated in an ox-cart,
+and drawn by two lean oxen and a rope harness. Only think of that!
+Such a man in an OLD OX-CART, drawn by ROPE HARNESS! The thing
+itself was a miracle. He made no parade about what he could do, but
+only fixed up a plain pasteboard notice, informing the public that
+he possessed an infallible remedy for the cholera, and would engage
+to cure all who sent for him."
+
+"And was he successful?"
+
+"Successful! It beats all belief; and his remedy so simple! For
+some days we all took him for a quack, and would have no faith in
+him at all, although he performed some wonderful cures upon poor
+folks, who could not afford to send for the doctor. The Indian
+village was attacked by the disease, and he went out to them, and
+restored upward of a hundred of the Indians to perfect health.
+They took the old lean oxen out of the cart, and drew him back to
+Montreal in triumph. This 'stablished him at once, and in a few
+days' time he made a fortune. The very doctors sent for him to cure
+them; and it is to be hoped that in a few days he will banish the
+cholera from the city."
+
+"Do you know his famous remedy?"
+
+"Do I not?--Did he not cure me when I was at the last gasp? Why, he
+makes no secret of it. It is all drawn from the maple-tree. First
+he rubs the patient all over with an ointment, made of hog's lard
+and maple-sugar and ashes, from the maple-tree; and he gives him a
+hot draught of maple-sugar and ley, which throws him into a violent
+perspiration. In about an hour the cramps subside; he falls into a
+quiet sleep, and when he awakes he is perfectly restored to health."
+Such were our first tidings of Stephen Ayres, the cholera doctor,
+who is universally believed to have effected some wonderful cures.
+He obtained a wide celebrity throughout the colony.[1]
+
+[1] A friend of mine, in this town, has an original portrait of
+this notable empiric--this man sent from heaven. The face is rather
+handsome, but has a keen, designing expression, and is evidently
+that of an American, from its complexion and features.
+
+
+The day of our arrival in the port of Montreal was spent in packing
+and preparing for our long journey up the country. At sunset, I
+went upon deck to enjoy the refreshing breeze that swept from the
+river. The evening was delightful; the white tents of the soldiers
+on the Island of St. Helens glittered in the beams of the sun, and
+the bugle-call, wafted over the waters, sounded so cheery and
+inspiring, that it banished all fears of the cholera, and, with
+fear, the heavy gloom that had clouded my mind since we left
+Quebec. I could once more hold sweet converse with nature, and
+enjoy the soft loveliness of the rich and harmonious scene.
+
+A loud cry from one of the crew startled me; I turned to the river,
+and beheld a man struggling in the water a short distance from our
+vessel. He was a young sailor, who had fallen from the bowsprit of
+a ship near us.
+
+There is something terribly exciting in beholding a fellow-creature
+in imminent peril, without having the power to help him. To witness
+his death-struggles--to feel in your own person all the dreadful
+alternations of hope and fear--and, finally, to see him die, with
+scarcely an effort made for his preservation. This was our case.
+
+At the moment he fell into the water, a boat with three men was
+within a few yards of the spot, and actually sailed over the spot
+where he sank. Cries of "Shame!" from the crowd collected upon the
+bank of the river, had no effect in rousing these people to attempt
+the rescue of a perishing fellow-creature. The boat passed on. The
+drowning man again rose to the surface, the convulsive motion of
+his hands and feet visible above the water, but it was evident that
+the struggle would be his last.
+
+"Is it possible that they will let a human being perish, and so
+near the shore, when an oar held out would save his life?" was the
+agonising question at my heart, as I gazed, half-maddened by
+excitement, on the fearful spectacle. The eyes of a multitude were
+fixed upon the same object--but not a hand stirred. Every one
+seemed to expect from his fellow an effort which he was incapable
+of attempting himself.
+
+At this moment--splash! a sailor plunged into the water from the
+deck of a neighbouring vessel, and dived after the drowning man.
+A deep "Thank God!" burst from my heart. I drew a freer breath as
+the brave fellow's head appeared above the water. He called to the
+man in the boat to throw him an oar, or the drowning man would be
+the death of them both. Slowly they put back the boat--the oar was
+handed; but it came too late! The sailor, whose name was Cook, had
+been obliged to shake off the hold of the dying man to save his own
+life. He dived again to the bottom, and succeeded in bringing to
+shore the body of the unfortunate being he had vainly endeavoured
+to succour. Shortly after, he came on board our vessel, foaming
+with passion at the barbarous indifference manifested by the men
+in the boat.
+
+"Had they given me the oar in time, I could have saved him. I knew
+him well--he was an excellent fellow, and a good seaman. He has
+left a wife and three children in Liverpool. Poor Jane!--how can I
+tell her that I could not save her husband?"
+
+He wept bitterly, and it was impossible for any of us to witness
+his emotion without joining in his grief.
+
+From the mate I learned that this same young man had saved the lives
+of three women and a child when the boat was swamped at Grosse
+Isle, in attempting to land the passengers from the Horsley Hill.
+
+Such acts of heroism are common in the lower walks of life. Thus,
+the purest gems are often encased in the rudest crust; and the
+finest feelings of the human heart are fostered in the chilling
+atmosphere of poverty.
+
+While this sad event occupied all our thoughts, and gave rise to
+many painful reflections, an exclamation of unqualified delight at
+once changed the current of our thoughts, and filled us with
+surprise and pleasure. Maggie Grant had fainted in the arms of her
+husband.
+
+Yes, there was Tam--her dear, reckless Tam, after all her tears and
+lamentations, pressing his young wife to his heart, and calling her
+by a thousand endearing pet names.
+
+He had met with some countrymen at Quebec, had taken too much
+whiskey on the joyful occasion, and lost his passage in the Anne,
+but had followed, a few hours later, in another steam-boat; and he
+assured the now happy Maggie, as he kissed the infant Tam, whom she
+held up to his admiring gaze, that he never would be guilty of the
+like again. Perhaps he kept his word; but I much fear that the
+first temptation would make the lively laddie forget his promise.
+
+Our luggage having been removed to the Custom-house, including
+our bedding, the captain collected all the ship's flags for our
+accommodation, of which we formed a tolerably comfortable bed;
+and if our dreams were of England, could it be otherwise, with
+her glorious flag wrapped around us, and our heads resting upon
+the Union Jack?
+
+In the morning we were obliged to visit the city to make the
+necessary arrangements for our upward journey.
+
+The day was intensely hot. A bank of thunderclouds lowered heavily
+above the mountain, and the close, dusty streets were silent, and
+nearly deserted. Here and there might be seen a group of
+anxious-looking, care-worn, sickly emigrants, seated against a
+wall among their packages, and sadly ruminating upon their future
+prospects.
+
+The sullen toll of the death-bell, the exposure of ready-made
+coffins in the undertakers' windows, and the oft-recurring notice
+placarded on the walls, of funerals furnished at such and such a
+place, at cheapest rate and shortest notice, painfully reminded us,
+at every turning of the street, that death was everywhere--perhaps
+lurking in our very path; we felt no desire to examine the beauties
+of the place. With this ominous feeling pervading our minds, public
+buildings possessed few attractions, and we determined to make our
+stay as short as possible.
+
+Compared with the infected city, our ship appeared an ark of
+safety, and we returned to it with joy and confidence, too soon to
+be destroyed. We had scarcely re-entered our cabin, when tidings
+were brought to us that the cholera had made its appearance: a
+brother of the captain had been attacked.
+
+It was advisable that we should leave the vessel immediately,
+before the intelligence could reach the health-officers. A few
+minutes sufficed to make the necessary preparations; and in less
+than half an hour we found ourselves occupying comfortable
+apartments in Goodenough's hotel, and our passage taken in the
+stage for the following morning.
+
+The transition was like a dream. The change from the close, rank
+ship, to large, airy, well-furnished rooms and clean attendants,
+was a luxury we should have enjoyed had not the dread of cholera
+involved all things around us in gloom and apprehension. No one
+spoke upon the subject; and yet it was evident that it was
+uppermost in the thoughts of all. Several emigrants had died of
+the terrible disorder during the week, beneath the very roof that
+sheltered us, and its ravages, we were told, had extended up the
+country as far as Kingston; so that it was still to be the phantom
+of our coming journey, if we were fortunate enough to escape from
+its head-quarters.
+
+At six o'clock the following morning, we took our places in the
+coach for Lachine, and our fears of the plague greatly diminished
+as we left the spires of Montreal in the distance. The journey from
+Montreal westward has been so well described by many gifted pens,
+that I shall say little about it. The banks of the St. Lawrence are
+picturesque and beautiful, particularly in those spots where there
+is a good view of the American side. The neat farm-houses looked
+to me, whose eyes had been so long accustomed to the watery waste,
+homes of beauty and happiness; and the splendid orchards, the trees
+at that season of the year being loaded with ripening fruit of all
+hues, were refreshing and delicious.
+
+My partiality for the apples was regarded by a fellow-traveller
+with a species of horror. "Touch them not, if you value your life."
+Every draught of fresh air and water inspired me with renewed
+health and spirits, and I disregarded the well-meant advice; the
+gentlemen who gave it had just recovered from the terrible disease.
+He was a middle-aged man, a farmer from the Upper Province,
+Canadian born. He had visited Montreal on business for the first
+time. "Well, sir," he said, in answer to some questions put to him
+by my husband respecting the disease, "I can tell you what it is:
+a man smitten with the cholera stares death right in the face; and
+the torment he is suffering is so great that he would gladly die to
+get rid of it."
+
+"You were fortunate, C---, to escape," said a backwood settler, who
+occupied the opposite seat; "many a younger man has died of it."
+
+"Ay; but I believe I never should have taken it had it not been for
+some things they gave me for supper at the hotel; oysters, they
+called them, oysters; they were alive! I was once persuaded by a
+friend to eat them, and I liked them well enough at the time. But I
+declare to you that I felt them crawling over one another in my
+stomach all night. The next morning I was seized with the cholera."
+
+"Did you swallow them whole, C---?" said the former spokesman,
+who seemed highly tickled by the evil doings of the oysters.
+
+"To be sure. I tell you, the creatures are alive. You put them on
+your tongue, and I'll be bound you'll be glad to let them slip down
+as fast as you can."
+
+"No wonder you had the cholera," said the backwoodsman, "you
+deserved it for your barbarity. If I had a good plate of oysters
+here, I'd teach you the way to eat them."
+
+Our journey during the first day was performed partly by coach,
+partly by steam. It was nine o'clock in the evening when we landed
+at Cornwall, and took coach for Prescott. The country through which
+we passed appeared beautiful in the clear light of the moon; but
+the air was cold, and slightly sharpened by frost. This seemed
+strange to me in the early part of September, but it is very common
+in Canada. Nine passengers were closely packed into our narrow
+vehicle, but the sides being of canvas, and the open space allowed
+for windows unglazed, I shivered with cold, which amounted to a
+state of suffering, when the day broke, and we approached the
+little village of Matilda. It was unanimously voted by all hands
+that we should stop and breakfast at a small inn by the road-side,
+and warm ourselves before proceeding to Prescott.
+
+The people in the tavern were not stirring, and it was some time
+before an old white-headed man unclosed the door, and showed us
+into a room, redolent with fumes of tobacco, and darkened by paper
+blinds. I asked him if he would allow me to take my infant into a
+room with a fire.
+
+"I guess it was a pretty considerable cold night for the like of
+her," said he. "Come, I'll show you to the kitchen; there's always
+a fire there." I cheerfully followed, accompanied by our servant.
+
+Our entrance was unexpected, and by no means agreeable to the
+persons we found there. A half-clothed, red-haired Irish servant
+was upon her knees, kindling up the fire; and a long, thin woman,
+with a sharp face, and an eye like a black snake, was just emerging
+from a bed in the corner. We soon discovered this apparition to be
+the mistress of the house.
+
+"The people can't come in here!" she screamed in a shrill voice,
+darting daggers at the poor old man.
+
+"Sure there's a baby, and the two women critters are perished with
+cold," pleaded the good old man.
+
+"What's that to me? They have no business in my kitchen."
+
+"Now, Almira, do hold on. It's the coach has stopped to breakfast
+with us; and you know we don't often get the chance."
+
+All this time the fair Almira was dressing as fast as she could,
+and eyeing her unwelcome female guests, as we stood shivering over
+the fire.
+
+"Breakfast!" she muttered, "what can we give them to eat? They pass
+our door a thousand times without any one alighting; and now, when
+we are out of everything, they must stop and order breakfast at
+such an unreasonable hour. How many are there of you?" turning
+fiercely to me.
+
+"Nine," I answered, laconically, continuing to chafe the cold hands
+and feet of the child.
+
+"Nine! That bit of beef will be nothing, cut into steaks for nine.
+What's to be done, Joe?" (to the old man.)
+
+"Eggs and ham, summat of that dried venison, and pumpkin pie,"
+responded the aide-de-camp, thoughtfully. "I don't know of any
+other fixings."
+
+"Bestir yourself, then, and lay out the table, for the coach can't
+stay long," cried the virago, seizing a frying-pan from the wall,
+and preparing it for the reception of eggs and ham. "I must have
+the fire to myself. People can't come crowding here, when I have
+to fix breakfast for nine; particularly when there is a good room
+elsewhere provided for their accommodation." I took the hint, and
+retreated to the parlour, where I found the rest of the passengers
+walking to and fro, and impatiently awaiting the advent of
+breakfast.
+
+To do Almira justice, she prepared from her scanty materials a very
+substantial breakfast in an incredibly short time, for which she
+charged us a quarter of a dollar per head.
+
+At Prescott we embarked on board a fine new steam-boat, William
+IV., crowded with Irish emigrants, proceeding to Cobourg and
+Toronto.
+
+While pacing the deck, my husband was greatly struck by the
+appearance of a middle-aged man and his wife, who sat apart from
+the rest, and seemed struggling with intense grief, which, in spite
+of all their efforts at concealment, was strongly impressed upon
+their features. Some time after, I fell into conversation with the
+woman, from whom I learned their little history. The husband was
+factor to a Scotch gentleman, of large landed property, who had
+employed him to visit Canada, and report the capabilities of the
+country, prior to his investing a large sum of money in wild lands.
+The expenses of their voyage had been paid, and everything up to
+that morning had prospered them. They had been blessed with a
+speedy passage, and were greatly pleased with the country and the
+people; but of what avail was all this? Their only son, a fine lad
+of fourteen, had died that day of the cholera, and all their hopes
+for the future were buried in his grave. For his sake they had
+sought a home in this far land; and here, at the very onset of
+their new career, the fell disease had taken him from them for
+ever--here, where, in such a crowd, the poor heart-broken mother
+could not even indulge her natural grief!
+
+"Ah, for a place where I might greet!" she said; "it would relieve
+the burning weight at my heart. But with sae many strange eyes
+glowering upon me, I tak' shame to mysel' to greet."
+
+"Ah, Jeannie, my puir woman," said the husband, grasping her hand,
+"ye maun bear up; 'tis God's will; an sinfu' creatures like us
+mauna repine. But oh, madam," turning to me, "we have sair hearts
+the day!"
+
+Poor bereaved creatures, how deeply I commiserated their grief--how
+I respected the poor father, in the stern efforts he made to
+conceal from indifferent spectators the anguish that weighed upon
+his mind! Tears are the best balm that can be applied to the
+anguish of the heart. Religion teaches man to bear his sorrows with
+becoming fortitude, but tears contribute largely both to soften and
+to heal the wounds from whence they flow.
+
+At Brockville we took in a party of ladies, which somewhat relieved
+the monotony of the cabin, and I was amused by listening to their
+lively prattle, and the little gossip with which they strove to
+wile away the tedium of the voyage. The day was too stormy to go
+upon deck--thunder and lightening, accompanied with torrents of
+rain. Amid the confusion of the elements, I tried to get a peep at
+the Lake of the Thousand Isles; but the driving storm blended all
+objects into one, and I returned wet and disappointed to my berth.
+We passed Kingston at midnight, and lost all our lady passengers
+but two. The gale continued until daybreak, and noise and confusion
+prevailed all night, which were greatly increased by the uproarious
+conduct of a wild Irish emigrant, who thought fit to make his bed
+upon the mat before the cabin door. He sang, he shouted, and
+harangued his countrymen on the political state of the Emerald
+Isle, in a style which was loud if not eloquent. Sleep was
+impossible, whilst his stentorian lungs continued to pour forth
+torrents of unmeaning sound.
+
+Our Dutch stewardess was highly enraged. His conduct, she said,
+"was perfectly ondacent." She opened the door, and bestowing upon
+him several kicks, bade him get away "out of that," or she would
+complain to the captain.
+
+In answer to this remonstrance, he caught her by the foot, and
+pulled her down. Then waving the tattered remains of his straw hat
+in the air, he shouted with an air of triumph, "Git out wid you,
+you ould witch! Shure the ladies, the purty darlints, never sent
+you wid that ugly message to Pat, who loves them so intirely that
+he manes to kape watch over them through the blessed night." Then
+making us a ludicrous bow, he continued, "Ladies, I'm at yer
+sarvice; I only wish I could get a dispensation from the Pope,
+and I'd marry yeas all." The stewardess bolted the door, and the
+mad fellow kept up such a racket that we all wished him at the
+bottom of the Ontario.
+
+The following day was wet and gloomy. The storm had protracted the
+length of our voyage for several hours, and it was midnight when we
+landed at Cobourg.
+
+
+THERE'S REST
+
+(Written at midnight on the river St. Lawrence)
+
+  There's rest when eve, with dewy fingers,
+    Draws the curtains of repose
+  Round the west, where light still lingers,
+    And the day's last glory glows;
+  There's rest in heaven's unclouded blue,
+    When twinkling stars steal one by one,
+  So softly on the gazer's view,
+    As if they sought his glance to shun.
+
+  There's rest when o'er the silent meads
+    The deepening shades of night advance;
+  And sighing through their fringe of reeds,
+    The mighty stream's clear waters glance.
+  There's rest when all above is bright,
+    And gently o'er these summer isles
+  The full moon pours her mellow light,
+    And heaven on earth serenely smiles.
+
+  There's rest when angry storms are o'er,
+    And fear no longer vigil keeps;
+  When winds are heard to rave no more,
+    And ocean's troubled spirit sleeps;
+  There's rest when to the pebbly strand,
+    The lapsing billows slowly glide;
+  And, pillow'd on the golden sand,
+    Breathes soft and low the slumbering tide.
+
+  There's rest, deep rest, at this still hour--
+    A holy calm,--a pause profound;
+  Whose soothing spell and dreamy power
+    Lulls into slumber all around.
+  There's rest for labour's hardy child,
+    For Nature's tribes of earth and air,--
+  Whose sacred balm and influence mild,
+    Save guilt and sorrow, all may share.
+
+  There's rest beneath the quiet sod,
+    When life and all its sorrows cease,
+  And in the bosom of his God
+    The Christian finds eternal peace,--
+  That peace the world cannot bestow,
+    The rest a Saviour's death-pangs bought,
+  To bid the weary pilgrim know
+    A rest surpassing human thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+TOM WILSON'S EMIGRATION
+
+
+
+  "Of all odd fellows, this fellow was the oddest. I have seen
+  many strange fish in my days, but I never met with his equal."
+
+
+About a month previous to our emigration to Canada, my husband said
+to me, "You need not expect me home to dinner to-day; I am going
+with my friend Wilson to Y---, to hear Mr. C--- lecture upon
+emigration to Canada. He has just returned from the North American
+provinces, and his lectures are attended by vast numbers of persons
+who are anxious to obtain information on the subject. I got a note
+from your friend B--- this morning, begging me to come over and
+listen to his palaver; and as Wilson thinks of emigrating in the
+spring, he will be my walking companion."
+
+"Tom Wilson going to Canada!" said I, as the door closed on my
+better-half. "What a backwoodsman he will make! What a loss to the
+single ladies of S---! What will they do without him at their balls
+and picnics?"
+
+One of my sisters, who was writing at a table near me, was highly
+amused at this unexpected announcement. She fell back in her chair
+and indulged in a long and hearty laugh. I am certain that most of
+my readers would have joined in her laugh had they known the object
+which provoked her mirth. "Poor Tom is such a dreamer," said my
+sister, "it would be an act of charity in Moodie to persuade him
+from undertaking such a wild-goose chase; only that I fancy my good
+brother is possessed with the same mania."
+
+"Nay, God forbid!" said I. "I hope this Mr. ---, with the
+unpronounceable name, will disgust them with his eloquence; for
+B--- writes me word, in his droll way, that he is a coarse, vulgar
+fellow, and lacks the dignity of a bear. Oh! I am certain they will
+return quite sickened with the Canadian project." Thus I laid the
+flattering unction to my soul, little dreaming that I and mine
+should share in the strange adventures of this oddest of all odd
+creatures.
+
+It might be made a subject of curious inquiry to those who delight
+in human absurdities, if ever there were a character drawn in works
+of fiction so extravagantly ridiculous as some which daily
+experience presents to our view. We have encountered people in the
+broad thoroughfares of life more eccentric than ever we read of in
+books; people who, if all their foolish sayings and doings were
+duly recorded, would vie with the drollest creations of Hood, or
+George Colman, and put to shame the flights of Baron Munchausen.
+Not that Tom Wilson was a romancer; oh no! He was the very prose of
+prose, a man in a mist, who seemed afraid of moving about for fear
+of knocking his head against a tree, and finding a halter suspended
+to its branches--a man as helpless and as indolent as a baby.
+
+Mr. Thomas, or Tom Wilson, as he was familiarly called by all his
+friends and acquaintances, was the son of a gentleman, who once
+possessed a large landed property in the neighbourhood; but an
+extravagant and profligate expenditure of the income which he
+derived from a fine estate which had descended from father to son
+through many generations, had greatly reduced the circumstances of
+the elder Wilson. Still, his family held a certain rank and
+standing in their native county, of which his evil courses, bad as
+they were, could not wholly deprive them. The young people--and a
+very large family they made of sons and daughters, twelve in
+number--were objects of interest and commiseration to all who knew
+them, while the worthless father was justly held in contempt and
+detestation. Our hero was the youngest of the six sons; and from
+his childhood he was famous for his nothing-to-doishness. He was
+too indolent to engage heart and soul in the manly sports of his
+comrades; and he never thought it necessary to commence learning
+his lessons until the school had been in an hour. As he grew up
+to man's estate, he might be seen dawdling about in a black
+frock-coat, jean trousers, and white kid gloves, making lazy bows
+to the pretty girls of his acquaintance; or dressed in a green
+shooting-jacket, with a gun across his shoulder, sauntering down
+the wooded lanes, with a brown spaniel dodging at his heels, and
+looking as sleepy and indolent as his master.
+
+The slowness of all Tom's movements was strangely contrasted with
+his slight, and symmetrical figure; that looked as if it only
+awaited the will of the owner to be the most active piece of human
+machinery that ever responded to the impulses of youth and health.
+But then, his face! What pencil could faithfully delineate features
+at once so comical and lugubrious--features that one moment
+expressed the most solemn seriousness, and the next, the most
+grotesque and absurd abandonment to mirth? In him, all extremes
+appeared to meet; the man was a contradiction to himself. Tom was
+a person of few words, and so intensely lazy that it required a
+strong effort of will to enable him to answer the questions of
+inquiring friends; and when at length aroused to exercise his
+colloquial powers, he performed the task in so original a manner
+that it never failed to upset the gravity of the interrogator.
+When he raised his large, prominent, leaden-coloured eyes from the
+ground, and looked the inquirer steadily in the face, the effect
+was irresistible; the laugh would come--do your best to resist it.
+
+Poor Tom took this mistimed merriment in very good part, generally
+answering with a ghastly contortion which he meant for a smile, or,
+if he did trouble himself to find words, with, "Well, that's funny!
+What makes you laugh? At me, I suppose? I don't wonder at it; I
+often laugh at myself."
+
+Tom would have been a treasure to an undertaker. He would have been
+celebrated as a mute; he looked as if he had been born in a shroud,
+and rocked in a coffin. The gravity with which he could answer a
+ridiculous or impertinent question completely disarmed and turned
+the shafts of malice back upon his opponent. If Tom was himself an
+object of ridicule to many, he had a way of quietly ridiculing
+others that bade defiance to all competition. He could quiz with a
+smile, and put down insolence with an incredulous stare. A grave
+wink from those dreamy eyes would destroy the veracity of a
+travelled dandy for ever.
+
+Tom was not without use in his day and generation; queer and
+awkward as he was, he was the soul of truth and honour. You might
+suspect his sanity--a matter always doubtful--but his honesty of
+heart and purpose, never.
+
+When you met Tom in the streets, he was dressed with such neatness
+and care (to be sure it took him half the day to make his toilet),
+that it led many persons to imagine that this very ugly young man
+considered himself an Adonis; and I must confess that I rather
+inclined to this opinion. He always paced the public streets with
+a slow, deliberate tread, and with his eyes fixed intently on the
+ground--like a man who had lost his ideas, and was diligently
+employed in searching for them. I chanced to meet him one day in
+this dreamy mood.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Wilson?" He stared at me for several minutes,
+as if doubtful of my presence or identity.
+
+"What was that you said?"
+
+I repeated the question; and he answered, with one of his
+incredulous smiles--
+
+"Was it to me you spoke? Oh, I am quite well, or I should not be
+walking here. By the way, did you see my dog?"
+
+"How should I know your dog?"
+
+"They say he resembles me. He's a queer dog, too; but I never could
+find out the likeness. Good night!"
+
+This was at noonday; but Tom had a habit of taking light for
+darkness, and darkness for light, in all he did or said. He must
+have had different eyes and ears, and a different way of seeing,
+hearing, and comprehending, than is possessed by the generality of
+his species; and to such a length did he carry this abstraction of
+soul and sense, that he would often leave you abruptly in the
+middle of a sentence; and if you chanced to meet him some weeks
+after, he would resume the conversation with the very word at which
+he had cut short the thread of your discourse.
+
+A lady once told him in jest that her youngest brother, a lad of
+twelve years old, had called his donkey Braham, in honour of the
+great singer of that name. Tom made no answer, but started abruptly
+away. Three months after, she happened to encounter him on the same
+spot, when he accosted her, without any previous salutation,
+
+"You were telling me about a donkey, Miss ---, a donkey of your
+brother's--Braham, I think you called him--yes, Braham; a strange
+name for an ass! I wonder what the great Mr. Braham would say to
+that. Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+"Your memory must be excellent, Mr. Wilson, to enable you to
+remember such a trifling circumstance all this time."
+
+"Trifling, do you call it? Why, I have thought of nothing else ever
+since."
+
+From traits such as these my readers will be tempted to imagine him
+brother to the animal who had dwelt so long in his thoughts; but
+there were times when he surmounted this strange absence of mind,
+and could talk and act as sensibly as other folks.
+
+On the death of his father, he emigrated to New South Wales, where
+he contrived to doze away seven years of his valueless existence,
+suffering his convict servants to rob him of everything, and
+finally to burn his dwelling. He returned to his native village,
+dressed as an Italian mendicant, with a monkey perched upon his
+shoulder, and playing airs of his own composition upon a
+hurdy-gurdy. In this disguise he sought the dwelling of an old
+bachelor uncle, and solicited his charity. But who that had once
+seen our friend Tom could ever forget him? Nature had no counterpart
+of one who in mind and form was alike original. The good-natured
+old soldier, at a glance, discovered his hopeful nephew, received
+him into his house with kindness, and had afforded him an asylum
+ever since.
+
+One little anecdote of him at this period will illustrate the quiet
+love of mischief with which he was imbued. Travelling from W--- to
+London in the stage-coach (railways were not invented in those
+days), he entered into conversation with an intelligent farmer who
+sat next to him; New South Wales, and his residence in that colony,
+forming the leading topic. A dissenting minister who happened to
+be his vis-a-vis, and who had annoyed him by making several
+impertinent remarks, suddenly asked him, with a sneer, how many
+years he had been there.
+
+"Seven," returned Tom, in a solemn tone, without deigning a glance
+at his companion.
+
+"I thought so," responded the other, thrusting his hands into his
+breeches pockets. "And pray, sir, what were you sent there for?"
+
+"Stealing pigs," returned the incorrigible Tom, with the gravity
+of a judge. The words were scarcely pronounced when the questioner
+called the coachman to stop, preferring a ride outside in the rain
+to a seat within with a thief. Tom greatly enjoyed the hoax, which
+he used to tell with the merriest of all grave faces.
+
+Besides being a devoted admirer of the fair sex, and always
+imagining himself in love with some unattainable beauty, he had a
+passionate craze for music, and played upon the violin and flute
+with considerable taste and execution. The sound of a favourite
+melody operated upon the breathing automaton like magic, his frozen
+faculties experienced a sudden thaw, and the stream of life leaped
+and gambolled for a while with uncontrollable vivacity. He laughed,
+danced, sang, and made love in a breath, committing a thousand mad
+vagaries to make you acquainted with his existence.
+
+My husband had a remarkably sweet-toned flute, and this flute Tom
+regarded with a species of idolatry.
+
+"I break the Tenth Commandment, Moodie, whenever I hear you play
+upon that flute. Take care of your black wife," (a name he had
+bestowed upon the coveted treasure), "or I shall certainly run off
+with her."
+
+"I am half afraid of you, Tom. I am sure if I were to die, and
+leave you my black wife as a legacy, you would be too much
+overjoyed to lament my death."
+
+Such was the strange, helpless, whimsical being who now
+contemplated an emigration to Canada. How he succeeded in the
+speculation the sequel will show.
+
+It was late in the evening before my husband and his friend Tom
+Wilson returned from Y---. I had provided a hot supper and a cup of
+coffee after their long walk, and they did ample justice to my
+care.
+
+Tom was in unusually high spirits, and appeared wholly bent upon
+his Canadian expedition.
+
+"Mr. C--- must have been very eloquent, Mr. Wilson," said I,
+"to engage your attention for so many hours."
+
+"Perhaps he was," returned Tom, after a pause of some minutes,
+during which he seemed to be groping for words in the salt-cellar,
+having deliberately turned out its contents upon the tablecloth.
+"We were hungry after our long walk, and he gave us an excellent
+dinner."
+
+"But that had nothing to do with the substance of his lecture."
+
+"It was the substance, after all," said Moodie, laughing; "and his
+audience seemed to think so, by the attention they paid to it
+during the discussion. But, come, Wilson, give my wife some account
+of the intellectual part of the entertainment."
+
+"What! I--I--I--I give an account of the lecture? Why, my dear
+fellow, I never listened to one word of it!"
+
+"I thought you went to Y--- on purpose to obtain information on the
+subject of emigration to Canada?"
+
+"Well, and so I did; but when the fellow pulled out his pamphlet,
+and said that it contained the substance of his lecture, and would
+only cost a shilling, I thought that it was better to secure the
+substance than endeavour to catch the shadow--so I bought the book,
+and spared myself the pain of listening to the oratory of the
+writer. Mrs. Moodie! he had a shocking delivery, a drawling, vulgar
+voice; and he spoke with such a nasal twang that I could not bear
+to look at him, or listen to him. He made such grammatical
+blunders, that my sides ached with laughing at him. Oh, I wish you
+could have seen the wretch! But here is the document, written in
+the same style in which it was spoken. Read it; you have a rich
+treat in store."
+
+I took the pamphlet, not a little amused at his description of Mr.
+C---, for whom I felt an uncharitable dislike.
+
+"And how did you contrive to entertain yourself, Mr. Wilson, during
+his long address?"
+
+"By thinking how many fools were collected together, to listen to
+one greater than the rest. By the way, Moodie, did you notice
+farmer Flitch?"
+
+"No; where did he sit?"
+
+"At the foot of the table. You must have seen him, he was too big
+to be overlooked. What a delightful squint he had! What a ridiculous
+likeness there was between him and the roast pig he was carving!
+I was wondering all dinner-time how that man contrived to cut up
+that pig; for one eye was fixed upon the ceiling, and the other
+leering very affectionately at me. It was very droll; was it not?"
+
+"And what do you intend doing with yourself when you arrive in
+Canada?" said I.
+
+"Find out some large hollow tree, and live like Bruin in winter by
+sucking my paws. In the summer there will be plenty of mast and
+acorns to satisfy the wants of an abstemious fellow."
+
+"But, joking apart, my dear fellow," said my husband, anxious to
+induce him to abandon a scheme so hopeless, "do you think that you
+are at all qualified for a life of toil and hardship?"
+
+"Are you?" returned Tom, raising his large, bushy, black eyebrows
+to the top of his forehead, and fixing his leaden eyes steadfastly
+upon his interrogator, with an air of such absurd gravity that we
+burst into a hearty laugh.
+
+"Now what do you laugh for? I am sure I asked you a very serious
+question."
+
+"But your method of putting it is so unusual that you must excuse
+us for laughing."
+
+"I don't want you to weep," said Tom; "but as to our
+qualifications, Moodie, I think them pretty equal. I know you think
+otherwise, but I will explain. Let me see; what was I going to
+say?--ah, I have it! You go with the intention of clearing land,
+and working for yourself, and doing a great deal. I have tried
+that before in New South Wales, and I know that it won't answer.
+Gentlemen can't work like labourers, and if they could, they
+won't--it is not in them, and that you will find out. You expect,
+by going to Canada, to make your fortune, or at least secure a
+comfortable independence. I anticipate no such results; yet I mean
+to go, partly out of a whim, partly to satisfy my curiosity whether
+it is a better country than New South Wales; and lastly, in the
+hope of bettering my condition in a small way, which at present is
+so bad that it can scarcely be worse. I mean to purchase a farm
+with the three hundred pounds I received last week from the sale
+of my father's property; and if the Canadian soil yields only half
+what Mr. C--- says it does, I need not starve. But the refined
+habits in which you have been brought up, and your unfortunate
+literary propensities--(I say unfortunate, because you will seldom
+meet people in a colony who can or will sympathise with you in
+these pursuits)--they will make you an object of mistrust and envy
+to those who cannot appreciate them, and will be a source of
+constant mortification and disappointment to yourself. Thank God!
+I have no literary propensities; but in spite of the latter
+advantage, in all probability I shall make no exertion at all;
+so that your energy, damped by disgust and disappointment, and my
+laziness, will end in the same thing, and we shall both return
+like bad pennies to our native shores. But, as I have neither
+wife nor child to involve in my failure, I think, without much
+self-flattery, that my prospects are better than yours."
+
+This was the longest speech I ever heard Tom utter; and, evidently
+astonished at himself, he sprang abruptly from the table, overset a
+cup of coffee into my lap, and wishing us GOOD DAY (it was eleven
+o'clock at night), he ran out of the house.
+
+There was more truth in poor Tom's words than at that moment we
+were willing to allow; for youth and hope were on our side in those
+days, and we were most ready to believe the suggestions of the
+latter.
+
+My husband finally determined to emigrate to Canada, and in the
+hurry and bustle of a sudden preparation to depart, Tom and his
+affairs for a while were forgotten.
+
+How dark and heavily did that frightful anticipation weigh upon my
+heart! As the time for our departure drew near, the thought of
+leaving my friends and native land became so intensely painful that
+it haunted me even in sleep. I seldom awoke without finding my
+pillow wet with tears. The glory of May was upon the earth--of an
+English May. The woods were bursting into leaf, the meadows and
+hedge-rows were flushed with flowers, and every grove and copsewood
+echoed to the warblings of birds and the humming of bees. To leave
+England at all was dreadful--to leave her at such a season was
+doubly so. I went to take a last look at the old Hall, the beloved
+home of my childhood and youth; to wander once more beneath the
+shade of its venerable oaks--to rest once more upon the velvet
+sward that carpeted their roots. It was while reposing beneath
+those noble trees that I had first indulged in those delicious
+dreams which are a foretaste of the enjoyments of the spirit-land.
+In them the soul breathes forth its aspirations in a language
+unknown to common minds; and that language is Poetry. Here
+annually, from year to year, I had renewed my friendship with the
+first primroses and violets, and listened with the untiring ear of
+love to the spring roundelay of the blackbird, whistled from among
+his bower of May blossoms. Here, I had discoursed sweet words to
+the tinkling brook, and learned from the melody of waters the music
+of natural sounds. In these beloved solitudes all the holy emotions
+which stir the human heart in its depths had been freely poured
+forth, and found a response in the harmonious voice of Nature,
+bearing aloft the choral song of earth to the throne of the Creator.
+
+How hard it was to tear myself from scenes endeared to me by the
+most beautiful and sorrowful recollections, let those who have
+loved and suffered as I did, say. However the world had frowned
+upon me, Nature, arrayed in her green loveliness, had ever smiled
+upon me like an indulgent mother, holding out her loving arms to
+enfold to her bosom her erring but devoted child.
+
+Dear, dear England! why was I forced by a stern necessity to leave
+you? What heinous crime had I committed, that I, who adored you,
+should be torn from your sacred bosom, to pine out my joyless
+existence in a foreign clime? Oh, that I might be permitted to
+return and die upon your wave-encircled shores, and rest my weary
+head and heart beneath your daisy-covered sod at last! Ah, these
+are vain outbursts of feeling--melancholy relapses of the spring
+home-sickness! Canada! thou art a noble, free, and rising
+country--the great fostering mother of the orphans of civilisation.
+The offspring of Britain, thou must be great, and I will and do
+love thee, land of my adoption, and of my children's birth; and,
+oh, dearer still to a mother's heart-land of their graves!
+
+
+                          * * * * * *
+
+
+Whilst talking over our coming separation with my sister C---, we
+observed Tom Wilson walking slowly up the path that led to the
+house. He was dressed in a new shooting-jacket, with his gun lying
+carelessly across his shoulder, and an ugly pointer dog following
+at a little distance.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Moodie, I am off," said Tom, shaking hands with my
+sister instead of me. "I suppose I shall see Moodie in London. What
+do you think of my dog?" patting him affectionately.
+
+"I think him an ugly beast," said C---. "Do you mean to take him
+with you?"
+
+"An ugly beast!--Duchess a beast? Why she is a perfect
+beauty!--Beauty and the beast! Ha, ha, ha! I gave two guineas for
+her last night." (I thought of the old adage.) "Mrs. Moodie, your
+sister is no judge of a dog."
+
+"Very likely," returned C---, laughing. "And you go to town
+to-night, Mr. Wilson? I thought as you came up to the house that
+you were equipped for shooting."
+
+"To be sure; there is capital shooting in Canada."
+
+"So I have heard--plenty of bears and wolves. I suppose you take
+out your dog and gun in anticipation?"
+
+"True," said Tom.
+
+"But you surely are not going to take that dog with you?"
+
+"Indeed I am. She is a most valuable brute. The very best venture I
+could take. My brother Charles has engaged our passage in the same
+vessel."
+
+"It would be a pity to part you," said I. "May you prove as lucky a
+pair as Whittington and his cat."
+
+"Whittington! Whittington!" said Tom, staring at my sister, and
+beginning to dream, which he invariably did in the company of
+women. "Who was the gentleman?"
+
+"A very old friend of mine, one whom I have known since I was a
+very little girl," said my sister; "but I have not time to tell you
+more about him now. If you go to St. Paul's Churchyard, and inquire
+for Sir Richard Whittington and his cat, you will get his history
+for a mere trifle."
+
+"Do not mind her, Mr. Wilson, she is quizzing you," quoth I; "I
+wish you a safe voyage across the Atlantic; I wish I could add a
+happy meeting with your friends. But where shall we find friends
+in a strange land?"
+
+"All in good time," said Tom. "I hope to have the pleasure of
+meeting you in the backwoods of Canada before three months are
+over. What adventures we shall have to tell one another! It will
+be capital. Good-bye."
+
+
+                          * * * * * *
+
+
+"Tom has sailed," said Captain Charles Wilson, stepping into my
+little parlour a few days after his eccentric brother's last visit.
+"I saw him and Duchess safe on board. Odd as he is, I parted with
+him with a full heart; I felt as if we never should meet again.
+Poor Tom! he is the only brother left me now that I can love.
+Robert and I never agreed very well, and there is little chance of
+our meeting in this world. He is married, and settled down for life
+in New South Wales; and the rest--John, Richard, George, are all
+gone--all!"
+
+"Was Tom in good spirits when you parted?"
+
+"Yes. He is a perfect contradiction. He always laughs and cries in the
+wrong place. 'Charles,' he said, with a loud laugh, 'tell the girls to
+get some new music against I return: and, hark ye! if I never come
+back, I leave them my Kangaroo Waltz as a legacy.'"
+
+"What a strange creature!"
+
+"Strange, indeed; you don't know half his oddities. He has very little
+money to take out with him, but he actually paid for two berths in the
+ship, that he might not chance to have a person who snored sleep near
+him. Thirty pounds thrown away upon the mere chance of a snoring
+companion! 'Besides, Charles,' quoth he, 'I cannot endure to share
+my little cabin with others; they will use my towels, and combs,
+and brushes, like that confounded rascal who slept in the same berth
+with me coming from New South Wales, who had the impudence to clean
+his teeth with my toothbrush. Here I shall be all alone, happy and
+comfortable as a prince, and Duchess shall sleep in the after-berth,
+and be my queen.' And so we parted," continued Captain Charles.
+"May God take care of him, for he never could take care of himself."
+
+"That puts me in mind of the reason he gave for not going with us.
+He was afraid that my baby would keep him awake of a night. He
+hates children, and says that he never will marry on that account."
+
+
+                          * * * * * *
+
+
+We left the British shores on the 1st of July, and cast anchor,
+as I have already shown, under the Castle of St. Louis, at Quebec,
+on the 2nd of September, 1832. Tom Wilson sailed the 1st of May,
+and had a speedy passage, and was, as we heard from his friends,
+comfortably settled in the bush, had bought a farm, and meant to
+commence operations in the fall. All this was good news, and as he
+was settled near my brother's location, we congratulated ourselves
+that our eccentric friend had found a home in the wilderness at
+last, and that we should soon see him again.
+
+On the 9th of September, the steam-boat William IV. landed us at
+the then small but rising town of ---, on Lake Ontario. The night
+was dark and rainy; the boat was crowded with emigrants; and when
+we arrived at the inn, we learnt that there was no room for us--not
+a bed to be had; nor was it likely, owing to the number of
+strangers that had arrived for several weeks, that we could obtain
+one by searching farther. Moodie requested the use of a sofa for me
+during the night; but even that produced a demur from the landlord.
+Whilst I awaited the result in a passage, crowded with strange
+faces, a pair of eyes glanced upon me through the throng. Was it
+possible?--could it be Tom Wilson? Did any other human being
+possess such eyes, or use them in such an eccentric manner?
+In another second he had pushed his way to my side, whispering
+in my ear, "We met, 'twas in a crowd."
+
+"Tom Wilson, is that you?"
+
+"Do you doubt it? I flatter myself that there is no likeness
+of such a handsome fellow to be found in the world. It is I,
+I swear!--although very little of me is left to swear by. The
+best part of me I have left to fatten the mosquitoes and black
+flies in that infernal bush. But where is Moodie?"
+
+"There he is--trying to induce Mr. S---, for love or money, to let
+me have a bed for the night."
+
+"You shall have mine," said Tom. "I can sleep upon the floor of the
+parlour in a blanket, Indian fashion. It's a bargain--I'll go and
+settle it with the Yankee directly; he's the best fellow in the
+world! In the meanwhile here is a little parlour, which is a
+joint-stock affair between some of us young hopefuls for the time
+being. Step in here, and I will go for Moodie; I long to tell him
+what I think of this confounded country. But you will find it out
+all in good time;" and, rubbing his hands together with a most
+lively and mischievous expression, he shouldered his way through
+trunks, and boxes, and anxious faces, to communicate to my husband
+the arrangement he had so kindly made for us.
+
+"Accept this gentleman's offer, sir, till to-morrow," said Mr.
+S---, "I can then make more comfortable arrangements for your
+family; but we are crowded--crowded to excess. My wife and
+daughters are obliged to sleep in a little chamber over the stable,
+to give our guests more room. Hard that, I guess, for decent people
+to locate over the horses."
+
+These matters settled, Moodie returned with Tom Wilson to the
+little parlour, in which I had already made myself at home.
+
+"Well, now, is it not funny that I should be the first to welcome
+you to Canada?" said Tom.
+
+"But what are you doing here, my dear fellow?"
+
+"Shaking every day with the ague. But I could laugh in spite of my
+teeth to hear them make such a confounded rattling; you would think
+they were all quarrelling which should first get out of my mouth.
+This shaking mania forms one of the chief attractions of this new
+country."
+
+"I fear," said I, remarking how thin and pale he had become, "that
+this climate cannot agree with you."
+
+"Nor I with the climate. Well, we shall soon be quits, for, to let
+you into a secret, I am now on my way to England."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"It is true."
+
+"And the farm--what have you done with it?"
+
+"Sold it."
+
+"And your outfit?"
+
+"Sold that too."
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"To one who will take better care of both than I did. Ah! such a
+country!--such people!--such rogues! It beats Australia hollow; you
+know your customers there--but here you have to find them out. Such
+a take-in!--God forgive them! I never could take care of money;
+and, one way or other, they have cheated me out of all mine. I have
+scarcely enough left to pay my passage home. But, to provide
+against the worst, I have bought a young bear, a splendid fellow,
+to make my peace with my uncle. You must see him; he is close by in
+the stable."
+
+"To-morrow we will pay a visit to Bruin; but tonight do tell us
+something about yourself, and your residence in the bush."
+
+"You will know enough about the bush by-and-by. I am a bad
+historian," he continued, stretching out his legs and yawning
+horribly, "a worse biographer. I never can find words to relate
+facts. But I will try what I can do; mind, don't laugh at my
+blunders."
+
+We promised to be serious--no easy matter while looking at and
+listening to Tom Wilson, and he gave us, at detached intervals, the
+following account of himself:--
+
+"My troubles began at sea. We had a fair voyage, and all that; but
+my poor dog, my beautiful Duchess!--that beauty in the beast--died.
+I wanted to read the funeral service over her, but the captain
+interfered--the brute!--and threatened to throw me into the sea
+along with the dead bitch, as the unmannerly ruffian persisted in
+calling my canine friend. I never spoke to him again during the
+rest of the voyage. Nothing happened worth relating until I got to
+this place, where I chanced to meet a friend who knew your brother,
+and I went up with him to the woods. Most of the wise men of Gotham
+we met on the road were bound to the woods; so I felt happy that I
+was, at least, in the fashion. Mr. --- was very kind, and spoke in
+raptures of the woods, which formed the theme of conversation
+during our journey--their beauty, their vastness, the comfort and
+independence enjoyed by those who had settled in them; and he so
+inspired me with the subject that I did nothing all day but sing as
+we rode along--
+
+'A life in the woods for me;'
+
+until we came to the woods, and then I soon learned to sing that
+same, as the Irishman says, on the other side of my mouth."
+
+Here succeeded a long pause, during which friend Tom seemed
+mightily tickled with his reminiscences, for he leaned back in his
+chair, and from time to time gave way to loud, hollow bursts of
+laughter.
+
+"Tom, Tom! are you going mad?" said my husband, shaking him.
+
+"I never was sane, that I know of," returned he. "You know that it
+runs in the family. But do let me have my laugh out. The woods! Ha!
+ha! When I used to be roaming through those woods, shooting--though
+not a thing could I ever find to shoot, for birds and beasts are
+not such fools as our English emigrants--and I chanced to think of
+you coming to spend the rest of your lives in the woods--I used to
+stop, and hold my sides, and laugh until the woods rang again. It
+was the only consolation I had."
+
+"Good Heavens!" said I, "let us never go to the woods."
+
+"You will repent if you do," continued Tom. "But let me proceed
+on my journey. My bones were well-nigh dislocated before we got
+to D---. The roads for the last twelve miles were nothing but a
+succession of mud-holes, covered with the most ingenious invention
+ever thought of for racking the limbs, called corduroy bridges;
+not breeches, mind you,--for I thought, whilst jolting up and down
+over them, that I should arrive at my destination minus that
+indispensable covering. It was night when we got to Mr. ---'s
+place. I was tired and hungry, my face disfigured and blistered by
+the unremitting attentions of the blackflies that rose in swarms
+from the river. I thought to get a private room to wash and dress
+in, but there is no such thing as privacy in this country. In the
+bush, all things are in common; you cannot even get a bed without
+having to share it with a companion. A bed on the floor in a public
+sleeping-room! Think of that; a public sleeping-room!--men, women,
+and children, only divided by a paltry curtain. Oh, ye gods! think
+of the snoring, squalling, grumbling, puffing; think of the kicking,
+elbowing, and crowding; the suffocating heat, the mosquitoes, with
+their infernal buzzing--and you will form some idea of the misery
+I endured the first night of my arrival in the bush.
+
+"But these are not half the evils with which you have to contend.
+You are pestered with nocturnal visitants far more disagreeable
+than even the mosquitoes, and must put up with annoyances more
+disgusting than the crowded, close room. And then, to appease the
+cravings of hunger, fat pork is served to you three times a day. No
+wonder that the Jews eschewed the vile animal; they were people of
+taste. Pork, morning, noon, and night, swimming in its own grease!
+The bishop who complained of partridges every day should have been
+condemned to three months' feeding upon pork in the bush; and he
+would have become an anchorite, to escape the horrid sight of
+swine's flesh for ever spread before him. No wonder I am thin;
+I have been starved--starved upon pritters and port, and that
+disgusting specimen of unleavened bread, yclept cakes in the pan.
+
+"I had such a horror of the pork diet, that whenever I saw the
+dinner in progress I fled to the canoe, in the hope of drowning
+upon the waters all reminiscences of the hateful banquet; but even
+here the very fowls of the air and the reptiles of the deep lifted
+up their voices, and shouted, 'Pork, pork, pork!'"
+
+M--- remonstrated with his friend for deserting the country for
+such minor evils as these, which, after all, he said, could easily
+be borne.
+
+"Easily borne!" exclaimed the indignant Wilson. "Go and try them;
+and then tell me that. I did try to bear them with a good grace,
+but it would not do. I offended everybody with my grumbling. I was
+constantly reminded by the ladies of the house that gentlemen
+should not come to this country without they were able to put up
+with a LITTLE inconvenience; that I should make as good a settler
+as a butterfly in a beehive; that it was impossible to be nice
+about food and dress in the BUSH; that people must learn to eat
+what they could get, and be content to be shabby and dirty, like
+their neighbours in the BUSH,--until that horrid word BUSH became
+synonymous with all that was hateful and revolting in my mind.
+
+"It was impossible to keep anything to myself. The children pulled
+my books to pieces to look at the pictures; and an impudent,
+bare-legged Irish servant-girl took my towels to wipe the dishes
+with, and my clothes-brush to black the shoes--an operation which
+she performed with a mixture of soot and grease. I thought I should
+be better off in a place of my own, so I bought a wild farm that
+was recommended to me, and paid for it double what it was worth.
+When I came to examine my estate, I found there was no house upon
+it, and I should have to wait until the fall to get one put up, and
+a few acres cleared for cultivation. I was glad to return to my old
+quarters.
+
+"Finding nothing to shoot in the woods, I determined to amuse
+myself with fishing; but Mr. --- could not always lend his canoe,
+and there was no other to be had. To pass away the time, I set
+about making one. I bought an axe, and went to the forest to select
+a tree. About a mile from the lake, I found the largest pine I ever
+saw. I did not much like to try my maiden hand upon it, for it was
+the first and the last tree I ever cut down. But to it I went; and
+I blessed God that it reached the ground without killing me in its
+way thither. When I was about it, I thought I might as well make
+the canoe big enough; but the bulk of the tree deceived me in the
+length of my vessel, and I forgot to measure the one that belonged
+to Mr. ---. It took me six weeks hollowing it out, and when it was
+finished, it was as long as a sloop-of-war, and too unwieldy for
+all the oxen in the township to draw it to the water. After all
+my labour, my combats with those wood-demons the black-flies,
+sand-flies, and mosquitoes, my boat remains a useless monument of
+my industry. And worse than this, the fatigue I had endured while
+working at it late and early, brought on the ague; which so
+disgusted me with the country that I sold my farm and all my traps
+for an old song; purchased Bruin to bear me company on my voyage
+home; and the moment I am able to get rid of this tormenting fever,
+I am off."
+
+Argument and remonstrance were alike in vain, he could not be
+dissuaded from his purpose. Tom was as obstinate as his bear.
+
+The next morning he conducted us to the stable to see Bruin.
+The young denizen of the forest was tied to the manger, quietly
+masticating a cob of Indian corn, which he held in his paw, and
+looked half human as he sat upon his haunches, regarding us with a
+solemn, melancholy air. There was an extraordinary likeness, quite
+ludicrous, between Tom and the bear. We said nothing, but exchanged
+glances. Tom read our thoughts.
+
+"Yes," said he, "there is a strong resemblance; I saw it when I
+bought him. Perhaps we are brothers;" and taking in his hand the
+chain that held the bear, he bestowed upon him sundry fraternal
+caresses, which the ungrateful Bruin returned with low and savage
+growls.
+
+"He can't flatter. He's all truth and sincerity. A child of nature,
+and worthy to be my friend; the only Canadian I ever mean to
+acknowledge as such."
+
+About an hour after this, poor Tom was shaking with ague, which in
+a few days reduced him so low that I began to think he never would
+see his native shores again. He bore the affliction very
+philosophically, and all his well days he spent with us.
+
+One day my husband was absent, having accompanied Mr. S--- to
+inspect a farm, which he afterwards purchased, and I had to get
+through the long day at the inn in the best manner I could. The
+local papers were soon exhausted. At that period they possessed
+little or no interest for me. I was astonished and disgusted at the
+abusive manner in which they were written, the freedom of the press
+being enjoyed to an extent in this province unknown in more
+civilised communities.
+
+Men, in Canada, may call one another rogues and miscreants, in the
+most approved Billingsgate, through the medium of the newspapers,
+which are a sort of safety-valve to let off all the bad feelings
+and malignant passions floating through the country, without any
+dread of the horsewhip. Hence it is the commonest thing in the
+world to hear one editor abusing, like a pickpocket, an opposition
+brother; calling him a reptile--a crawling thing--a calumniator--a
+hired vendor of lies; and his paper a smut-machine--a vile engine
+of corruption, as base and degraded as the proprietor, &c. Of this
+description was the paper I now held in my hand, which had the
+impudence to style itself the Reformer--not of morals or manners,
+certainly, if one might judge by the vulgar abuse that defiled
+every page of the precious document. I soon flung it from me,
+thinking it worthy of the fate of many a better production in
+the olden times, that of being burned by the common hangman;
+but, happily, the office of hangman has become obsolete in Canada,
+and the editors of these refined journals may go on abusing their
+betters with impunity.
+
+Books I had none, and I wished that Tom would make his appearance,
+and amuse me with his oddities; but he had suffered so much from
+the ague the day before that when he did enter the room to lead
+me to dinner, he looked like a walking corpse--the dead among the
+living! so dark, so livid, so melancholy, it was really painful
+to look upon him.
+
+"I hope the ladies who frequent the ordinary won't fall in love
+with me," said he, grinning at himself in the miserable
+looking-glass that formed the case of the Yankee clock, and was
+ostentatiously displayed on a side table; "I look quite killing
+to-day. What a comfort it is, Mrs. M---, to be above all rivalry."
+
+In the middle of dinner, the company was disturbed by the entrance
+of a person who had the appearance of a gentleman, but who was
+evidently much flustered with drinking. He thrust his chair in
+between two gentlemen who sat near the head of the table, and in a
+loud voice demanded fish.
+
+"Fish, sir?" said the obsequious waiter, a great favourite with all
+persons who frequented the hotel; "there is no fish, sir. There was
+a fine salmon, sir, had you come sooner; but 'tis all eaten, sir."
+
+"Then fetch me some."
+
+"I'll see what I can do, sir," said the obliging Tim, hurrying out.
+
+Tom Wilson was at the head of the table, carving a roast pig, and
+was in the act of helping a lady, when the rude fellow thrust his
+fork into the pig, calling out as he did so--
+
+"Hold, sir! give me some of that pig! You have eaten among you all the
+fish, and now you are going to appropriate the best parts of the pig."
+
+Tom raised his eyebrows, and stared at the stranger in his peculiar
+manner, then very coolly placed the whole of the pig on his plate.
+"I have heard," he said, "of dog eating dog, but I never before saw
+pig eating pig."
+
+"Sir! do you mean to insult me?" cried the stranger, his face
+crimsoning with anger.
+
+"Only to tell you, sir, that you are no gentleman. Here, Tim,"
+turning to the waiter, "go to the stable and bring in my bear;
+we will place him at the table to teach this man how to behave
+himself in the presence of ladies."
+
+A general uproar ensued; the women left the table, while the
+entrance of the bear threw the gentlemen present into convulsions
+of laughter. It was too much for the human biped; he was forced to
+leave the room, and succumb to the bear.
+
+My husband concluded his purchase of the farm, and invited Wilson
+to go with us into the country and try if change of air would be
+beneficial to him; for in his then weak state it was impossible for
+him to return to England. His funds were getting very low, and Tom
+thankfully accepted the offer. Leaving Bruin in the charge of Tim
+(who delighted in the oddities of the strange English gentleman),
+Tom made one of our party to ---.
+
+
+THE LAMENT OF A CANADIAN EMIGRANT
+
+  Though distant, in spirit still present to me,
+  My best thoughts, my country, still linger with thee;
+  My fond heart beats quick, and my dim eyes run o'er,
+  When I muse on the last glance I gave to thy shore.
+  The chill mists of night round thy white cliffs were curl'd,
+  But I felt there was no spot like thee in the world--
+  No home to which memory so fondly would turn,
+  No thought that within me so madly would burn.
+
+  But one stood beside me whose presence repress'd
+  The deep pang of sorrow that troubled my breast;
+  And the babe on my bosom so calmly reclining,
+  Check'd the tears as they rose, and all useless repining.
+  Hard indeed was the struggle, from thee forced to roam;
+  But for their sakes I quitted both country and home.
+
+  Bless'd Isle of the Free! I must view thee no more;
+  My fortunes are cast on this far-distant shore;
+  In the depths of dark forests my soul droops her wings;
+  In tall boughs above me no merry bird sings;
+  The sigh of the wild winds--the rush of the floods--
+  Is the only sad music that wakens the woods.
+
+  In dreams, lovely England! my spirit still hails
+  Thy soft waving woodlands, thy green, daisied vales.
+  When my heart shall grow cold to the mother that bore me,
+  When my soul, dearest Nature! shall cease to adore thee,
+  And beauty and virtue no longer impart
+  Delight to my bosom, and warmth to my heart,
+  Then the love I have cherish'd, my country, for thee,
+  In the breast of thy daughter extinguish'd shall be.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OUR FIRST SETTLEMENT, AND THE BORROWING SYSTEM
+
+
+
+  To lend, or not to lend--is that the question?
+
+
+"Those who go a-borrowing, go a-sorrowing," saith the old adage; and
+a wiser saw never came out of the mouth of experience. I have tested
+the truth of this proverb since my settlement in Canada, many, many
+times, to my cost; and what emigrant has not? So averse have I ever
+been to this practice, that I would at all times rather quietly
+submit to a temporary inconvenience than obtain anything I wanted
+in this manner. I verily believe that a demon of mischief presides
+over borrowed goods, and takes a wicked pleasure in playing off
+a thousand malicious pranks upon you the moment he enters your
+dwelling. Plates and dishes, that had been the pride and ornament of
+their own cupboard for years, no sooner enter upon foreign service
+than they are broken; wine-glasses and tumblers, that have been
+handled by a hundred careless wenches in safety, scarcely pass into
+the hands of your servants when they are sure to tumble upon the
+floor, and the accident turns out a compound fracture. If you borrow
+a garment of any kind, be sure that you will tear it; a watch, that
+you will break it; a jewel, that you will lose it; a book, that it
+will be stolen from you. There is no end to the trouble and vexation
+arising out of this evil habit. If you borrow a horse, and he has
+the reputation of being the best-behaved animal in the district,
+you no sooner become responsible for his conduct than he loses
+his character. The moment that you attempt to drive him, he shows
+that he has a will of his own, by taking the reins into his own
+management, and running away in a contrary direction to the road
+that you wished him to travel. He never gives over his eccentric
+capers until he has broken his own knees, and the borrowed carriage
+and harness. So anxious are you about his safety, that you have not
+a moment to bestow upon your own. And why?--the beast is borrowed,
+and you are expected to return him in as good condition as he came
+to you.
+
+But of all evils, to borrow money is perhaps the worst. If of a
+friend, he ceases to be one the moment you feel that you are
+bound to him by the heavy clog of obligation. If of a usurer, the
+interest, in this country, soon doubles the original sum, and you
+owe an increasing debt, which in time swallows up all you possess.
+
+When we first came to the colony, nothing surprised me more than
+the extent to which this pernicious custom was carried, both by the
+native Canadians, the European settlers, and the lower order of
+Americans. Many of the latter had spied out the goodness of the
+land, and BORROWED various portions of it, without so much as
+asking leave of the absentee owners. Unfortunately, our new home
+was surrounded by these odious squatters, whom we found as ignorant
+as savages, without their courtesy and kindness.
+
+The place we first occupied was purchased of Mr. B---, a merchant,
+who took it in payment of sundry large debts which the owner, a New
+England loyalist, had been unable to settle. Old Joe R---, the
+present occupant, had promised to quit it with his family, at the
+commencement of sleighing; and as the bargain was concluded in the
+month of September, and we were anxious to plough for fall wheat, it
+was necessary to be upon the spot. No house was to be found in the
+immediate neighbourhood, save a small dilapidated log tenement, on
+an adjoining farm (which was scarcely reclaimed from the bush) that
+had been some months without an owner. The merchant assured us that
+this could be made very comfortable until such time as it suited
+R--- to remove, and the owner was willing to let us have it for the
+moderate sum of four dollars a month.
+
+Trusting to Mr. B---'s word, and being strangers in the land,
+we never took the precaution to examine this delightful summer
+residence before entering upon it, but thought ourselves very
+fortunate in obtaining a temporary home so near our own property,
+the distance not exceeding half a mile. The agreement was drawn
+up, and we were told that we could take possession whenever it
+suited us.
+
+The few weeks that I had sojourned in the country had by no means
+prepossessed me in its favour. The home-sickness was sore upon me,
+and all my solitary hours were spent in tears. My whole soul yielded
+itself up to a strong and overpowering grief. One simple word dwelt
+for ever in my heart, and swelled it to bursting--"Home!" I repeated
+it waking a thousand times a day, and my last prayer before I sank
+to sleep was still "Home! Oh, that I could return, if only to die
+at home!" And nightly I did return; my feet again trod the daisied
+meadows of England; the song of her birds was in my ears; I wept
+with delight to find myself once more wandering beneath the fragrant
+shade of her green hedge-rows; and I awoke to weep in earnest when I
+found it but a dream. But this is all digression, and has nothing to
+do with our unseen dwelling. The reader must bear with me in my fits
+of melancholy, and take me as I am.
+
+It was the 22nd September that we left the Steam-boat Hotel, to take
+possession of our new abode. During the three weeks we had sojourned
+at ---, I had not seen a drop of rain, and I began to think that the
+fine weather would last for ever; but this eventful day arose in
+clouds. Moodie had hired a covered carriage to convey the baby, the
+servant-maid, and myself to the farm, as our driver prognosticated
+a wet day; while he followed with Tom Wilson and the teams that
+conveyed our luggage.
+
+The scenery through which we were passing was so new to me, so
+unlike anything that I had ever beheld before, that in spite of its
+monotonous character, it won me from my melancholy, and I began to
+look about me with considerable interest. Not so my English servant,
+who declared that the woods were frightful to look upon; that it was
+a country only fit for wild beasts; that she hated it with all her
+heart and soul, and would go back as soon as she was able.
+
+About a mile from the place of our destination the rain began to
+fall in torrents, and the air, which had been balmy as a spring
+morning, turned as chilly as that of a November day. Hannah
+shivered; the baby cried, and I drew my summer shawl as closely
+round as possible, to protect her from the sudden change in our
+hitherto delightful temperature. Just then, the carriage turned into
+a narrow, steep path, overhung with lofty woods, and after labouring
+up it with considerable difficulty, and at the risk of breaking our
+necks, it brought us at length to a rocky upland clearing, partially
+covered with a second growth of timber, and surrounded on all sides
+by the dark forest.
+
+"I guess," quoth our Yankee driver, "that at the bottom of this 'ere
+swell, you'll find yourself to hum;" and plunging into a short path
+cut through the wood, he pointed to a miserable hut, at the bottom
+of a steep descent, and cracking his whip, exclaimed, "'Tis a smart
+location that. I wish you Britishers may enjoy it."
+
+I gazed upon the place in perfect dismay, for I had never seen such
+a shed called a house before. "You must be mistaken; that is not a
+house, but a cattle-shed, or pig-sty."
+
+The man turned his knowing, keen eye upon me, and smiled,
+half-humorously, half-maliciously, as he said--
+
+"You were raised in the old country, I guess; you have much to
+learn, and more, perhaps, than you'll like to know, before the
+winter is over."
+
+I was perfectly bewildered--I could only stare at the place, with
+my eyes swimming in tears; but as the horses plunged down into the
+broken hollow, my attention was drawn from my new residence to the
+perils which endangered life and limb at every step. The driver,
+however, was well used to such roads, and, steering us dexterously
+between the black stumps, at length drove up, not to the door, for
+there was none to the house, but to the open space from which that
+absent but very necessary appendage had been removed. Three young
+steers and two heifers, which the driver proceeded to drive out,
+were quietly reposing upon the floor. A few strokes of his whip,
+and a loud burst of gratuitous curses, soon effected an ejectment;
+and I dismounted, and took possession of this untenable tenement.
+Moodie was not yet in sight with the teams. I begged the man to stay
+until he arrived, as I felt terrified at being left alone in this
+wild, strange-looking place. He laughed, as well he might, at our
+fears, and said that he had a long way to go, and must be off; then,
+cracking his whip, and nodding to the girl, who was crying aloud, he
+went his way, and Hannah and myself were left standing in the middle
+of the dirty floor.
+
+The prospect was indeed dreary. Without, pouring rain; within, a
+fireless hearth; a room with but one window, and that containing
+only one whole pane of glass; not an article of furniture to be
+seen, save an old painted pine-wood cradle, which had been left
+there by some freak of fortune. This, turned upon its side, served
+us for a seat, and there we impatiently awaited the arrival of
+Moodie, Wilson, and a man whom the former had hired that morning
+to assist on the farm. Where they were all to be stowed might have
+puzzled a more sagacious brain than mine. It is true there was a
+loft, but I could see no way of reaching it, for ladder there was
+none, so we amused ourselves, while waiting for the coming of our
+party, by abusing the place, the country, and our own dear selves
+for our folly in coming to it.
+
+Now, when not only reconciled to Canada, but loving it, and feeling
+a deep interest in its present welfare, and the fair prospect of its
+future greatness, I often look back and laugh at the feelings with
+which I then regarded this noble country.
+
+When things come to the worst, they generally mend. The males of
+our party no sooner arrived than they set about making things more
+comfortable. James, our servant, pulled up some of the decayed
+stumps, with which the small clearing that surrounded the shanty
+was thickly covered, and made a fire, and Hannah roused herself
+from the stupor of despair, and seized the corn-broom from the top
+of the loaded waggon, and began to sweep the house, raising such an
+intolerable cloud of dust that I was glad to throw my cloak over my
+head, and run out of doors, to avoid suffocation. Then commenced
+the awful bustle of unloading the two heavily-loaded waggons. The
+small space within the house was soon entirely blocked up with
+trunks and packages of all descriptions. There was scarcely room
+to move, without stumbling over some article of household stuff.
+
+The rain poured in at the open door, beat in at the shattered
+window, and dropped upon our heads from the holes in the roof. The
+wind blew keenly through a thousand apertures in the log walls; and
+nothing could exceed the uncomfortableness of our situation. For a
+long time the box which contained a hammer and nails was not to be
+found. At length Hannah discovered it, tied up with some bedding
+which she was opening out in order to dry. I fortunately spied the
+door lying among some old boards at the back of the house, and
+Moodie immediately commenced fitting it to its place. This, once
+accomplished, was a great addition to our comfort. We then nailed
+a piece of white cloth entirely over the broken window, which,
+without diminishing the light, kept out the rain. James constructed
+a ladder out of the old bits of boards, and Tom Wilson assisted him
+in stowing the luggage away in the loft.
+
+But what has this picture of misery and discomfort to do with
+borrowing? Patience, my dear, good friends; I will tell you all
+about it by-and-by.
+
+While we were all busily employed--even the poor baby, who was lying
+upon a pillow in the old cradle, trying the strength of her lungs,
+and not a little irritated that no one was at leisure to regard her
+laudable endeavours to make herself heard--the door was suddenly
+pushed open, and the apparition of a woman squeezed itself into the
+crowded room. I left off arranging the furniture of a bed, that had
+been just put up in a corner, to meet my unexpected, and at that
+moment, not very welcome guest. Her whole appearance was so
+extraordinary that I felt quite at a loss how to address her.
+
+Imagine a girl of seventeen or eighteen years of age, with sharp,
+knowing-looking features, a forward, impudent carriage, and a pert,
+flippant voice, standing upon one of the trunks, and surveying all
+our proceedings in the most impertinent manner. The creature was
+dressed in a ragged, dirty purple stuff gown, cut very low in the
+neck, with an old red cotton handkerchief tied over her head; her
+uncombed, tangled locks falling over her thin, inquisitive face, in
+a state of perfect nature. Her legs and feet were bare, and, in her
+coarse, dirty red hands, she swung to and fro an empty glass
+decanter.
+
+"What can she want?" I asked myself. "What a strange creature!"
+
+And there she stood, staring at me in the most unceremonious manner,
+her keen black eyes glancing obliquely to every corner of the room,
+which she examined with critical exactness.
+
+Before I could speak to her, she commenced the conversation by
+drawling through her nose, "Well, I guess you are fixing here."
+
+I thought she had come to offer her services; and I told her that
+I did not want a girl, for I had brought one out with me.
+
+"How!" responded the creature, "I hope you don't take me for a help.
+I'd have you to know that I'm as good a lady as yourself. No; I just
+stepped over to see what was going on. I seed the teams pass our'n
+about noon, and I says to father, 'Them strangers are cum; I'll go
+and look arter them.' 'Yes,' says he, 'do--and take the decanter
+along. May be they'll want one to put their whiskey in.' 'I'm goin
+to,' says I; so I cum across with it, an' here it is. But,
+mind--don't break it--'tis the only one we have to hum; and father
+says 'tis so mean to drink out of green glass."
+
+My surprise increased every minute. It seemed such an act of
+disinterested generosity thus to anticipate wants we had never
+thought of. I was regularly taken in.
+
+"My good girl," I began, "this is really very kind--but--"
+
+"Now, don't go to call me 'gall'--and pass off your English airs
+on us. We are GENUINE Yankees, and think ourselves as good--yes,
+a great deal better than you. I am a young lady."
+
+"Indeed!" said I, striving to repress my astonishment. "I am a
+stranger in the country, and my acquaintance with Canadian ladies
+and gentlemen is very small. I did not mean to offend you by using
+the term girl; I was going to assure you that we had no need of the
+decanter. We have bottles of our own--and we don't drink whiskey."
+
+"How! Not drink whiskey? Why, you don't say! How ignorant you must
+be! may be they have no whiskey in the old country?"
+
+"Yes, we have; but it is not like the Canadian whiskey. But, pray
+take the decanter home again--I am afraid that it will get broken
+in this confusion."
+
+"No, no; father told me to leave it--and there it is;" and she
+planted it resolutely down on the trunk. "You will find a use for
+it till you have unpacked your own."
+
+Seeing that she was determined to leave the bottle, I said no more
+about it, but asked her to tell me where the well was to be found.
+
+"The well!" she repeated after me, with a sneer. "Who thinks of
+digging wells when they can get plenty of water from the creek?
+There is a fine water privilege not a stone's-throw from the door,"
+and, jumping off the box, she disappeared as abruptly as she had
+entered. We all looked at each other; Tom Wilson was highly amused,
+and laughed until he held his sides.
+
+"What tempted her to bring this empty bottle here?" said Moodie.
+"It is all an excuse; the visit, Tom, was meant for you."
+
+"You'll know more about it in a few days," said James, looking up
+from his work. "That bottle is not brought here for nought."
+
+I could not unravel the mystery, and thought no more about it, until
+it was again brought to my recollection by the damsel herself.
+
+Our united efforts had effected a complete transformation in our
+uncouth dwelling. Sleeping-berths had been partitioned off for the
+men; shelves had been put up for the accommodation of books and
+crockery, a carpet covered the floor, and the chairs and tables we
+had brought from --- gave an air of comfort to the place, which, on
+the first view of it, I deemed impossible. My husband, Mr. Wilson,
+and James, had walked over to inspect the farm, and I was sitting at
+the table at work, the baby creeping upon the floor, and Hannah
+preparing dinner. The sun shone warm and bright, and the open door
+admitted a current of fresh air, which tempered the heat of the fire.
+
+"Well, I guess you look smart," said the Yankee damsel, presenting
+herself once more before me. "You old country folks are so stiff,
+you must have every thing nice, or you fret. But, then, you can
+easily do it; you have stacks of money; and you can fix everything
+right off with money."
+
+"Pray take a seat," and I offered her a chair, "and be kind enough
+to tell me your name. I suppose you must live in the neighbourhood,
+although I cannot perceive any dwelling near us."
+
+"My name! So you want to know my name. I arn't ashamed of my own;
+'tis Emily S---. I am eldest daughter to the GENTLEMAN who owns
+this house."
+
+"What must the father be," thought I, "if he resembles the young
+LADY, his daughter?"
+
+Imagine a young lady, dressed in ragged petticoats, through whose
+yawning rents peeped forth, from time to time, her bare red knees,
+with uncombed elf-locks, and a face and hands that looked as if they
+had been unwashed for a month--who did not know A from B, and
+despised those who did. While these reflections, combined with a
+thousand ludicrous images, were flitting through my mind, my strange
+visitor suddenly exclaimed--
+
+"Have you done with that 'ere decanter I brought across yesterday?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I have no occasion for it." I rose, took it from the
+shelf, and placed it in her hand.
+
+"I guess you won't return it empty; that would be mean, father says.
+He wants it filled with whiskey."
+
+The mystery was solved, the riddle made clear. I could contain my
+gravity no longer, but burst into a hearty fit of laughter, in which
+I was joined by Hannah. Our young lady was mortally offended; she
+tossed the decanter from hand to hand, and glared at us with her
+tiger-like eyes.
+
+"You think yourselves smart! Why do you laugh in that way?"
+
+"Excuse me--but you have such an odd way of borrowing that I cannot
+help it. This bottle, it seems, was brought over for your own
+convenience, not for mine. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have
+no whiskey."
+
+"I guess spirits will do as well; I know there is some in that keg,
+for I smells it."
+
+"It contains rum for the workmen."
+
+"Better still. I calculate when you've been here a few months,
+you'll be too knowing to give rum to your helps. But old country
+folks are all fools, and that's the reason they get so easily sucked
+in, and be so soon wound-up. Cum, fill the bottle, and don't be
+stingy. In this country we all live by borrowing. If you want
+anything, why just send and borrow from us."
+
+Thinking that this might be the custom of the country, I hastened to
+fill the decanter, hoping that I might get a little new milk for the
+poor weanling child in return; but when I asked my liberal visitor
+if she kept cows, and would lend me a little new milk for the baby,
+she burst out into high disdain. "Milk! Lend milk? I guess milk in
+the fall is worth a York shilling a quart. I cannot sell you a drop
+under."
+
+This was a wicked piece of extortion, as the same article in the
+town, where, of course, it was in greater request, only brought
+three-pence the quart.
+
+"If you'll pay me for it, I'll bring you some to-morrow. But
+mind--cash down."
+
+"And when do you mean to return the rum?" I said, with some
+asperity.
+
+"When father goes to the creek." This was the name given by my
+neighbours to the village of P---, distant about four miles.
+
+Day after day I was tormented by this importunate creature; she
+borrowed of me tea, sugar, candles, starch, blueing, irons, pots,
+bowls--in short, every article in common domestic use--while it was
+with the utmost difficulty we could get them returned. Articles of
+food, such as tea and sugar, or of convenience, like candles,
+starch, and soap, she never dreamed of being required at her hands.
+This method of living upon their neighbours is a most convenient one
+to unprincipled people, as it does not involve the penalty of
+stealing; and they can keep the goods without the unpleasant
+necessity of returning them, or feeling the moral obligation of
+being grateful for their use. Living eight miles from ---, I found
+these constant encroachments a heavy burden on our poor purse; and
+being ignorant of the country, and residing in such a lonely,
+out-of-the-way place, surrounded by these savages, I was really
+afraid of denying their requests.
+
+The very day our new plough came home, the father of this bright
+damsel, who went by the familiar and unenviable title of Old Satan,
+came over to borrow it (though we afterwards found out that he had a
+good one of his own). The land had never been broken up, and was
+full of rocks and stumps, and he was anxious to save his own from
+injury; the consequence was that the borrowed implement came home
+unfit for use, just at the very time that we wanted to plough for
+fall wheat. The same happened to a spade and trowel, bought in
+order to plaster the house. Satan asked the loan of them for ONE
+hour for the same purpose, and we never saw them again.
+
+The daughter came one morning, as usual, on one of these swindling
+expeditions, and demanded of me the loan of some fine slack. Not
+knowing what she meant by fine slack, and weary of her
+importunities, I said I had none. She went away in a rage. Shortly
+after she came again for some pepper. I was at work, and my work-box
+was open upon the table, well stored with threads and spools of all
+descriptions. Miss Satan cast her hawk's eye into it, and burst out
+in her usual rude manner--
+
+"I guess you told me a tarnation big lie the other day."
+
+Unaccustomed to such language, I rose from my seat, and pointing to
+the door, told her to walk out, as I did not choose to be insulted
+in my own house.
+
+"Your house! I'm sure it's father's," returned the incorrigible
+wretch. "You told me that you had no fine slack, and you have
+stacks of it."
+
+"What is fine slack?" said I, very pettishly.
+
+"The stuff that's wound upon these 'ere pieces of wood," pouncing as
+she spoke upon one of my most serviceable spools.
+
+"I cannot give you that; I want it myself."
+
+"I didn't ask you to give it. I only wants to borrow it till father
+goes to the creek."
+
+"I wish he would make haste, then, as I want a number of things
+which you have borrowed of me, and which I cannot longer do
+without."
+
+She gave me a knowing look, and carried off my spool in triumph.
+
+I happened to mention the manner in which I was constantly annoyed
+by these people, to a worthy English farmer who resided near us;
+and he fell a-laughing, and told me that I did not know the Canadian
+Yankees as well as he did, or I should not be troubled with them long.
+
+"The best way," says he, "to get rid of them, is to ask them sharply
+what they want; and if they give you no satisfactory answer, order
+them to leave the house; but I believe I can put you in a better way
+still. Buy some small article of them, and pay them a trifle over
+the price, and tell them to bring the change. I will lay my life
+upon it that it will be long before they trouble you again."
+
+I was impatient to test the efficacy of his scheme That very
+afternoon Miss Satan brought me a plate of butter for sale.
+The price was three and ninepence; twice the sum, by-the-bye,
+that it was worth.
+
+"I have no change," giving her a dollar; "but you can bring it me
+to-morrow."
+
+Oh, blessed experiment! for the value of one quarter dollar I got
+rid of this dishonest girl for ever; rather than pay me, she never
+entered the house again.
+
+About a month after this, I was busy making an apple-pie in the
+kitchen. A cadaverous-looking woman, very long-faced and witch-like,
+popped her ill-looking visage into the door, and drawled through her
+nose--
+
+"Do you want to buy a rooster?"
+
+Now, the sucking-pigs with which we had been regaled every day
+for three weeks at the tavern, were called roasters; and not
+understanding the familiar phrases of the country, I thought she
+had a sucking-pig to sell.
+
+"Is it a good one?"
+
+"I guess 'tis."
+
+"What do you ask for it?"
+
+"Two Yorkers."
+
+"That is very cheap, if it is any weight. I don't like them under
+ten or twelve pounds."
+
+"Ten or twelve pounds! Why, woman, what do you mean? Would you
+expect a rooster to be bigger nor a turkey?"
+
+We stared at each other. There was evidently some misconception
+on my part.
+
+"Bring the roaster up; and if I like it, I will buy it, though
+I must confess that I am not very fond of roast pig."
+
+"Do you call this a pig?" said my she-merchant, drawing a fine
+game-cock from under her cloak.
+
+I laughed heartily at my mistake, as I paid her down the money for
+the bonny bird. This little matter settled, I thought she would take
+her departure; but that rooster proved the dearest fowl to me that
+ever was bought.
+
+"Do you keep backy and snuff here?" says she, sideling close up to me.
+
+"We make no use of those articles."
+
+"How! Not use backy and snuff? That's oncommon."
+
+She paused, then added in a mysterious, confidential tone--
+
+"I want to ask you how your tea-caddy stands?"
+
+"It stands in the cupboard," said I, wondering what all this might
+mean.
+
+"I know that; but have you any tea to spare?"
+
+I now began to suspect what sort of a customer the stranger was.
+
+"Oh, you want to borrow some? I have none to spare."
+
+"You don't say so. Well now, that's stingy. I never asked anything
+of you before. I am poor, and you are rich; besides, I'm troubled so
+with the headache, and nothing does me any good but a cup of strong
+tea."
+
+"The money I have just given you will buy a quarter of a pound of
+the best."
+
+"I guess that isn't mine. The fowl belonged to my neighbour. She's
+sick; and I promised to sell it for her to buy some physic. Money!"
+she added, in a coaxing tone, "Where should I get money? Lord bless
+you! people in this country have no money; and those who come out
+with piles of it, soon lose it. But Emily S--- told me that you are
+tarnation rich, and draw your money from the old country. So I guess
+you can well afford to lend a neighbour a spoonful of tea."
+
+"Neighbour! Where do you live, and what is your name?"
+
+"My name is Betty Fye--old Betty Fye; I live in the log shanty over
+the creek, at the back of your'n. The farm belongs to my eldest son.
+I'm a widow with twelve sons; and 'tis --- hard to scratch along."
+
+"Do you swear?"
+
+"Swear! What harm? It eases one's mind when one's vexed. Everybody
+swears in this country. My boys all swear like Sam Hill; and I used
+to swear mighty big oaths till about a month ago, when the Methody
+parson told me that if I did not leave it off I should go to a
+tarnation bad place; so I dropped some of the worst of them."
+
+"You would do wisely to drop the rest; women never swear in my
+country."
+
+"Well, you don't say! I always heer'd they were very ignorant.
+Will you lend me the tea?"
+
+The woman was such an original that I gave her what she wanted.
+As she was going off, she took up one of the apples I was peeling.
+
+"I guess you have a fine orchard?"
+
+"They say the best in the district."
+
+"We have no orchard to hum, and I guess you'll want sarce."
+
+"Sarce! What is sarce?"
+
+"Not know what sarce is? You are clever! Sarce is apples cut up and
+dried, to make into pies in the winter. Now do you comprehend?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"Well, I was going to say that I have no apples, and that you have a
+tarnation big few of them; and if you'll give me twenty bushels of
+your best apples, and find me with half a pound of coarse thread to
+string them upon, I will make you a barrel of sarce on shares--that
+is, give you one, and keep one for myself."
+
+I had plenty of apples, and I gladly accepted her offer, and Mrs.
+Betty Fye departed, elated with the success of her expedition.
+
+I found to my cost, that, once admitted into the house, there was no
+keeping her away. She borrowed everything that she could think of,
+without once dreaming of restitution. I tried all ways of affronting
+her, but without success. Winter came, and she was still at her old
+pranks. Whenever I saw her coming down the lane, I used
+involuntarily to exclaim, "Betty Fye! Betty Fye! Fye upon Betty Fye!
+The Lord deliver me from Betty Fye!" The last time I was honoured
+with a visit from this worthy, she meant to favour me with a very
+large order upon my goods and chattels.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Fye, what do you want to-day?"
+
+"So many things that I scarce know where to begin. Ah, what a thing
+'tis to be poor! First, I want you to lend me ten pounds of flour to
+make some Johnnie cakes."
+
+"I thought they were made of Indian meal?"
+
+"Yes, yes, when you've got the meal. I'm out of it, and this is a
+new fixing of my own invention. Lend me the flour, woman, and I'll
+bring you one of the cakes to taste."
+
+This was said very coaxingly.
+
+"Oh, pray don't trouble yourself. What next?" I was anxious to see
+how far her impudence would go, and determined to affront her if
+possible.
+
+"I want you to lend me a gown, and a pair of stockings. I have to go
+to Oswego to see my husband's sister, and I'd like to look decent."
+
+"Mrs. Fye, I never lend my clothes to any one. If I lent them to
+you, I should never wear them again."
+
+"So much the better for me," (with a knowing grin). "I guess if you
+won't lend me the gown, you will let me have some black slack to
+quilt a stuff petticoat, a quarter of a pound of tea and some sugar;
+and I will bring them back as soon as I can."
+
+"I wonder when that will be. You owe me so many things that it will
+cost you more than you imagine to repay me."
+
+"Sure you're not going to mention what's past, I can't owe you much.
+But I will let you off the tea and the sugar, if you will lend me a
+five-dollar bill." This was too much for my patience longer to
+endure, and I answered sharply--
+
+"Mrs. Fye, it surprises me that such proud people as you Americans
+should condescend to the meanness of borrowing from those whom you
+affect to despise. Besides, as you never repay us for what you
+pretend to borrow, I look upon it as a system of robbery. If
+strangers unfortunately settle among you, their good-nature is taxed
+to supply your domestic wants, at a ruinous expense, besides the
+mortification of finding that they have been deceived and tricked
+out of their property. If you would come honestly to me and say,
+'I want these things, I am too poor to buy them myself, and would be
+obliged to you to give them to me,' I should then acknowledge you as
+a common beggar, and treat you accordingly; give or not give, as it
+suited my convenience. But in the way in which you obtain these
+articles from me, you are spared even a debt of gratitude; for you
+well know that the many things which you have borrowed from me will
+be a debt owing to the Day of Judgment."
+
+"S'pose they are," quoth Betty, not in the least abashed at my
+lecture on honesty, "you know what the Scripture saith, 'It is
+more blessed to give than to receive.'"
+
+"Ay, there is an answer to that in the same book, which doubtless
+you may have heard," said I, disgusted with her hypocrisy, "'The
+wicked borroweth, and payeth not again.'"
+
+Never shall I forget the furious passion into which this too apt
+quotation threw my unprincipled applicant. She lifted up her voice
+and cursed me, using some of the big oaths temporarily discarded for
+conscience sake. And so she left me, and I never looked upon her
+face again.
+
+When I removed to our own house, the history of which, and its
+former owner, I will give by-and-by, we had a bony, red-headed,
+ruffianly American squatter, who had "left his country for his
+country's good," for an opposite neighbour. I had scarcely time
+to put my house in order before his family commenced borrowing,
+or stealing from me. It is even worse than stealing, the things
+procured from you being obtained on false pretences--adding lying
+to theft. Not having either an oven or a cooking stove, which at
+that period were not so cheap or so common as they are now, I had
+provided myself with a large bake-kettle as a substitute. In this
+kettle we always cooked hot cakes for breakfast, preferring that to
+the trouble of thawing the frozen bread. This man's wife was in the
+habit of sending over for my kettle whenever she wanted to bake,
+which, as she had a large family, happened nearly every day, and
+I found her importunity a great nuisance.
+
+I told the impudent lad so, who was generally sent for it; and asked
+him what they did to bake their bread before I came.
+
+"I guess we had to eat cakes in the pan; but now we can borrow this
+kettle of your'n, mother can fix bread."
+
+I told him that he could have the kettle this time; but I must
+decline letting his mother have it in future, for I wanted it for
+the same purpose.
+
+The next day passed over. The night was intensely cold, and I did
+not rise so early as usual in the morning. My servant was away at a
+quilting bee, and we were still in bed, when I heard the latch of
+the kitchen-door lifted up, and a step crossed the floor. I jumped
+out of bed, and began to dress as fast as I could, when Philander
+called out, in his well-known nasal twang--
+
+"Missus! I'm come for the kettle."
+
+I (through the partition ): "You can't have it this morning. We
+cannot get our breakfast without it."
+
+Philander: "Nor more can the old woman to hum," and, snatching up
+the kettle, which had been left to warm on the hearth, he rushed out
+of the house, singing, at the top of his voice--
+
+"Hurrah for the Yankee Boys!"
+
+When James came home for his breakfast, I sent him across to demand
+the kettle, and the dame very coolly told him that when she had done
+with it I MIGHT have it, but she defied him to take it out of her
+house with her bread in it.
+
+One word more about this lad, Philander, before we part with him.
+Without the least intimation that his company would be agreeable,
+or even tolerated, he favoured us with it at all hours of the day,
+opening the door and walking in and out whenever he felt inclined.
+I had given him many broad hints that his presence was not required,
+but he paid not the slightest attention to what I said. One morning
+he marched in with his hat on, and threw himself down in the
+rocking-chair, just as I was going to dress my baby.
+
+"Philander, I want to attend to the child; I cannot do it with you
+here. Will you oblige me by going into the kitchen?"
+
+No answer. He seldom spoke during these visits, but wandered about
+the room, turning over our books and papers, looking at and handling
+everything. Nay, I have even known him to take a lid off from the
+pot on the fire, to examine its contents.
+
+I repeated my request.
+
+Philander: "Well, I guess I shan't hurt the young 'un. You can
+dress her."
+
+I: "But not with you here."
+
+Philander: "Why not? WE never do anything that we are ashamed of."
+
+I: "So it seems. But I want to sweep the room--you had better get
+out of the dust."
+
+I took the broom from the corner, and began to sweep; still my
+visitor did not stir. The dust rose in clouds; he rubbed his eyes,
+and moved a little nearer to the door. Another sweep, and, to escape
+its inflictions, he mounted the threshold. I had him now at a fair
+advantage, and fairly swept him out, and shut the door in his face.
+
+Philander (looking through the window ): "Well, I guess you did me
+then; but 'tis deuced hard to outwit a Yankee."
+
+This freed me from his company, and he, too, never repeated his
+visit; so I found by experience, that once smartly rebuked, they did
+not like to try their strength with you a second time.
+
+When a sufficient time had elapsed for the drying of my twenty
+bushels of apples, I sent a Cornish lad, in our employ, to Betty
+Fye's, to inquire if they were ready, and when I should send the
+cart for them.
+
+Dan returned with a yellow, smoke-dried string of pieces, dangling
+from his arm. Thinking that these were a specimen of the whole, I
+inquired when we were to send the barrel for the rest.
+
+"Lord, ma'am, this is all there be."
+
+"Impossible! All out of twenty bushels of apples!"
+
+"Yes," said the boy, with a grin. "The old witch told me that this
+was all that was left of your share; that when they were fixed
+enough, she put them under her bed for safety, and the mice and the
+children had eaten them all up but this string."
+
+This ended my dealings with Betty Fye.
+
+I had another incorrigible borrower in the person of old Betty B---.
+This Betty was unlike the rest of my Yankee borrowers; she was
+handsome in her person, and remarkably civil, and she asked for the
+loan of everything in such a frank, pleasant manner, that for some
+time I hardly knew how to refuse her. After I had been a loser to a
+considerable extent, and declined lending her any more, she
+refrained from coming to the house herself, but sent in her name the
+most beautiful boy in the world; a perfect cherub, with regular
+features, blue, smiling eyes, rosy cheeks, and lovely curling auburn
+hair, who said, in the softest tones imaginable, that mammy had sent
+him, with her compliments, to the English lady to ask the loan of a
+little sugar or tea. I could easily have refused the mother, but I
+could not find it in my heart to say nay to her sweet boy.
+
+There was something original about Betty B---, and I must give a
+slight sketch of her.
+
+She lived in a lone shanty in the woods, which had been erected by
+lumberers some years before, and which was destitute of a single
+acre of clearing; yet Betty had plenty of potatoes, without the
+trouble of planting, or the expense of buying; she never kept a cow,
+yet she sold butter and milk; but she had a fashion, and it proved a
+convenient one to her, of making pets of the cattle of her
+neighbours. If our cows strayed from their pastures, they were
+always found near Betty's shanty, for she regularly supplied them
+with salt, which formed a sort of bond of union between them; and,
+in return for these little attentions, they suffered themselves to
+be milked before they returned to their respective owners. Her mode
+of obtaining eggs and fowls was on the same economical plan, and we
+all looked upon Betty as a sort of freebooter, living upon the
+property of others. She had had three husbands, and he with whom she
+now lived was not her husband, although the father of the splendid
+child whose beauty so won upon my woman's heart. Her first husband
+was still living (a thing by no means uncommon among persons of her
+class in Canada), and though they had quarrelled and parted years
+ago, he occasionally visited his wife to see her eldest daughter,
+Betty the younger, who was his child. She was now a fine girl of
+sixteen, as beautiful as her little brother. Betty's second husband
+had been killed in one of our fields by a tree falling upon him
+while ploughing under it. He was buried upon the spot, part of the
+blackened stump forming his monument. In truth, Betty's character
+was none of the best, and many of the respectable farmers' wives
+regarded her with a jealous eye.
+
+"I am so jealous of that nasty Betty B---," said the wife of an
+Irish captain in the army, and our near neighbour, to me, one day as
+we were sitting at work together. She was a West Indian, and a negro
+by the mother's side, but an uncommonly fine-looking mulatto, very
+passionate, and very watchful over the conduct of her husband. "Are
+you not afraid of letting Captain Moodie go near her shanty?"
+
+"No, indeed; and if I were so foolish as to be jealous, it would not
+be of old Betty, but of the beautiful young Betty, her daughter."
+Perhaps this was rather mischievous on my part, for the poor dark
+lady went off in a frantic fit of jealousy, but this time it was not
+of old Betty.
+
+Another American squatter was always sending over to borrow a
+small-tooth comb, which she called a vermin destroyer; and once the
+same person asked the loan of a towel, as a friend had come from the
+States to visit her, and the only one she had, had been made into a
+best "pinny" for the child; she likewise begged a sight in the
+looking-glass, as she wanted to try on a new cap, to see if it were
+fixed to her mind. This woman must have been a mirror of neatness
+when compared with her dirty neighbours.
+
+One night I was roused up from my bed for the loan of a pair of
+"steelyards." For what purpose think you, gentle reader? To weigh
+a new-born infant. The process was performed by tying the poor
+squalling thing up in a small shawl, and suspending it to one of
+the hooks. The child was a fine boy, and weighed ten pounds,
+greatly to the delight of the Yankee father.
+
+One of the drollest instances of borrowing I have ever heard of was
+told me by a friend. A maid-servant asked her mistress to go out on
+a particular afternoon, as she was going to have a party of her
+friends, and wanted the loan of the drawing-room.
+
+It would be endless to enumerate our losses in this way; but,
+fortunately for us, the arrival of an English family in our
+immediate vicinity drew off the attention of our neighbours
+in that direction, and left us time to recover a little from
+their persecutions.
+
+This system of borrowing is not wholly confined to the poor and
+ignorant; it pervades every class of society. If a party is given in
+any of the small villages, a boy is sent round from house to house,
+to collect all the plates and dishes, knives and forks, teaspoons
+and candlesticks, that are presentable, for the use of the company.
+
+During my stay at the hotel, I took a dress out of my trunk, and
+hung it up upon a peg in my chamber, in order to remove the creases
+it had received from close packing. Returning from a walk in the
+afternoon, I found a note upon my dressing table, inviting us to
+spend the evening with a clergyman's family in the village; and as
+it was nearly time to dress, I went to the peg to take down my gown.
+Was it a dream?--the gown was gone. I re-opened the trunk, to see if
+I had replaced it; I searched every corner of the room, but all in
+vain; nowhere could I discover the thing I sought. What had become
+of it? The question was a delicate one, which I did not like to put
+to the young ladies of the truly respectable establishment; still,
+the loss was great, and at that moment very inconvenient. While I
+was deliberating on what course to pursue, Miss S--- entered the
+room.
+
+"I guess you missed your dress," she said, with a smile.
+
+"Do you know where it is?"
+
+"Oh, sure. Miss L---, the dressmaker, came in just after you left.
+She is a very particular friend of mine, and I showed her your
+dress. She admired it above all things, and borrowed it, to get the
+pattern for Miss R---'s wedding dress. She promised to return it
+to-morrow."
+
+"Provoking! I wanted it to-night. Who ever heard of borrowing a
+person's dress without the leave of the owner? Truly, this is a
+free-and-easy country!"
+
+One very severe winter night, a neighbour borrowed of me a
+blanket--it was one of my best--for the use of a stranger who was
+passing the night at her house. I could not well refuse; but at that
+time, the world pressed me sore, and I could ill spare it. Two years
+elapsed, and I saw no more of my blanket; at length I sent a note to
+the lady, requesting it to be returned. I got a very short answer
+back, and the blanket, alas! worn threadbare; the borrower stating
+that she had sent the article, but really she did not know what to
+do without it, as she wanted it to cover the children's bed. She
+certainly forgot that I, too, had children, who wanted covering as
+well as her own. But I have said so much of the ill results of
+others' borrowing, that I will close this sketch by relating my own
+experience in this way.
+
+After removing to the bush, many misfortunes befell us, which
+deprived us of our income, and reduced us to great poverty. In fact
+we were strangers, and the knowing ones took us in; and for many
+years we struggled with hardships which would have broken stouter
+hearts than ours, had not our trust been placed in the Almighty,
+who among all our troubles never wholly deserted us.
+
+While my husband was absent on the frontier during the rebellion,
+my youngest boy fell very sick, and required my utmost care, both
+by night and day. To attend to him properly, a candle burning
+during the night was necessary. The last candle was burnt out;
+I had no money to buy another, and no fat from which I could make
+one. I hated borrowing; but, for the dear child's sake, I overcame
+my scruples, and succeeded in procuring a candle from a good
+neighbour, but with strict injunctions (for it was HER LAST),
+that I must return it if I did not require it during the night.
+
+I went home quite grateful with my prize. It was a clear moonlight
+night--the dear boy was better, so I told old Jenny, my Irish
+servant, to go to bed, as I would lie down in my clothes by the
+child, and if he were worse I would get up and light the candle. It
+happened that a pane of glass was broken out of the window frame,
+and I had supplied its place by fitting in a shingle; my friend
+Emilia S--- had a large Tom-cat, who, when his mistress was absent,
+often paid me a predatory or borrowing visit; and Tom had a practice
+of pushing in this wooden pane, in order to pursue his lawless
+depredations. I had forgotten all this, and never dreaming that Tom
+would appropriate such light food, I left the candle lying in the
+middle of the table, just under the window.
+
+Between sleeping and waking, I heard the pane gently pushed in.
+The thought instantly struck me that it was Tom, and that, for
+lack of something better, he might steal my precious candle.
+
+I sprang up from the bed, just in time to see him dart through the
+broken window, dragging the long white candle after him. I flew to
+the door, and pursued him half over the field, but all to no
+purpose. I can see him now, as I saw him then, scampering away for
+dear life, with his prize trailing behind him, gleaming like a
+silver tail in the bright light of the moon.
+
+Ah! never did I feel more acutely the truth of the proverb, "Those
+that go a-borrowing go a-sorrowing," than I did that night. My poor
+boy awoke ill and feverish, and I had no light to assist him, or
+even to look into his sweet face, to see how far I dared hope that
+the light of day would find him better.
+
+
+OH CANADA! THY GLOOMY WOODS
+
+A song
+
+  Oh Canada! thy gloomy woods
+    Will never cheer the heart;
+  The murmur of thy mighty floods
+    But cause fresh tears to start
+  From those whose fondest wishes rest
+    Beyond the distant main;
+  Who, 'mid the forests of the West,
+    Sigh for their homes again.
+
+  I, too, have felt the chilling blight
+    Their shadows cast on me,
+  My thought by day--my dream by night--
+    Was of my own country.
+  But independent souls will brave
+    All hardships to be free;
+  No more I weep to cross the wave,
+    My native land to see.
+
+  But ever as a thought most bless'd,
+    Her distant shores will rise,
+  In all their spring-tide beauty dress'd.
+    To cheer my mental eyes.
+  And treasured in my inmost heart,
+    The friends I left behind;
+  But reason's voice, that bade us part,
+    Now bids me be resign'd.
+
+  I see my children round me play,
+    My husband's smiles approve;
+  I dash regretful tears away,
+    And lift my thoughts above:
+  In humble gratitude to bless
+    The Almighty hand that spread
+  Our table in the wilderness,
+    And gave my infants bread.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+OLD SATAN AND TOM WILSON'S NOSE
+
+
+
+  "A nose, kind sir! Sure mother Nature,
+  With all her freaks, ne'er formed this feature.
+  If such were mine, I'd try and trade it,
+  And swear the gods had never made it."
+
+
+After reducing the log cabin into some sort of order, we contrived,
+with the aid of a few boards, to make a bed-closet for poor Tom
+Wilson, who continued to shake every day with the pitiless ague.
+There was no way of admitting light and air into this domicile,
+which opened into the general apartment, but through a square hole
+cut in one of the planks, just wide enough to admit a man's head
+through the aperture. Here we made Tom a comfortable bed on the
+floor, and did the best we could to nurse him through his sickness.
+His long, thin face, emaciated with disease, and surrounded by huge
+black whiskers, and a beard of a week's growth, looked perfectly
+unearthly. He had only to stare at the baby to frighten her almost
+out of her wits.
+
+"How fond that young one is of me," he would say; "she cries for joy
+at the sight of me."
+
+Among his curiosities, and he had many, he held in great esteem a
+huge nose, made hollow to fit his face, which his father, a being
+almost as eccentric as himself, had carved out of boxwood. When he
+slipped this nose over his own (which was no beautiful classical
+specimen of a nasal organ), it made a most perfect and hideous
+disguise. The mother who bore him never would have recognised her
+accomplished son.
+
+Numberless were the tricks he played off with this nose. Once he
+walked through the streets of ---, with this proboscis attached to
+his face. "What a nose! Look at the man with the nose!" cried all
+the boys in the street. A party of Irish emigrants passed at the
+moment. The men, with the courtesy natural to their nation, forbore
+to laugh in the gentleman's face; but after they had passed, Tom
+looked back, and saw them bent half double in convulsions of mirth.
+Tom made the party a low bow, gravely took off his nose, and put it
+in his pocket.
+
+The day after this frolic, he had a very severe fit of the ague, and
+looked so ill that I really entertained fears for his life. The hot
+fit had just left him, and he lay upon his bed bedewed with a cold
+perspiration, in a state of complete exhaustion.
+
+"Poor Tom," said I, "he has passed a horrible day, but the worst
+is over, and I will make him a cup of coffee." While preparing it,
+Old Satan came in and began to talk to my husband. He happened to
+sit directly opposite the aperture which gave light and air to
+Tom's berth. This man was disgustingly ugly. He had lost one eye
+in a quarrel. It had been gouged out in the barbarous conflict,
+and the side of his face presented a succession of horrible scars
+inflicted by the teeth of his savage adversary. The nickname he had
+acquired through the country sufficiently testified to the
+respectability of his character, and dreadful tales were told of
+him in the neighbourhood, where he was alike feared and hated.
+
+The rude fellow, with his accustomed insolence, began abusing the
+old country folks.
+
+The English were great bullies, he said; they thought no one could
+fight but themselves; but the Yankees had whipped them, and would
+whip them again. He was not afear'd of them, he never was afear'd
+in his life.
+
+Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when a horrible apparition
+presented itself to his view. Slowly rising from his bed, and
+putting on the fictitious nose, while he drew his white nightcap
+over his ghastly and livid brow, Tom thrust his face through the
+aperture, and uttered a diabolical cry; then sank down upon his
+unseen couch as noiselessly as he had arisen. The cry was like
+nothing human, and it was echoed by an involuntary scream from the
+lips of our maid-servant and myself.
+
+"Good God! what's that?" cried Satan, falling back in his chair, and
+pointing to the vacant aperture. "Did you hear it? did you see it?
+It beats the universe. I never saw a ghost or the devil before!"
+
+Moodie, who had recognised the ghost, and greatly enjoyed the fun,
+pretended profound ignorance, and coolly insinuated that Old Satan
+had lost his senses. The man was bewildered; he stared at the vacant
+aperture, then at us in turn, as if he doubted the accuracy of his
+own vision. "'Tis tarnation odd," he said; "but the women heard it
+too."
+
+"I heard a sound," I said, "a dreadful sound, but I saw no ghost."
+
+"Sure an' 'twas himsel'," said my lowland Scotch girl, who now
+perceived the joke; "he was a-seeken' to gie us puir bodies a wee
+fricht."
+
+"How long have you been subject to these sort of fits?" said I. "You
+had better speak to the doctor about them. Such fancies, if they are
+not attended to, often end in madness."
+
+"Mad!" (very indignantly) "I guess I'm not mad, but as wide awake as
+you are. Did I not see it with my own eyes? And then the noise--I
+could not make such a tarnation outcry to save my life. But be it
+man or devil, I don't care, I'm not afear'd," doubling his fist very
+undecidedly at the hole. Again the ghastly head was protruded--the
+dreadful eyes rolled wildly in their hollow sockets, and a yell more
+appalling than the former rang through the room. The man sprang from
+his chair, which he overturned in his fright, and stood for an
+instant with his one-eyeball starting from his head, and glaring
+upon the spectre; his cheeks deadly pale; the cold perspiration
+streaming from his face; his lips dissevered, and his teeth
+chattering in his head.
+
+"There--there--there. Look--look, it comes again!--the devil!--the
+devil!"
+
+Here Tom, who still kept his eyes fixed upon his victim, gave a
+knowing wink, and thrust his tongue out of his mouth.
+
+"He is coming!--he is coming!" cried the affrighted wretch; and
+clearing the open doorway with one leap, he fled across the field at
+full speed. The stream intercepted his path--he passed it at a bound,
+plunged into the forest, and was out of sight.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" chuckled poor Tom, sinking down exhausted on his bed.
+"Oh that I had strength to follow up my advantage, I would lead Old
+Satan such a chase that he should think his namesake was in truth
+behind him."
+
+During the six weeks that we inhabited that wretched cabin, we never
+were troubled by Old Satan again.
+
+As Tom slowly recovered, and began to regain his appetite, his soul
+sickened over the salt beef and pork, which, owing to our distance
+from ---, formed our principal fare. He positively refused to touch
+the sad bread, as my Yankee neighbours very appropriately termed the
+unleavened cakes in the pan; and it was no easy matter to send a man
+on horseback eight miles to fetch a loaf of bread.
+
+"Do, my dear Mrs. Moodie, like a good Christian as you are, give me
+a morsel of the baby's biscuit, and try and make us some decent
+bread. The stuff your servant gives us is uneatable," said Wilson to
+me, in most imploring accents.
+
+"Most willingly. But I have no yeast; and I never baked in one of
+those strange kettles in my life."
+
+"I'll go to old Joe's wife and borrow some," said he; "they are
+always borrowing of you." Away he went across the field, but soon
+returned. I looked into his jug--it was empty. "No luck," said he;
+"those stingy wretches had just baked a fine batch of bread, and
+they would neither lend nor sell a loaf; but they told me how to
+make their milk-emptyings."
+
+"Well, discuss the same;" but I much doubted if he could remember
+the recipe.
+
+"You are to take an old tin pan," said he, sitting down on the
+stool, and poking the fire with a stick.
+
+"Must it be an old one?" said I, laughing.
+
+"Of course; they said so."
+
+"And what am I to put into it?"
+
+"Patience; let me begin at the beginning. Some flour and some
+milk--but, by George! I've forgot all about it. I was wondering as
+I came across the field why they called the yeast MILK-emptyings,
+and that put the way to make it quite out of my head. But never
+mind; it is only ten o'clock by my watch. I having nothing to do;
+I will go again."
+
+He went. Would I had been there to hear the colloquy between him and
+Mrs. Joe; he described it something to this effect:--
+
+Mrs. Joe: "Well, stranger, what do you want now?"
+
+Tom: "I have forgotten the way you told me how to make the bread."
+
+Mrs. Joe: "I never told you how to make bread. I guess you are a
+fool. People have to raise bread before they can bake it. Pray who
+sent you to make game of me? I guess somebody as wise as yourself."
+
+Tom: "The lady at whose house I am staying."
+
+Mrs. Joe: "Lady! I can tell you that we have no ladies here. So the
+old woman who lives in the old log shanty in the hollow don't know
+how to make bread. A clever wife that! Are you her husband?" (Tom
+shakes his head.)--"Her brother?"--(Another shake.)--"Her son? Do
+you hear? or are you deaf?" (Going quite close up to him.)
+
+Tom (moving back): "Mistress, I'm not deaf; and who or what I am is
+nothing to you. Will you oblige me by telling me how to make the
+mill-emptyings; and this time I'll put it down in my pocket-book."
+
+Mrs. Joe (with a strong sneer): "Mill-emptyings! Milk, I told you.
+So you expect me to answer your questions, and give back nothing in
+return. Get you gone; I'll tell you no more about it."
+
+Tom (bowing very low): "Thank you for your civility. Is the old
+woman who lives in the little shanty near the apple-trees more
+obliging?"
+
+Mrs. Joe: "That's my husband's mother. You may try. I guess she'll
+give you an answer." (Exit, slamming the door in his face.)
+
+"And what did you do then ?" said I.
+
+"Oh, went of course. The door was open, and I reconnoitred the
+premises before I ventured in. I liked the phiz of the old woman
+a deal better than that of her daughter-in-law, although it was
+cunning and inquisitive, and as sharp as a needle. She was busy
+shelling cobs of Indian corn into a barrel. I rapped at the door.
+She told me to come in, and in I stepped. She asked me if I wanted
+her. I told her my errand, at which she laughed heartily."
+
+Old woman: "You are from the old country, I guess, or you would know
+how to make milk-emptyings. Now, I always prefer bran-emptyings.
+They make the best bread. The milk, I opine, gives it a sourish
+taste, and the bran is the least trouble."
+
+Tom: "Then let us have the bran, by all means. How do you make it?"
+
+Old woman: "I put a double handful of bran into a small pot, or
+kettle, but a jug will do, and a teaspoonful of salt; but mind you
+don't kill it with salt, for if you do, it won't rise. I then add as
+much warm water, at blood-heat, as will mix it into a stiff batter.
+I then put the jug into a pan of warm water, and set it on the
+hearth near the fire, and keep it at the same heat until it rises,
+which it generally will do, if you attend to it, in two or three
+hours' time. When the bran cracks at the top, and you see white
+bubbles rising through it, you may strain it into your flour, and
+lay your bread. It makes good bread."
+
+Tom: "My good woman, I am greatly obliged to you. We have no bran;
+can you give me a small quantity?"
+
+Old woman: "I never give anything. You Englishers, who come out with
+stacks of money, can afford to buy."
+
+Tom: "Sell me a small quantity."
+
+Old woman: "I guess I will." (Edging quite close, and fixing her
+sharp eyes on him.) "You must be very rich to buy bran."
+
+Tom (quizzically): "Oh, very rich."
+
+Old woman: "How do you get your money?"
+
+Tom (sarcastically): "I don't steal it."
+
+Old woman: "Pr'aps not. I guess you'll soon let others do that
+for you, if you don't take care. Are the people you live with
+related to you?"
+
+Tom (hardly able to keep his gravity): "On Eve's side. They are my
+friends."
+
+Old woman (in surprise): "And do they keep you for nothing, or do you
+work for your meat?"
+
+Tom (impatiently): "Is that bran ready?" (The old woman goes to the
+bin, and measures out a quart of bran.) "What am I to pay you?"
+
+Old woman: "A York shilling."
+
+Tom (wishing to test her honesty): "Is there any difference between
+a York shilling and a shilling of British currency?"
+
+Old woman (evasively): "I guess not. Is there not a place in England
+called York?" (Looking up and leering knowingly in his face.)
+
+Tom (laughing): "You are not going to come York over me in that way,
+or Yankee either. There is threepence for your pound of bran; you are
+enormously paid."
+
+Old woman (calling after him): "But the recipe; do you allow nothing
+for the recipe?"
+
+Tom: "It is included in the price of the bran."
+
+"And so," said he, "I came laughing away, rejoicing in my sleeve
+that I had disappointed the avaricious old cheat."
+
+The next thing to be done was to set the bran rising. By the help of
+Tom's recipe, it was duly mixed in the coffee-pot, and placed within
+a tin pan, full of hot water, by the side of the fire. I have often
+heard it said that a watched pot never boils; and there certainly
+was no lack of watchers in this case. Tom sat for hours regarding it
+with his large heavy eyes, the maid inspected it from time to time,
+and scarce ten minutes were suffered to elapse without my testing
+the heat of the water, and the state of the emptyings; but the day
+slipped slowly away, and night drew on, and yet the watched pot gave
+no signs of vitality. Tom sighed deeply when we sat down to tea with
+the old fare.
+
+"Never mind," said he, "we shall get some good bread in the morning;
+it must get up by that time. I will wait till then. I could almost
+starve before I could touch these leaden cakes."
+
+The tea-things were removed. Tom took up his flute, and commenced a
+series of the wildest voluntary airs that ever were breathed forth
+by human lungs. Mad jigs, to which the gravest of mankind might have
+cut eccentric capers. We were all convulsed with laughter. In the
+midst of one of these droll movements, Tom suddenly hopped like a
+kangaroo (which feat he performed by raising himself upon tip-toes,
+then flinging himself forward with a stooping jerk), towards the
+hearth, and squinting down into the coffee-pot in the most quizzical
+manner, exclaimed, "Miserable chaff! If that does not make you rise
+nothing will."
+
+I left the bran all night by the fire. Early in the morning I had
+the satisfaction of finding that it had risen high above the rim of
+the pot, and was surrounded by a fine crown of bubbles.
+
+"Better late than never," thought I, as I emptied the emptyings into
+my flour. "Tom is not up yet. I will make him so happy with a loaf
+of new bread, nice home-baked bread, for his breakfast." It was my
+first Canadian loaf. I felt quite proud of it, as I placed it in the
+odd machine in which it was to be baked. I did not understand the
+method of baking in these ovens; or that my bread should have
+remained in the kettle for half an hour, until it had risen the
+second time, before I applied the fire to it, in order that the
+bread should be light. It not only required experience to know when
+it was in a fit state for baking, but the oven should have been
+brought to a proper temperature to receive the bread. Ignorant of
+all this, I put my unrisen bread into a cold kettle, and heaped a
+large quantity of hot ashes above and below it. The first intimation
+I had of the result of my experiment was the disagreeable odour of
+burning bread filling the house.
+
+"What is this horrid smell?" cried Tom, issuing from his domicile,
+in his shirt sleeves. "Do open the door, Bell (to the maid); I feel
+quite sick."
+
+"It is the bread," said I, taking the lid of the oven with the
+tongs. "Dear me, it is all burnt!"
+
+"And smells as sour as vinegar," says he. "The black bread of
+Sparta!"
+
+Alas! for my maiden loaf! With a rueful face I placed it on the
+breakfast table. "I hoped to have given you a treat, but I fear you
+will find it worse than the cakes in the pan."
+
+"You may be sure of that," said Tom, as he stuck his knife into the
+loaf, and drew it forth covered with raw dough. "Oh, Mrs. Moodie!
+I hope you make better books than bread."
+
+We were all sadly disappointed. The others submitted to my failure
+good-naturedly, and made it the subject of many droll, but not
+unkindly, witicisms. For myself, I could have borne the severest
+infliction from the pen of the most formidable critic with more
+fortitude than I bore the cutting up of my first loaf of bread.
+
+After breakfast, Moodie and Wilson rode into the town; and when they
+returned at night brought several long letters for me. Ah! those
+first kind letters from home! Never shall I forget the rapture with
+which I grasped them--the eager, trembling haste with which I tore
+them open, while the blinding tears which filled my eyes hindered me
+for some minutes from reading a word which they contained. Sixteen
+years have slowly passed away--it appears half a century--but never,
+never can home letters give me the intense joy those letters did.
+After seven years' exile, the hope of return grows feeble, the means
+are still less in our power, and our friends give up all hope of our
+return; their letters grow fewer and colder, their expressions of
+attachment are less vivid; the heart has formed new ties, and the
+poor emigrant is nearly forgotten. Double those years, and it is as
+if the grave had closed over you, and the hearts that once knew and
+loved you know you no more.
+
+Tom, too, had a large packet of letters, which he read with great
+glee. After re-perusing them, he declared his intention of setting
+off on his return home the next day. We tried to persuade him to
+stay until the following spring, and make a fair trial of the
+country. Arguments were thrown away upon him; the next morning our
+eccentric friend was ready to start.
+
+"Good-bye!" quoth he, shaking me by the hand as if he meant to sever
+it from the wrist. "When next we meet it will be in New South Wales,
+and I hope by that time you will know how to make better bread." And
+thus ended Tom Wilson's emigration to Canada. He brought out three
+hundred pounds, British currency; he remained in the country just
+four months, and returned to England with barely enough to pay his
+passage home.
+
+
+THE BACKWOODSMAN
+
+  Son of the isles! rave not to me
+  Of the old world's pride and luxury;
+  Why did you cross the western deep,
+  Thus like a love-lorn maid to weep
+  O'er comforts gone and pleasures fled,
+  'Mid forests wild to earn your bread?
+
+  Did you expect that Art would vie
+  With Nature here, to please the eye;
+  That stately tower, and fancy cot,
+  Would grace each rude concession lot;
+  That, independent of your hearth,
+  Men would admit your claims to birth?
+
+  No tyrant's fetter binds the soul,
+  The mind of man's above control;
+  Necessity, that makes the slave,
+  Has taught the free a course more brave;
+  With bold, determined heart to dare
+  The ills that all are born to share.
+
+  Believe me, youth, the truly great
+  Stoop not to mourn o'er fallen state;
+  They make their wants and wishes less,
+  And rise superior to distress;
+  The glebe they break--the sheaf they bind--
+  But elevates a noble mind.
+
+  Contented in my rugged cot,
+  Your lordly towers I envy not;
+  Though rude our clime and coarse our cheer,
+  True independence greets you here;
+  Amid these forests, dark and wild,
+  Dwells honest labour's hardy child.
+
+  His happy lot I gladly share,
+  And breathe a purer, freer air;
+  No more by wealthy upstart spurn'd,
+  The bread is sweet by labour earn'd;
+  Indulgent heaven has bless'd the soil,
+  And plenty crowns the woodman's toil.
+
+  Beneath his axe, the forest yields
+  Its thorny maze to fertile fields;
+  This goodly breadth of well-till'd land,
+  Well-purchased by his own right hand,
+  With conscience clear, he can bequeath
+  His children, when he sleeps in death.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+UNCLE JOE AND HIS FAMILY
+
+
+
+  "Ay, your rogue is a laughing rogue, and not a whit the less
+  dangerous for the smile on his lip, which comes not from an
+  honest heart, which reflects the light of the soul through
+  the eye. All is hollow and dark within; and the contortion
+  of the lip, like the phosophoric glow upon decayed timber,
+  only serves to point out the rotteness within."
+
+
+Uncle Joe! I see him now before me, with his jolly red face,
+twinkling black eyes, and rubicund nose. No thin, weasel-faced
+Yankee was he, looking as if he had lived upon 'cute ideas and
+speculations all his life; yet Yankee he was by birth, ay, and in
+mind, too; for a more knowing fellow at a bargain never crossed the
+lakes to abuse British institutions and locate himself comfortably
+among despised Britishers. But, then, he had such a good-natured,
+fat face, such a mischievous, mirth-loving smile, and such a merry,
+roguish expression in those small, jet-black, glittering eyes, that
+you suffered yourself to be taken in by him, without offering the
+least resistance to his impositions.
+
+Uncle Joe's father had been a New England loyalist, and his doubtful
+attachment to the British government had been repaid by a grant of
+land in the township of H---. He was the first settler in that
+township, and chose his location in a remote spot, for the sake of a
+beautiful natural spring, which bubbled up in a small stone basin in
+the green bank at the back of the house.
+
+"Father might have had the pick of the township," quoth Uncle Joe;
+"but the old coon preferred that sup of good water to the site of a
+town. Well, I guess it's seldom I trouble the spring; and whenever I
+step that way to water the horses, I think what a tarnation fool the
+old one was, to throw away such a chance of making his fortune, for
+such cold lap."
+
+"Your father was a temperance man?"
+
+"Temperance!--He had been fond enough of the whiskey bottle in his
+day. He drank up a good farm in the United States, and then he
+thought he could not do better than turn loyal, and get one here for
+nothing. He did not care a cent, not he, for the King of England.
+He thought himself as good, any how. But he found that he would have
+to work hard here to scratch along, and he was mightily plagued with
+the rheumatics, and some old woman told him that good spring water
+was the best cure for that; so he chose this poor, light, stony land
+on account of the spring, and took to hard work and drinking cold
+water in his old age."
+
+"How did the change agree with him?"
+
+"I guess better than could have been expected. He planted that fine
+orchard, and cleared his hundred acres, and we got along slick
+enough as long as the old fellow lived."
+
+"And what happened after his death, that obliged you to part with
+your land?"
+
+"Bad times--bad crops," said Uncle Joe, lifting his shoulders.
+"I had not my father's way of scraping money together. I made some
+deuced clever speculations, but they all failed. I married young,
+and got a large family; and the women critters ran up heavy bills at
+the stores, and the crops did not yield enough to pay them; and from
+bad we got to worse, and Mr. C--- put in an execution, and seized
+upon the whole concern. He sold it to your man for double what it
+cost him; and you got all that my father toiled for during the last
+twenty years of his life for less than half the cash he laid out
+upon clearing it."
+
+"And had the whiskey nothing to do with this change?" said I,
+looking him in the face suspiciously.
+
+"Not a bit! When a man gets into difficulties, it is the only thing
+to keep him from sinking outright. When your husband has had as many
+troubles as I have had, he will know how to value the whiskey
+bottle."
+
+This conversation was interrupted by a queer-looking urchin of five
+years old, dressed in a long-tailed coat and trousers, popping his
+black shock head in at the door, and calling out,
+
+"Uncle Joe!--You're wanted to hum."
+
+"Is that your nephew?"
+
+"No! I guess 'tis my woman's eldest son," said Uncle Joe, rising,
+"but they call me Uncle Joe. 'Tis a spry chap that--as cunning as
+a fox. I tell you what it is--he will make a smart man. Go home,
+Ammon, and tell your ma that I am coming."
+
+"I won't," said the boy; "you may go hum and tell her yourself.
+She has wanted wood cut this hour, and you'll catch it!"
+
+Away ran the dutiful son, but not before he had applied his
+forefinger significantly to the side of his nose, and, with a
+knowing wink, pointed in the direction of home.
+
+Uncle Joe obeyed the signal, drily remarking that he could not leave
+the barn door without the old hen clucking him back.
+
+At this period we were still living in Old Satan's log house, and
+anxiously looking out for the first snow to put us in possession of
+the good substantial log dwelling occupied by Uncle Joe and his
+family, which consisted of a brown brood of seven girls, and the
+highly-prized boy who rejoiced in the extraordinary name of Ammon.
+
+Strange names are to be found in this free country. What think you,
+gentle reader, of Solomon Sly, Reynard Fox, and Hiram Dolittle and
+Prudence Fidget; all veritable names, and belonging to substantial
+yeomen? After Ammon and Ichabod, I should not be at all surprised
+to meet with Judas Iscariot, Pilate, and Herod. And then the female
+appellations! But the subject is a delicate one and I will forbear
+to touch upon it. I have enjoyed many a hearty laugh over the
+strange affectations which people designate here very handsome
+names. I prefer the old homely Jewish names, such as that which it
+pleased my godfather and godmothers to bestow upon me, to one of
+those high-sounding christianities, the Minervas, Cinderellas, and
+Almerias of Canada. The love of singular names is here carried to a
+marvellous extent. It is only yesterday that, in passing through one
+busy village, I stopped in astonishment before a tombstone headed
+thus: "Sacred to the memory of Silence Sharman, the beloved wife of
+Asa Sharman." Was the woman deaf and dumb, or did her friends hope
+by bestowing upon her such an impossible name to still the voice of
+Nature, and check, by an admonitory appellative, the active spirit
+that lives in the tongue of woman? Truly, Asa Sharman, if thy wife
+was silent by name as well as by nature, thou wert a fortunate man!
+
+But to return to Uncle Joe. He made many fair promises of leaving
+the residence we had bought, the moment he had sold his crops and
+could remove his family. We could see no interest which could be
+served by his deceiving us, and therefore we believed him, striving
+to make ourselves as comfortable as we could in the meantime in our
+present wretched abode. But matters are never so bad but that they
+may be worse. One day when we were at dinner, a waggon drove up to
+the door, and Mr. --- alighted, accompanied by a fine-looking,
+middle-aged man, who proved to be Captain S---, who had just arrived
+from Demarara with his wife and family. Mr. ---, who had purchased
+the farm of Old Satan, had brought Captain S--- over to inspect the
+land, as he wished to buy a farm, and settle in that neighbourhood.
+With some difficulty I contrived to accommodate the visitors with
+seats, and provide them with a tolerable dinner. Fortunately, Moodie
+had brought in a brace of fine fat partridges that morning; these
+the servant transferred to a pot of boiling water, in which
+she immersed them for the space of a minute--a novel but very
+expeditious way of removing the feathers, which then come off
+at the least touch. In less than ten minutes they were stuffed,
+trussed, and in the bake-kettle; and before the gentlemen returned
+from walking over the farm, the dinner was on the table.
+
+To our utter consternation, Captain S--- agreed to purchase, and
+asked if we could give him possession in a week!
+
+"Good heavens!" cried I, glancing reproachfully at Mr. ---, who was
+discussing his partridge with stoical indifference. "What will
+become of us? Where are we to go?"
+
+"Oh, make yourself easy; I will force that old witch, Joe's mother,
+to clear out."
+
+"But 'tis impossible to stow ourselves into that pig-sty."
+
+"It will only be for a week or two, at farthest. This is October;
+Joe will be sure to be off by the first of sleighing."
+
+"But if she refuses to give up the place?"
+
+"Oh, leave her to me. I'll talk her over," said the knowing land
+speculator. "Let it come to the worst," he said, turning to my
+husband, "she will go out for the sake of a few dollars. By-the-by,
+she refused to bar the dower when I bought the place; we must cajole
+her out of that. It is a fine afternoon; suppose we walk over the
+hill, and try our luck with the old nigger?"
+
+I felt so anxious about the result of the negotiation, that,
+throwing my cloak over my shoulders, and tying on my bonnet without
+the assistance of a glass, I took my husband's arm, and we walked
+forth.
+
+It was a bright, clear afternoon, the first week in October, and the
+fading woods, not yet denuded of their gorgeous foliage, glowed in a
+mellow, golden light. A soft purple haze rested on the bold outline
+of the Haldimand hills, and in the rugged beauty of the wild
+landscape I soon forgot the purport of our visit to the old woman's
+log hut.
+
+On reaching the ridge of the hill, the lovely valley in which our
+future home lay smiled peacefully upon us from amidst its fruitful
+orchards, still loaded with their rich, ripe fruit.
+
+"What a pretty place it is!" thought I, for the first time feeling
+something like a local interest in the spot, springing up in my
+heart. "How I wish those odious people would give us possession of
+the home which for some time has been our own."
+
+The log hut that we were approaching, and in which the old woman,
+R---, resided by herself--having quarrelled years ago with her son's
+wife--was of the smallest dimensions, only containing one room,
+which served the old dame for kitchen, and bed-room, and all. The
+open door, and a few glazed panes, supplied it with light and air;
+while a huge hearth, on which crackled two enormous logs--which are
+technically termed a front and a back stick--took up nearly half the
+domicile; and the old woman's bed, which was covered with an
+unexceptionally clean patched quilt, nearly the other half, leaving
+just room for a small home-made deal table, of the rudest
+workmanship, two basswood-bottomed chairs, stained red, one of which
+was a rocking-chair, appropiated solely to the old woman's use, and
+a spinning wheel. Amidst this muddle of things--for small as was the
+quantum of furniture, it was all crowded into such a tiny space that
+you had to squeeze your way through it in the best manner you
+could--we found the old woman, with a red cotton handkerchief tied
+over her grey locks, hood-fashion, shelling white bush-beans into a
+wooden bowl. Without rising from her seat, she pointed to the only
+remaining chair. "I guess, miss, you can sit there; and if the
+others can't stand, they can make a seat of my bed."
+
+The gentlemen assured her that they were not tired, and could
+dispense with seats. Mr. --- then went up to the old woman, and
+proffering his hand, asked after her health in his blandest manner.
+
+"I'm none the better for seeing you, or the like of you," was the
+ungracious reply. "You have cheated my poor boy out of his good
+farm; and I hope it may prove a bad bargain to you and yours."
+
+"Mrs. R---," returned the land speculator, nothing ruffled by her
+unceremonious greeting, "I could not help your son giving way to
+drink, and getting into my debt. If people will be so imprudent,
+they cannot be so stupid as to imagine that others can suffer for
+their folly."
+
+"Suffer!" repeated the old woman, flashing her small, keen black
+eyes upon him with a glance of withering scorn. "You suffer! I
+wonder what the widows and orphans you have cheated would say to
+that? My son was a poor, weak, silly fool, to be sucked in by the
+like of you. For a debt of eight hundred dollars--the goods never
+cost you four hundred--you take from us our good farm; and these,
+I s'pose," pointing to my husband and me, "are the folk you sold
+it to. Pray, miss," turning quickly to me, "what might your man
+give for the place?"
+
+"Three hundred pounds in cash."
+
+"Poor sufferer!" again sneered the hag. "Four hundred dollars is a
+very SMALL profit in as many weeks. Well, I guess, you beat the
+Yankees hollow. And pray, what brought you here to-day, scenting
+about you like a carrion-crow? We have no more land for you to seize
+from us."
+
+Moodie now stepped forward, and briefly explained our situation,
+offering the old woman anything in reason to give up the cottage and
+reside with her son until he removed from the premises; which, he
+added, must be in a very short time.
+
+The old dame regarded him with a sarcastic smile. "I guess, Joe will
+take his own time. The house is not built which is to receive him;
+and he is not a man to turn his back upon a warm hearth to camp in
+the wilderness. You were GREEN when you bought a farm of that man,
+without getting along with it the right of possession."
+
+"But, Mrs. R---, your son promised to go out the first of
+sleighing."
+
+"Wheugh!" said the old woman. "Would you have a man give away his
+hat and leave his own head bare? It's neither the first snow nor the
+last frost that will turn Joe out of his comfortable home. I tell
+you all that he will stay here, if it is only to plague you."
+
+Threats and remonstrances were alike useless, the old woman remained
+inexorable; and we were just turning to leave the house, when the
+cunning old fox exclaimed, "And now, what will you give me to leave
+my place?"
+
+"Twelve dollars, if you give us possession next Monday," said my
+husband.
+
+"Twelve dollars! I guess you won't get me out for that."
+
+"The rent would not be worth more than a dollar a month," said
+Mr. ---, pointing with his cane to the dilapidated walls.
+"Mr. Moodie has offered you a year's rent for the place."
+
+"It may not be worth a cent," returned the woman; "for it will give
+everybody the rheumatism that stays a week in it--but it is worth
+that to me, and more nor double that just now to him. But I will not
+be hard with him," continued she, rocking herself to and fro. "Say
+twenty dollars, and I will turn out on Monday."
+
+"I dare say you will," said Mr. ---, "and who do you think would be
+fool enough to give you such an exorbitant sum for a ruined old shed
+like this?"
+
+"Mind your own business, and make your own bargains," returned the
+old woman, tartly. "The devil himself could not deal with you, for I
+guess he would have the worst of it. What do you say, sir?" and she
+fixed her keen eyes upon my husband, as if she would read his
+thoughts. "Will you agree to my price?"
+
+"It is a very high one, Mrs. R---; but as I cannot help myself, and
+you take advantage of that, I suppose I must give it."
+
+"'Tis a bargain," cried the old crone, holding out her hard, bony
+hand. "Come, cash down!"
+
+"Not until you give me possession on Monday next; or you might serve
+me as your son has done."
+
+"Ha!" said the old woman, laughing and rubbing her hands together;
+"you begin to see daylight, do you? In a few months, with the help
+of him," pointing to Mr. ---, "you will be able to go alone; but
+have a care of your teacher, for it's no good that you will learn
+from him. But will you really stand to your word, mister?" she
+added, in a coaxing tone, "if I go out on Monday?"
+
+"To be sure I will; I never break my word."
+
+"Well, I guess you are not so clever as our people, for they only
+keep it as long as it suits them. You have an honest look; I will
+trust you; but I will not trust him," nodding to Mr. ---, "he can
+buy and sell his word as fast as a horse can trot. So on Monday I
+will turn out my traps. I have lived here six-and-thirty years; 'tis
+a pretty place and it vexes me to leave it," continued the poor
+creature, as a touch of natural feeling softened and agitated her
+world-hardened heart. "There is not an acre in cultivation but I
+helped to clear it, nor a tree in yonder orchard but I held it while
+my poor man, who is dead and gone, planted it; and I have watched
+the trees bud from year to year, until their boughs overshadowed the
+hut, where all my children, but Joe, were born. Yes, I came here
+young, and in my prime; and I must leave it in age and poverty. My
+children and husband are dead, and their bones rest beneath the turf
+in the burying-ground on the side of the hill. Of all that once
+gathered about my knees, Joe and his young ones alone remain. And it
+is hard, very hard, that I must leave their graves to be turned by
+the plough of a stranger."
+
+I felt for the desolate old creature--the tears rushed to my eyes;
+but there was no moisture in hers. No rain from the heart could
+filter through that iron soil.
+
+"Be assured, Mrs. R---," said Moodie, "that the dead will be held
+sacred; the place will never be disturbed by me."
+
+"Perhaps not; but it is not long that you will remain here. I have
+seen a good deal in my time; but I never saw a gentleman from the
+old country make a good Canadian farmer. The work is rough and hard,
+and they get out of humour with it, and leave it to their hired
+helps, and then all goes wrong. They are cheated on all sides, and
+in despair take to the whiskey bottle, and that fixes them. I tell
+you what it is, mister--I give you just three years to spend your
+money and ruin yourself; and then you will become a confirmed
+drunkard, like the rest."
+
+The first part of her prophecy was only too true. Thank God! the
+last has never been fulfilled, and never can be.
+
+Perceiving that the old woman was not a little elated with her
+bargain, Mr. --- urged upon her the propriety of barring the dower.
+At first, she was outrageous, and very abusive, and rejected all his
+proposals with contempt; vowing that she would meet him in a certain
+place below, before she would sign away her right to the property.
+
+"Listen to reason, Mrs. R---," said the land speculator. "If you
+will sign the papers before the proper authorities, the next time
+your son drives you to C---, I will give you a silk gown."
+
+"Pshaw! Buy a shroud for yourself; you will need it before I want a
+silk gown," was the ungracious reply.
+
+"Consider woman; a black silk of the best quality."
+
+"To mourn in for my sins, or for the loss of the farm?"
+
+"Twelve yards," continued Mr. ---, without noticing her rejoinder,
+"at a dollar a yard. Think what a nice church-going gown it will
+make."
+
+"To the devil with you! I never go to church."
+
+"I thought as much," said Mr. ---, winking to us. "Well, my dear
+madam, what will satisfy you?"
+
+"I'll do it for twenty dollars," returned the old woman, rocking
+herself to and fro in her chair; her eyes twinkling, and her hands
+moving convulsively, as if she already grasped the money so dear to
+her soul.
+
+"Agreed," said the land speculator. "When will you be in town?"
+
+"On Tuesday, if I be alive. But, remember, I'll not sign till I have
+my hand on the money."
+
+"Never fear," said Mr. ---, as we quitted the house; then, turning
+to me, he added, with a peculiar smile," That's a devilish smart
+woman. She would have made a clever lawyer."
+
+Monday came, and with it all the bustle of moving, and, as is
+generally the case on such occasions, it turned out a very wet day.
+I left Old Satan's hut without regret, glad, at any rate, to be in a
+place of my own, however humble. Our new habitation, though small,
+had a decided advantage over the one we were leaving. It stood on
+a gentle slope; and a narrow but lovely stream, full of pretty
+speckled trout, ran murmuring under the little window; the house,
+also, was surrounded by fine fruit trees.
+
+I know not how it was, but the sound of that tinkling brook, for
+ever rolling by, filled my heart with a strange melancholy, which
+for many nights deprived me of rest. I loved it, too. The voice of
+waters, in the stillness of night, always had an extraordinary
+effect upon my mind. Their ceaseless motion and perpetual sound
+convey to me the idea of life--eternal life; and looking upon them,
+glancing and flashing on, now in sunshine, now in shade, now
+hoarsely chiding with the opposing rock, now leaping triumphantly
+over it, creates within me a feeling of mysterious awe of which I
+never could wholly divest myself.
+
+A portion of my own spirit seemed to pass into that little stream.
+In its deep wailings and fretful sighs, I fancied myself lamenting
+for the land I had left for ever; and its restless and impetuous
+rushings against the stones which choked its passage, were mournful
+types of my own mental struggles against the destiny which hemmed me
+in. Through the day the stream still moaned and travelled on,--but,
+engaged in my novel and distasteful occupations, I heard it not;
+but whenever my winged thoughts flew homeward, then the voice of
+the brook spoke deeply and sadly to my heart, and my tears flowed
+unchecked to its plaintive and harmonious music.
+
+In a few hours I had my new abode more comfortably arranged than
+the old, although its dimensions were much smaller. The location
+was beautiful, and I was greatly consoled by this circumstance.
+The aspect of Nature ever did, and I hope ever will continue--
+
+"To shoot marvellous strength into my heart."
+
+As long as we remain true to the Divine Mother, so long will she
+remain faithful to her suffering children.
+
+At that period my love for Canada was a feeling very nearly allied
+to that which the condemned criminal entertains for his cell--his
+only hope of escape being through the portals of the grave.
+
+The fall rains had commenced. In a few days the cold wintry showers
+swept all the gorgeous crimson from the trees; and a bleak and
+desolate waste presented itself to the shuddering spectator. But, in
+spite of wind and rain, my little tenement was never free from the
+intrusion of Uncle Joe's wife and children. Their house stood about
+a stone's-throw from the hut we occupied, in the same meadow, and
+they seemed to look upon it still as their own, although we had
+literally paid for it twice over. Fine strapping girls they were,
+from five years old to fourteen, but rude and unnurtured as so many
+bears. They would come in without the least ceremony, and, young as
+they were, ask me a thousand impertinent questions; and when I
+civilly requested them to leave the room, they would range
+themselves upon the door-step, watching my motions, with their
+black eyes gleaming upon me through their tangled, uncombed locks.
+Their company was a great annoyance, for it obliged me to put a
+painful restraint upon the thoughtfulness in which it was so
+delightful to me to indulge. Their visits were not visits of love,
+but of mere idle curiosity, not unmingled with malicious pleasure
+at my awkward attempts at Canadian house-wiferies.
+
+The simplicity, the fond, confiding faith of childhood is unknown
+in Canada. There are no children here. The boy is a miniature
+man--knowing, keen, and wide awake; as able to drive a bargain
+and take an advantage of his juvenile companion as the grown-up,
+world-hardened man. The girl, a gossipping flirt, full of vanity
+and affectation, with a premature love of finery, and an acute
+perception of the advantages to be derived from wealth, and from
+keeping up a certain appearance in the world.
+
+The flowers, the green grass, the glorious sunshine, the birds of
+the air, and the young lambs gambolling down the verdant slopes,
+which fill the heart of a British child with a fond ecstacy, bathing
+the young spirit in Elysium, would float unnoticed before the vision
+of a Canadian child; while the sight of a dollar, or a new dress, or
+a gay bonnet, would swell its proud bosom with self-importance and
+delight. The glorious blush of modest diffidence, the tear of gentle
+sympathy, are so rare on the cheek, or in the eye of the young, that
+their appearance creates a feeling of surprise. Such perfect
+self-reliance in beings so new to the world is painful to a thinking
+mind. It betrays a great want of sensibility and mental culture, and
+a melancholy knowledge of the arts of life.
+
+For a week I was alone, my good Scotch girl having left me to visit
+her father. Some small baby-articles were needed to be washed, and
+after making a great preparation, I determined to try my unskilled
+hand upon the operation. The fact is, I knew nothing about the task
+I had imposed upon myself, and in a few minutes rubbed the skin off
+my wrists, without getting the clothes clean.
+
+The door was open, as it generally was, even during the coldest
+winter days, in order to let in more light, and let out the smoke,
+which otherwise would have enveloped us like a cloud. I was so busy
+that I did not perceive that I was watched by the cold, heavy, dark
+eyes of Mrs. Joe, who, with a sneering laugh, exclaimed--
+
+"Well, thank God! I am glad to see you brought to work at last.
+I hope you may have to work as hard as I have. I don't see, not I,
+why you, who are no better than me, should sit still all day, like
+a lady!"
+
+"Mrs. R---," said I, not a little annoyed at her presence, "what
+concern is it of yours whether I work or sit still? I never
+interfere with you. If you took it into your head to lie in bed
+all day, I should never trouble myself about it."
+
+"Ah, I guess you don't look upon us as fellow-critters, you are so
+proud and grand. I s'pose you Britishers are not made of flesh and
+blood like us. You don't choose to sit down at meat with your helps.
+Now, I calculate, we think them a great deal better nor you."
+
+"Of course," said I, "they are more suited to you than we are; they
+are uneducated, and so are you. This is no fault in either; but it
+might teach you to pay a little more respect to those who are
+possessed of superior advantages. But, Mrs. R---, my helps, as you
+call them, are civil and obliging, and never make unprovoked and
+malicious speeches. If they could so far forget themselves, I should
+order them to leave the house."
+
+"Oh, I see what you are up to," replied the insolent dame; "you mean
+to say that if I were your help you would turn me out of your house;
+but I'm a free-born American, and I won't go at your bidding. Don't
+think I came here out of regard to you. No, I hate you all; and I
+rejoice to see you at the wash-tub, and I wish that you may be
+brought down upon your knees to scrub the floors."
+
+This speech only caused a smile, and yet I felt hurt and astonished
+that a woman whom I had never done anything to offend should be so
+gratuitously spiteful.
+
+In the evening she sent two of her brood over to borrow my "long
+iron," as she called an Italian iron. I was just getting my baby to
+sleep, sitting upon a low stool by the fire. I pointed to the iron
+upon the shelf, and told the girl to take it. She did so, but stood
+beside me, holding it carelessly in her hand, and staring at the
+baby, who had just sunk to sleep upon my lap.
+
+The next moment the heavy iron fell from her relaxed grasp, giving
+me a severe blow upon my knee and foot; and glanced so near the
+child's head that it drew from me a cry of terror.
+
+"I guess that was nigh braining the child," quoth Miss Amanda, with
+the greatest coolness, and without making the least apology. Master
+Ammon burst into a loud laugh. "If it had, Mandy, I guess we'd have
+cotched it." Provoked at their insolence, I told them to leave the
+house. The tears were in my eyes, for I felt that had they injured
+the child, it would not have caused them the least regret.
+
+The next day, as we were standing at the door, my husband was
+greatly amused by seeing fat Uncle Joe chasing the rebellious Ammon
+over the meadow in front of the house. Joe was out of breath,
+panting and puffing like a small steam-engine, and his face flushed
+to deep red with excitement and passion. "You --- young scoundrel!"
+he cried, half choked with fury, "If I catch up to you, I'll take
+the skin off you!"
+
+"You --- old scoundrel, you may have my skin if you can get at me,"
+retorted the precocious child, as he jumped up upon the top of the
+high fence, and doubled his fist in a menacing manner at his father.
+
+"That boy is growing too bad," said Uncle Joe, coming up to us out
+of breath, the perspiration streaming down his face. "It is time to
+break him in, or he'll get the master of us all."
+
+"You should have begun that before," said Moodie. "He seems a
+hopeful pupil."
+
+"Oh, as to that, a little swearing is manly," returned the father;
+"I swear myself, I know, and as the old cock crows, so crows the
+young one. It is not his swearing that I care a pin for, but he will
+not do a thing I tell him to."
+
+"Swearing is a dreadful vice," said I, "and, wicked as it is in the
+mouth of a grown-up person, it is perfectly shocking in a child; it
+painfully tells he has been brought up without the fear of God."
+
+"Pooh! pooh! that's all cant; there is no harm in a few oaths, and I
+cannot drive oxen and horses without swearing. I dare say that you
+can swear too when you are riled, but you are too cunning to let us
+hear you."
+
+I could not help laughing outright at this supposition, but replied
+very quietly, "Those who practice such iniquities never take any
+pains to conceal them. The concealment would infer a feeling of
+shame; and when people are conscious of the guilt, they are in the
+road to improvement." The man walked whistling away, and the wicked
+child returned unpunished to his home.
+
+The next minute the old woman came in. "I guess you can give me a
+piece of silk for a hood," said she, "the weather is growing
+considerable cold."
+
+"Surely it cannot well be colder than it is at present," said I,
+giving her the rocking-chair by the fire.
+
+"Wait a while; you know nothing of a Canadian winter. This is only
+November; after the Christmas thaw, you'll know something about the
+cold. It is seven-and-thirty years ago since I and my man left the
+U-ni-ted States. It was called the year of the great winter. I tell
+you, woman, that the snow lay so deep on the earth, that it blocked
+up all the roads, and we could drive a sleigh whither we pleased,
+right over the snake fences. All the cleared land was one wide white
+level plain; it was a year of scarcity, and we were half starved;
+but the severe cold was far worse nor the want of provisions. A long
+and bitter journey we had of it; but I was young then, and pretty
+well used to trouble and fatigue; my man stuck to the British
+government. More fool he! I was an American born, and my heart was
+with the true cause. But his father was English, and, says he, 'I'll
+live and die under their flag.' So he dragged me from my comfortable
+fireside to seek a home in the far Canadian wilderness. Trouble! I
+guess you think you have your troubles; but what are they to mine?"
+She paused, took a pinch of snuff, offered me the box, sighed
+painfully, pushed the red handkerchief from her high, narrow,
+wrinkled brow, and continued: "Joe was a baby then, and I had
+another helpless critter in my lap--an adopted child. My sister
+had died from it, and I was nursing it at the same breast with
+my boy. Well, we had to perform a journey of four hundred miles
+in an ox-cart, which carried, besides me and the children, all
+our household stuff. Our way lay chiefly through the forest, and
+we made but slow progress. Oh! what a bitter cold night it was
+when we reached the swampy woods where the city of Rochester now
+stands. The oxen were covered with icicles, and their breath sent
+up clouds of steam. 'Nathan,' says I to my man, 'you must stop and
+kindle a fire; I am dead with cold, and I fear the babes will be
+frozen.' We began looking about for a good spot to camp in, when I
+spied a light through the trees. It was a lone shanty, occupied by
+two French lumberers. The men were kind; they rubbed our frozen
+limbs with snow, and shared with us their supper and buffalo skins.
+On that very spot where we camped that night, where we heard nothing
+but the wind soughing amongst the trees, and the rushing of the
+river, now stands the great city of Rochester. I went there two
+years ago, to the funeral of a brother. It seemed to me like a
+dream. Where we foddered our beasts by the shanty fire now stands
+the largest hotel in the city; and my husband left this fine growing
+country to starve here."
+
+I was so much interested in the old woman's narrative--for she was
+really possessed of no ordinary capacity, and, though rude and
+uneducated might have been a very superior person under different
+circumstances--that I rummaged among my store, and soon found a
+piece of black silk, which I gave her for the hood she required.
+
+The old woman examined it carefully over, smiled to herself, but,
+like all her people, was too proud to return a word of thanks. One
+gift to the family always involved another.
+
+"Have you any cotton-batting, or black sewing-silk, to give me,
+to quilt it with?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Humph!" returned the old dame, in a tone which seemed to contradict
+my assertion. She then settled herself in her chair, and, after
+shaking her foot awhile, and fixing her piercing eyes upon me for
+some minutes, she commenced the following list of interrogatories:--
+
+"Is your father alive?"
+
+"No; he died many years ago, when I was a young girl."
+
+"Is your mother alive?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What is her name?" I satisfied her on this point.
+
+"Did she ever marry again?"
+
+"She might have done so, but she loved her husband too well,
+and preferred living single."
+
+"Humph! We have no such notions here. What was your father?"
+
+"A gentleman, who lived upon his own estate."
+
+"Did he die rich?"
+
+"He lost the greater part of his property from being surety for
+another."
+
+"That's a foolish business. My man burnt his fingers with that.
+And what brought you out to this poor country--you, who are no
+more fit for it than I am to be a fine lady?"
+
+"The promise of a large grant of land, and the false statements we
+heard regarding it."
+
+"Do you like the country?"
+
+"No; and I fear I never shall."
+
+"I thought not; for the drop is always on your cheek, the children
+tell me; and those young ones have keen eyes. Now, take my advice:
+return while your money lasts; the longer you remain in Canada the
+less you will like it; and when your money is all spent, you will be
+like a bird in a cage; you may beat your wings against the bars, but
+you can't get out." There was a long pause. I hoped that my guest
+had sufficiently gratified her curiosity, when she again
+commenced:--
+
+"How do you get your money? Do you draw it from the old country, or
+have you it with you in cash?"
+
+Provoked by her pertinacity, and seeing no end to her
+cross-questioning, I replied, very impatiently, "Mrs. R---, is it
+the custom in your country to catechise strangers whenever you meet
+with them?"
+
+"What do you mean?" she said, colouring, I believe, for the first
+time in her life.
+
+"I mean," quoth I, "an evil habit of asking impertinent questions."
+
+The old woman got up, and left the house without speaking another
+word.
+
+
+THE SLEIGH-BELLS
+
+  'Tis merry to hear, at evening time,
+  By the blazing hearth the sleigh-bells chime;
+  To know the bounding steeds bring near
+  The loved one to our bosom dear.
+  Ah, lightly we spring the fire to raise,
+  Till the rafters glow with the ruddy blaze;
+  Those merry sleigh-bells, our hearts keep time
+  Responsive to their fairy chime.
+  Ding-dong, ding-dong, o'er vale and hill,
+  Their welcome notes are trembling still.
+
+  'Tis he, and blithely the gay bells sound,
+  As glides his sleigh o'er the frozen ground;
+  Hark! he has pass'd the dark pine wood,
+  He crosses now the ice-bound flood,
+  And hails the light at the open door
+  That tells his toilsome journey's o'er.
+  The merry sleigh-bells! My fond heart swells
+  And throbs to hear the welcome bells;
+  Ding-dong, ding-dong, o'er ice and snow,
+  A voice of gladness, on they go.
+
+  Our hut is small, and rude our cheer,
+  But love has spread the banquet here;
+  And childhood springs to be caress'd
+  By our beloved and welcome guest.
+  With a smiling brow, his tale he tells,
+  The urchins ring the merry sleigh-bells;
+  The merry sleigh-bells, with shout and song
+  They drag the noisy string along;
+  Ding-dong, ding-dong, the father's come
+  The gay bells ring his welcome home.
+
+  From the cedar-swamp the gaunt wolves howl,
+  From the oak loud whoops the felon owl;
+  The snow-storm sweeps in thunder past,
+  The forest creaks beneath the blast;
+  No more I list, with boding fear,
+  The sleigh-bells' distant chime to hear.
+  The merry sleigh-bells, with soothing power
+  Shed gladness on the evening hour.
+  Ding-dong, ding-dong, what rapture swells
+  The music of those joyous bells.
+
+[Many versions have been given of this song, and it has been
+set to music in the States. I here give the original copy,
+written whilst leaning on the open door of my shanty, and
+watching for the return of my husband.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+JOHN MONAGHAN
+
+
+
+  "Dear mother Nature! on thy ample breast
+  Hast thou not room for thy neglected son?
+  A stern necessity has driven him forth
+  Alone and friendless. He has naught but thee,
+  And the strong hand and stronger heart thou gavest,
+  To win with patient toil his daily bread."
+
+
+A few days after the old woman's visit to the cottage, our servant
+James absented himself for a week, without asking leave, or giving
+any intimation of his intention. He had under his care a fine pair
+of horses, a yoke of oxen, three cows, and a numerous family of
+pigs, besides having to chop all the firewood required for our use.
+His unexpected departure caused no small trouble in the family; and
+when the truant at last made his appearance, Moodie discharged him
+altogether.
+
+The winter had now fairly set in--the iron winter of 1833. The snow
+was unusually deep, and it being our first winter in Canada, and
+passed in such a miserable dwelling, we felt it very severely.
+In spite of all my boasted fortitude--and I think my powers of
+endurance have been tried to the uttermost since my sojourn in this
+country--the rigour of the climate subdued my proud, independent
+English spirit, and I actually shamed my womanhood and cried with
+the cold. Yes, I ought to blush at evincing such unpardonable
+weakness; but I was foolish and inexperienced, and unaccustomed
+to the yoke.
+
+My husband did not much relish performing the menial duties of a
+servant in such weather, but he did not complain, and in the
+meantime commenced an active inquiry for a man to supply the place
+of the one we had lost; but at that season of the year no one was
+to be had.
+
+It was a bitter, freezing night. A sharp wind howled without, and
+drove the fine snow through the chinks in the door, almost to the
+hearth-stone, on which two immense blocks of maple shed forth a
+cheering glow, brightening the narrow window-panes, and making the
+blackened rafters ruddy with the heart-invigorating blaze.
+
+The toils of the day were over, the supper things cleared away,
+and the door closed for the night. Moodie had taken up his flute,
+the sweet companion of happier days, at the earnest request of
+our homesick Scotch servant-girl, to cheer her drooping spirits
+by playing some of the touching national airs of the glorious
+mountain land, the land of chivalry and song, the heroic North.
+Before retiring to rest, Bell, who had an exquisite ear for music,
+kept time with foot and hand, while large tears gathered in her
+soft blue eyes.
+
+"Ay, 'tis bonnie thae songs; but they mak' me greet, an' my puir
+heart is sair, sair when I think on the bonnie braes and the days
+o'lang syne."
+
+Poor Bell! Her heart was among the hills, and mine had wandered far,
+far away to the green groves and meadows of my own fair land. The
+music and our reveries were alike abruptly banished by a sharp blow
+upon the door. Bell rose and opened it, when a strange, wild-looking
+lad, barefooted, and with no other covering to his head than the
+thick, matted locks of raven blackness that hung like a cloud over
+his swarthy, sunburnt visage, burst into the room.
+
+"Guidness defend us! Wha ha'e we here?" screamed Bell, retreating
+into a corner. "The puir callant's no cannie."
+
+My husband turned hastily round to meet the intruder, and I raised
+the candle from the table the better to distinguish his face; while
+Bell, from her hiding-place, regarded him with unequivocal glances
+of fear and mistrust, waving her hands to me, and pointing
+significantly to the open door, as if silently beseeching me to tell
+her master to turn him out.
+
+"Shut the door, man," said Moodie, whose long scrutiny of the
+strange being before us seemed upon the whole satisfactory;
+"we shall be frozen."
+
+"Thin faith, sir, that's what I am," said the lad, in a rich brogue,
+which told, without asking, the country to which he belonged. Then
+stretching his bare hands to the fire, he continued, "By Jove, sir,
+I was never so near gone in my life!"
+
+"Where do you come from, and what is your business here? You must be
+aware that this is a very late hour to take a house by storm in this
+way."
+
+"Thrue for you, sir. But necessity knows no law; and the condition
+you see me in must plade for me. First, thin, sir, I come from the
+township of D---, and want a masther; and next to that, bedad! I
+want something to ate. As I'm alive, and 'tis a thousand pities that
+I'm alive at all at all, for shure God Almighty never made sich a
+misfortunate crather afore nor since; I have had nothing to put in
+my head since I ran away from my ould masther, Mr. F---, yesterday
+at noon. Money I have none, sir; the divil a cent. I have neither a
+shoe to my foot nor a hat to my head, and if you refuse to shelter
+me the night, I must be contint to perish in the snow, for I have
+not a frind in the wide wurld."
+
+The lad covered his face with his hands, and sobbed aloud.
+
+"Bell," I whispered; "go to the cupboard and get the poor fellow
+something to eat. The boy is starving."
+
+"Dinna heed him, mistress, dinna credit his lees. He is ane o' those
+wicked Papists wha ha' just stepped in to rob and murder us."
+
+"Nonsense! Do as I bid you."
+
+"I winna be fashed aboot him. An' if he bides here, I'll e'en flit
+by the first blink o' the morn."
+
+"Isabel, for shame! Is this acting like a Christian, or doing as you
+would be done by?"
+
+Bell was as obstinate as a rock, not only refusing to put down any
+food for the famished lad, but reiterating her threat of leaving the
+house if he were suffered to remain. My husband, no longer able to
+endure her selfish and absurd conduct, got angry in good earnest,
+and told her that she might please herself; that he did not mean to
+ask her leave as to whom he received into his house. I, for my part,
+had no idea that she would realise her threat. She was an excellent
+servant, clean, honest, and industrious, and loved the dear baby.
+
+"You will think better of it in the morning," said I, as I rose and
+placed before the lad some cold beef and bread, and a bowl of milk,
+to which the runaway did ample justice.
+
+"Why did you quit your master, my lad?" said Moodie.
+
+"Because I could live wid him no longer. You see, sir, I'm a poor
+foundling from the Belfast Asylum, shoved out by the mother that
+bore me, upon the wide wurld, long before I knew that I was in it.
+As I was too young to spake for myself intirely, she put me into a
+basket, wid a label round my neck, to tell the folks that my name
+was John Monaghan. This was all I ever got from my parents; and who
+or what they were, I never knew, not I, for they never claimed me;
+bad cess to them! But I've no doubt it's a fine illigant gintleman
+he was, and herself a handsome rich young lady, who dared not own me
+for fear of affronting the rich jintry, her father and mother. Poor
+folk, sir, are never ashamed of their children; 'tis all the
+threasure they have, sir; but my parents were ashamed of me, and
+they thrust me out to the stranger and the hard bread of
+depindence." The poor lad signed deeply, and I began to feel a
+growing interest in his sad history.
+
+"Have you been in the country long?"
+
+"Four years, madam. You know my masther, Mr. F---; he brought me out
+wid him as his apprentice, and during the voyage he trated me well.
+But the young men, his sons, are tyrants, and full of durty pride;
+and I could not agree wid them at all at all. Yesterday, I forgot to
+take the oxen out of the yoke, and Musther William tied me up to a
+stump, and bate me with the raw hide. Shure the marks are on me
+showlthers yet. I left the oxen and the yoke, and turned my back
+upon them all, for the hot blood was bilin' widin me; and I felt
+that if I stayed it would be him that would get the worst of it. No
+one had ever cared for me since I was born, so I thought it was high
+time to take care of myself. I had heard your name, sir, and I
+thought I would find you out; and if you want a lad, I will work for
+you for my kape, and a few dacent clothes."
+
+A bargain was soon made. Moodie agreed to give Monaghan six dollars
+a month, which he thankfully accepted; and I told Bell to prepare
+his bed in a corner of the kitchen. But mistress Bell thought fit
+to rebel. Having been guilty of one act of insubordination, she
+determined to be consistent, and throw off the yoke altogether.
+She declared that she would do no such thing; that her life and that
+all our lives were in danger; and that she would never stay another
+night under the same roof with that Papist vagabond.
+
+"Papist!" cried the indignant lad, his dark eyes flashing fire, "I'm
+no Papist, but a Protestant like yourself; and I hope a deuced dale
+better Christian. You take me for a thief; yet shure a thief would
+have waited till you were all in bed and asleep, and not stepped in
+forenint you all in this fashion."
+
+There was both truth and nature in the lad's argument; but Bell,
+like an obstinate woman as she was, chose to adhere to her own
+opinion. Nay, she even carried her absurd prejudices so far that
+she brought her mattress and laid it down on the floor in my room,
+for fear that the Irish vagabond should murder her during the night.
+By the break of day she was off; leaving me for the rest of the
+winter without a servant. Monaghan did all in his power to supply
+her place; he lighted the fires, swept the house, milked the cows,
+nursed the baby, and often cooked the dinner for me, and endeavoured
+by a thousand little attentions to show the gratitude he really felt
+for our kindness. To little Katie he attached himself in an
+extraordinary manner. All his spare time he spent in making little
+sleighs and toys for her, or in dragging her in the said sleighs up
+and down the steep hills in front of the house, wrapped up in a
+blanket. Of a night, he cooked her mess of bread and milk, as she
+sat by the fire, and his greatest delight was to feed her himself.
+After this operation was over, he would carry her round the floor on
+his back, and sing her songs in native Irish. Katie always greeted
+his return from the woods with a scream of joy, holding up her fair
+arms to clasp the neck of her dark favourite.
+
+"Now the Lord love you for a darlint!" he would cry, as he caught
+her to his heart. "Shure you are the only one of the crathers he
+ever made who can love poor John Monaghan. Brothers and sisters I
+have none--I stand alone in the wurld, and your bonny wee face is
+the sweetest thing it contains for me. Och, jewil! I could lay down
+my life for you, and be proud to do that same."
+
+Though careless and reckless about everything that concerned
+himself, John was honest and true. He loved us for the compassion we
+had shown him; and he would have resented any injury offered to our
+persons with his best blood.
+
+But if we were pleased with our new servant, Uncle Joe and his
+family were not, and they commenced a series of petty persecutions
+that annoyed him greatly, and kindled into a flame all the fiery
+particles of his irritable nature.
+
+Moodie had purchased several tons of hay of a neighbouring farmer,
+for the use of his cattle, and it had to be stowed into the same
+barn with some flax and straw that belonged to Uncle Joe. Going
+early one morning to fodder the cattle, John found Uncle Joe feeding
+his cows with his master's hay, and as it had diminished greatly in
+a very short time, he accused him in no measured terms of being the
+thief. The other very coolly replied that he had taken a little of
+the hay in order to repay himself for his flax, that Monaghan had
+stolen for the oxen. "Now by the powers!" quoth John, kindling into
+wrath, "that is adding a big lie to a dirthy petty larceny. I take
+your flax, you ould villain! Shure I know that flax is grown to make
+linen wid, not to feed oxen. God Almighty has given the crathers a
+good warm coat of their own; they neither require shifts nor
+shirts."
+
+"I saw you take it, you ragged Irish vagabond, with my own eyes."
+
+"Thin yer two eyes showed you a wicked illusion. You had betther
+shut up yer head, or I'll give you that for an eye-salve that shall
+make you see thrue for the time to come."
+
+Relying upon his great size, and thinking that the slight stripling,
+who, by-the-bye, was all bones and sinews, was no match for him,
+Uncle Joe struck Monaghan over the head with the pitchfork. In a
+moment the active lad was upon him like a wild cat, and in spite of
+the difference of his age and weight, gave the big man such a
+thorough dressing that he was fain to roar aloud for mercy.
+
+"Own that you are a thief and a liar, or I'll murther you!"
+
+"I'll own to anything whilst your knee is pressing me into a
+pancake. Come now--there's a good lad--let me get up." Monaghan felt
+irresolute, but after extorting from Uncle Joe a promise never to
+purloin any of the hay again, he let him rise.
+
+"For shure," he said, "he began to turn so black in the face,
+I thought he'd burst intirely."
+
+The fat man neither forgot nor forgave this injury; and though he
+dared not attack John personally, he set the children to insult and
+affront him upon all occasions. The boy was without socks, and I
+sent him to old Mrs. R---, to inquire of her what she would charge
+for knitting him two pairs of socks. The reply was, a dollar. This
+was agreed to, and dear enough they were; but the weather was very
+cold, and the lad was barefooted, and there was no other alternative
+than either to accept her offer, or for him to go without.
+
+In a few days, Monaghan brought them home; but I found upon
+inspecting them that they were old socks new-footed. This was rather
+too glaring a cheat, and I sent the lad back with them, and told him
+to inform Mrs. R--- that as he had agreed to give the price for new
+socks, he expected them to be new altogether.
+
+The avaricious old woman did not deny the fact, but she fell to
+cursing and swearing in an awful manner, and wished so much evil to
+the lad, that, with the superstitious fear so common to the natives
+of his country, he left her under the impression that she was gifted
+with the evil eye, and was an "owld witch." He never went out of the
+yard with the waggon and horses, but she rushed to the door, and
+cursed him for a bare-heeled Irish blackguard, and wished that he
+might overturn the waggon, kill the horses, and break his own
+worthless neck.
+
+"Ma'am," said John to me one day, after returning from C--- with the
+team, "it would be betther for me to lave the masther intirely; for
+shure if I do not, some mischief will befall me or the crathers.
+That wicked owld wretch! I cannot thole her curses. Shure it's in
+purgatory I am all the while."
+
+"Nonsense, Monaghan! you are not a Catholic, and need not fear
+purgatory. The next time the old woman commences her reprobate
+conduct, tell her to hold her tongue, and mind her own business,
+for curses, like chickens come home to roost."
+
+The boy laughed heartily at the old Turkish proverb, but did not
+reckon much on its efficacy to still the clamorous tongue of the
+ill-natured old jade. The next day he had to pass her door with the
+horses. No sooner did she hear the sound of the wheels, than out she
+hobbled, and commenced her usual anathemas.
+
+"Bad luck to yer croaking, yer ill-conditioned owld raven. It is not
+me you are desthroying shure, but yer own poor miserable sinful
+sowl. The owld one has the grief of ye already, for 'curses, like
+chickens, come home to roost'; so get in wid ye, and hatch them to
+yerself in the chimley corner. They'll all be roosting wid ye
+by-and-by; and a nice warm nest they'll make for you, considering
+the brave brood that belongs to you."
+
+Whether the old woman was as superstitious as John, I know not; or
+whether she was impressed with the moral truth of the proverb--for,
+as I have before stated, she was no fool--is difficult to tell; but
+she shrunk back into her den, and never attacked the lad again.
+
+Poor John bore no malice in his heart, not he; for, in spite of
+all the ill-natured things he had to endure from Uncle Joe and his
+family, he never attempted to return evil for evil. In proof of
+this, he was one day chopping firewood in the bush, at some distance
+from Joe, who was engaged in the same employment with another man.
+A tree in falling caught upon another, which, although a very large
+maple, was hollow and very much decayed, and liable to be blown down
+by the least shock of the wind. The tree hung directly over the path
+that Uncle Joe was obliged to traverse daily with his team. He
+looked up, and perceived, from the situation it occupied, that it
+was necessary for his own safety to cut it down; but he lacked
+courage to undertake so hazardous a job, which might be attended,
+if the supporting tree gave way during the operation, with very
+serious consequences. In a careless tone, he called to his companion
+to cut down the tree.
+
+"Do it yourself, H---," said the axe man, with a grin. "My wife and
+children want their man as much as your Hannah wants you."
+
+"I'll not put axe to it," quoth Joe. Then, making signs to his
+comrade to hold his tongue, he shouted to Monaghan, "Hollo, boy!
+you're wanted here to cut down this tree. Don't you see that your
+master's cattle might be killed if they should happen to pass under
+it, and it should fall upon them."
+
+"Thrue for you, Masther Joe; but your own cattle would have the
+first chance. Why should I risk my life and limbs, by cutting down
+the tree, when it was yerself that threw it so awkwardly over the
+other?"
+
+"Oh, but you are a boy, and have no wife and children to depend upon
+you for bread," said Joe, gravely. "We are both family men. Don't
+you see that 'tis your duty to cut down the tree?"
+
+The lad swung the axe to and fro in his hand, eyeing Joe and the
+tree alternately; but the natural kind-heartedness of the creature,
+and his reckless courage, overcame all idea of self-preservation,
+and raising aloft his slender but muscular arm, he cried out,
+"If it's a life that must be sacrificed, why not mine as well as
+another? Here goes! and the Lord have mercy on my sinful sowl!"
+
+The tree fell, and, contrary to their expectations, without any
+injury to John. The knowing Yankee burst into a loud laugh. "Well,
+if you arn't a tarnation soft fool, I never saw one."
+
+"What do you mane?" exclaimed John, his dark eyes flashing fire.
+"If 'tis to insult me for doing that which neither of you dared to
+do, you had better not thry that same. You have just seen the
+strength of my spirit. You had better not thry again the strength
+of my arm, or, may be, you and the tree would chance to share the
+same fate;" and, shouldering his axe, the boy strode down the hill,
+to get scolded by me for his foolhardiness.
+
+The first week of March, all the people were busy making maple
+sugar. "Did you ever taste any maple sugar, ma'am?" asked Monaghan,
+as he sat feeding Katie one evening by the fire.
+
+"No, John."
+
+"Well, then, you've a thrate to come; and it's myself that will make
+Miss Katie, the darlint, an illigant lump of that same."
+
+Early in the morning John was up, hard at work, making troughs for
+the sap. By noon he had completed a dozen, which he showed me with
+great pride of heart. I felt a little curious about this far-famed
+maple sugar, and asked a thousand questions about the use to which
+the troughs were to be applied; how the trees were to be tapped, the
+sugar made, and if it were really good when made?
+
+To all my queries, John responded, "Och! 'tis illigant. It bates all
+the sugar that ever was made in Jamaky. But you'll see before
+to-morrow night."
+
+Moodie was away at P---, and the prospect of the maple sugar
+relieved the dulness occasioned by his absence. I reckoned on
+showing him a piece of sugar of our own making when he came home,
+and never dreamt of the possibility of disappointment.
+
+John tapped his trees after the most approved fashion, and set his
+troughts to catch the sap; but Miss Amanda and Master Ammon upset
+them as fast as they filled, and spilt all the sap. With great
+difficulty, Monaghan saved the contents of one large iron pot. This
+he brought in about nightfall, and made up a roaring fire, in order
+to boil in down into sugar. Hour after hour passed away, and the
+sugar-maker looked as hot and black as the stoker in a steam-boat.
+Many times I peeped into the large pot, but the sap never seemed to
+diminish.
+
+"This is a tedious piece of business," thought I, but seeing the lad
+so anxious, I said nothing. About twelve o'clock he asked me, very
+mysteriously, for a piece of pork to hang over the sugar.
+
+"Pork!" said I, looking into the pot, which was half full of a very
+black-looking liquid; "what do you want with pork?"
+
+"Shure an' 'tis to keep the sugar from burning."
+
+"But, John, I see no sugar!"
+
+"Och, but 'tis all sugar, only 'tis molasses jist now. See how it
+sticks to the ladle. Aha! But Miss Katie will have the fine lumps of
+sugar when she awakes in the morning."
+
+I grew so tired and sleepy that I left John to finish his job, went
+to bed, and soon forgot all about the maple sugar. At breakfast I
+observed a small plate upon the table, placed in a very conspicuous
+manner on the tea-tray, the bottom covered with a hard, black
+substance, which very much resembled pitch. "What is that
+dirty-looking stuff, John?"
+
+"Shure an 'tis the maple sugar."
+
+"Can people eat that?"
+
+"By dad, an' they can; only thry it, ma'arm."
+
+"Why, 'tis so hard, I cannot cut it."
+
+With some difficulty, and not without cutting his finger, John broke
+a piece off, and stuffed it into the baby's mouth. The poor child
+made a horrible face, and rejected it as if it had been poison. For
+my own part, I never tasted anything more nauseous. It tasted like a
+compound of pork grease and tobacco juice. "Well, Monaghan, if this
+be maple sugar, I never wish to taste any again."
+
+"Och, bad luck to it!" said the lad, flinging it away, plate and
+all. "It would have been first-rate but for the dirthy pot, and the
+blackguard cinders, and its burning to the bottom of the pot. That
+owld hag, Mrs. R---, bewitched it with her evil eye."
+
+"She is not so clever as you think, John," said I, laughing. "You
+have forgotten how to make the sugar since you left D---; but let us
+forget the maple sugar, and think of something else. Had you not
+better get old Mrs. R--- to mend that jacket for you; it is too
+ragged."
+
+"Ay, dad! an it's mysel' is the illigant tailor. Wasn't I brought up
+to the thrade in the Foundling Hospital?"
+
+"And why did you quit it?"
+
+"Because it's a low, mane thrade for a jintleman's son."
+
+"But, John, who told you that you were a gentleman's son?"
+
+"Och! but I'm shure of it, thin. All my propensities are gintale.
+I love horses, and dogs, and fine clothes, and money. Och! that
+I was but a jintleman! I'd show them what life is intirely, and
+I'd challenge Masther William, and have my revenge out of him
+for the blows he gave me."
+
+"You had better mend your trousers," said I, giving him a tailor's
+needle, a pair of scissors, and some strong thread.
+
+"Shure, an' I'll do that same in a brace of shakes," and sitting
+down upon a ricketty three-legged stool of his own manufacturing,
+he commenced his tailoring by tearing off a piece of his trousers
+to patch the elbows of his jacket. And this trifling act, simple
+as it may appear, was a perfect type of the boy's general conduct,
+and marked his progress through life. The present for him was
+everything; he had no future. While he supplied stuff from the
+trousers to repair the fractures in the jacket, he never reflected
+that both would be required on the morrow. Poor John! in his brief
+and reckless career, how often have I recalled that foolish act of
+his. It now appears to me that his whole life was spent in tearing
+his trousers to repair his jacket.
+
+In the evening John asked me for a piece of soap.
+
+"What do you want with soap, John?"
+
+"To wash my shirt, ma'am. Shure an' I'm a baste to be seen, as black
+as the pots. Sorra a shirt have I but the one, an' it has stuck on
+my back so long that I can thole it no longer."
+
+I looked at the wrists and collar of the condemned garment, which
+was all of it that John allowed to be visible. They were much in
+need of soap and water.
+
+"Well, John, I will leave you the soap, but can you wash?"
+
+"Och, shure, an' I can thry. If I soap it enough, and rub long
+enough, the shirt must come clane at last."
+
+I thought the matter rather doubtful; but when I went to bed I left
+what he required, and soon saw through the chinks in the boards a
+roaring fire, and heard John whistling over the tub. He whistled and
+rubbed, and washed and scrubbed, but as there seemed no end to the
+job, and he was a long washing this one garment as Bell would have
+been performing the same operation on fifty, I laughed to myself,
+and thought of my own abortive attempts in that way, and went fast
+asleep. In the morning John came to his breakfast, with his jacket
+buttoned up to his throat.
+
+"Could you not dry your shirt by the fire, John? You will get cold
+wanting it."
+
+"Aha, by dad! it's dhry enough now. The divil has made tinder of it
+long afore this."
+
+"Why, what has happened to it? I heard you washing all night."
+
+"Washing! Faith, an' I did scrub it till my hands were all ruined
+intirely, and thin I took the brush to it; but sorra a bit of the
+dirth could I get out of it. The more I rubbed the blacker it got,
+until I had used up all the soap, and the perspiration was pouring
+off me like rain. 'You dirthy owld bit of a blackguard of a rag,'
+says I, in an exthremity of rage, 'You're not fit for the back of a
+dacent lad an' a jintleman. The divil may take ye to cover one of
+his imps;' an' wid that I sthirred up the fire, and sent it plump
+into the middle of the blaze."
+
+"And what will you do for a shirt?"
+
+"Faith, do as many a betther man has done afore me, go widout."
+
+I looked up two old shirts of my husband's, which John received with
+an ecstacy of delight. He retired instantly to the stable, but soon
+returned, with as much of the linen breast of the garment displayed
+as his waistcoat would allow. No peacock was ever prouder of his
+tail than the wild Irish lad was of the old shirt.
+
+John had been treated very much like a spoiled child, and, like most
+spoiled children, he was rather fond of having his own way. Moodie
+had set him to do something which was rather contrary to his own
+inclinations; he did not object to the task in words, for he was
+rarely saucy to his employers, but he left the following stave upon
+the table, written in pencil upon a scrap of paper torn from the
+back of an old letter:--
+
+  "A man alive, an ox may drive
+    Unto a springing well;
+  To make him drink, as he may think,
+    No man can him compel.
+
+                "JOHN MONAGHAN."
+
+
+THE EMIGRANT'S BRIDE
+
+A Canadian ballad
+
+  The waves that girt my native isle,
+    The parting sunbeams tinged with red;
+  And far to seaward, many a mile,
+    A line of dazzling glory shed.
+  But, ah, upon that glowing track,
+    No glance my aching eyeballs threw;
+  As I my little bark steer'd back
+    To bid my love a last adieu.
+
+  Upon the shores of that lone bay,
+    With folded arms the maiden stood;
+  And watch'd the white sails wing their way
+    Across the gently heaving flood.
+  The summer breeze her raven hair
+    Swept lightly from her snowy brow;
+  And there she stood, as pale and fair
+    As the white foam that kiss'd my prow.
+
+  My throbbing heart with grief swell'd high,
+    A heavy tale was mine to tell;
+  For once I shunn'd the beauteous eye,
+    Whose glance on mine so fondly fell.
+  My hopeless message soon was sped,
+    My father's voice my suit denied;
+  And I had promised not to wed,
+    Against his wish, my island bride.
+
+  She did not weep, though her pale face
+    The trace of recent sorrow wore;
+  But, with a melancholy grace,
+    She waved my shallop from the shore.
+  She did not weep; but oh! that smile
+    Was sadder than the briny tear
+  That trembled on my cheek the while
+    I bade adieu to one so dear.
+
+  She did not speak--no accents fell
+    From lips that breathed the balm of May;
+  In broken words I strove to tell
+    All that my broken heart would say.
+  She did not speak--but to my eyes
+    She raised the deep light of her own.
+  As breaks the sun through cloudy skies,
+    My spirit caught a brighter tone.
+
+  "Dear girl!" I cried, "we ne'er can part,
+    My angry father's wrath I'll brave;
+  He shall not tear thee from my heart.
+    Fly, fly with me across the wave!"
+  My hand convulsively she press'd,
+    Her tears were mingling fast with mine;
+  And, sinking trembling on my breast,
+    She murmur'd out, "For ever thine!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+PHOEBE R---, AND OUR SECOND MOVING
+
+
+
+  "She died in early womanhood,
+  Sweet scion of a stem so rude;
+  A child of Nature, free from art,
+  With candid brow and open heart;
+  The flowers she loved now gently wave
+  Above her low and nameless grave."
+
+
+It was during the month of March that Uncle Joe's eldest daughter,
+Phoebe, a very handsome girl, and the best of the family, fell sick.
+I went over to see her. The poor girl was very depressed, and stood
+but a slight chance for her life, being under medical treatment of
+three or four old women, who all recommended different treatment
+and administered different nostrums. Seeing that the poor girl was
+dangerously ill, I took her mother aside, and begged her to lose no
+time in procuring proper medical advice. Mrs. Joe listened to me
+very sullenly, and said there was no danger; that Phoebe had caught
+a violent cold by going hot from the wash-tub to fetch a pail of
+water from the spring; that the neighbours knew the nature of her
+complaint, and would soon cure her.
+
+The invalid turned upon me her fine dark eyes, in which the light of
+fever painfully burned, and motioned me to come near her. I sat down
+by her, and took her burning hand in mine.
+
+"I am dying, Mrs. Moodie, but they won't believe me. I wish you
+would talk to mother to send for the doctor."
+
+"I will. Is there anything I can do for you?--anything I can make
+for you, that you would like to take?"
+
+She shook her head. "I can't eat. But I want to ask you one thing,
+which I wish very much to know." She grasped my hand tightly between
+her own. Her eyes looked darker, and her feverish cheek paled. "What
+becomes of people when they die?"
+
+"Good heavens!" I exclaimed involuntarily; "can you be ignorant of a
+future state?"
+
+"What is a future state?"
+
+I endeavoured, as well as I was able, to explain to her the nature
+of the soul, its endless duration, and responsibility to God for
+the actions done in the flesh; its natural depravity and need of
+a Saviour; urging her, in the gentlest manner, to lose no time in
+obtaining forgiveness of her sins, through the atoning blood of
+Christ.
+
+The poor girl looked at me with surprise and horror. These things
+were all new to her. She sat like one in a dream; yet the truth
+seemed to flash upon her at once.
+
+"How can I speak to God, who never knew Him? How can I ask Him to
+forgive me?"
+
+"You must pray to him."
+
+"Pray! I don't know how to pray. I never said a prayer in my life.
+Mother; can you teach me how to pray?"
+
+"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Joe, hurrying forward. "Why should you trouble
+yourself about such things? Mrs. Moodie, I desire you not to put
+such thoughts into my daughter's head. We don't want to know
+anything about Jesus Christ here."
+
+"Oh, mother, don't speak so to the lady! Do Mrs. Moodie, tell me
+more about God and my soul. I never knew until now that I had a
+soul."
+
+Deeply compassionating the ignorance of the poor girl, in spite of
+the menaces of the heathen mother--for she was no better, but rather
+worse, seeing that the heathen worships in ignorance a false God,
+while this woman lived without acknowledging a God at all, and
+therefore considered herself free from all moral restraint--I bid
+Phoebe good-bye, and promised to bring my bible, and read to her the
+next day.
+
+The gratitude manifested by this sick girl was such a contrast to
+the rudeness and brutality of the rest of the family, that I soon
+felt a powerful interest in her fate.
+
+The mother did not actually forbid me the house, because she saw
+that my visits raised the drooping spirits of her child, whom she
+fiercely loved, and, to save her life, would cheerfully have
+sacrificed her own. But she never failed to make all the noise she
+could to disturb my reading and conversation with Phoebe. She could
+not be persuaded that her daughter was really in any danger, until
+the doctor told her that her case was hopeless; then the grief of
+the mother burst forth, and she gave way to the most frantic and
+impious complainings.
+
+The rigour of the winter began to abate. The beams of the sun during
+the day were warm and penetrating, and a soft wind blew from the
+south. I watched, from day to day, the snow disappearing from the
+earth, with indescribable pleasure, and at length it wholly
+vanished; not even a solitary patch lingered under the shade of the
+forest trees; but Uncle Joe gave no sign of removing his family.
+
+"Does he mean to stay all the summer?" thought I. "Perhaps he never
+intends going at all. I will ask him, the next time he comes to
+borrow whiskey."
+
+In the afternoon he walked in to light his pipe, and, with some
+anxiety, I made the inquiry.
+
+"Well, I guess we can't be moving afore the end of May. My missus
+expects to be confined the fore part of the month, and I shan't move
+till she be quite smart agin."
+
+"You are not using us well, in keeping us out of the house so long."
+
+"Oh, I don't care a curse about any of you. It is my house as long
+as I choose to remain in it, and you may put up with it the best way
+you can," and, humming a Yankee tune, he departed.
+
+I had borne patiently the odious, cribbed-up place during the
+winter, but now the hot weather was coming, it seemed almost
+insupportable, as we were obliged to have a fire in the close room,
+in order to cook our provisions. I consoled myself as well as I
+could by roaming about the fields and woods, and making acquaintance
+with every wild flower as it blossomed, and in writing long letters
+to home friends, in which I abused one of the finest countries in
+the world as the worst that God ever called out of chaos. I can
+recall to memory, at this moment, the few lines of a poem which
+commenced in this strain; nor am I sorry that the rest of it has
+passed into oblivion:--
+
+
+  Oh! land of waters, how my spirit tires,
+    In the dark prison of thy boundless woods;
+  No rural charm poetic thought inspires,
+    No music murmurs in thy mighty floods;
+  Though vast the features that compose thy frame,
+  Turn where we will, the landscape's still the same.
+
+  The swampy margin of thy inland seas,
+    The eternal forest girdling either shore,
+  Its belt of dark pines sighing in the breeze,
+    And rugged fields, with rude huts dotted o'er,
+  Show cultivation unimproved by art,
+  That sheds a barren chillness on the heart.
+
+
+How many home-sick emigrants, during their first winter in Canada,
+will respond to this gloomy picture! Let them wait a few years;
+the sun of hope will arise and beautify the landscape, and they
+will proclaim the country one of the finest in the world.
+
+The middle of May at length arrived, and, by the number of long,
+lean women, with handkerchiefs of all colours tied over their heads,
+who passed my door, and swarmed into Mrs. Joe's house, I rightly
+concluded that another young one had been added to the tribe; and
+shortly after, Uncle Joe himself announced the important fact, by
+putting his jolly red face in at the door, and telling me, that
+"his missus had got a chopping boy; and he was right glad of it,
+for he was tired of so many gals, and that he should move in a
+fortnight, if his woman did kindly."
+
+I had been so often disappointed that I paid very little heed to
+him, but this time he kept his word.
+
+The LAST day of May, they went, bag and baggage, the poor sick
+Phoebe, who still lingered on, and the new-born infant; and right
+joyfully I sent a Scotch girl (another Bell, whom I had hired in
+lieu of her I had lost), and Monaghan, to clean out the Augean
+stable. In a few minutes John returned, panting his indignation.
+
+"The house," he said, "was more filthy than a pig-sty." But that was
+not the worst of it, Uncle Joe, before he went, had undermined the
+brick chimney, and let all the water into the house. "Oh, but if he
+comes here agin," he continued, grinding his teeth and doubling his
+fist, "I'll thrash him for it. And thin, ma'am, he has girdled round
+all the best graft apple-trees, the murtherin' owld villain, as if
+it could spile his digestion our ating them."
+
+"It would require a strong stomach to digest apple-trees, John; but
+never mind, it can't be helped, and we may be very thankful that
+these people are gone at last."
+
+John and Bell scrubbed at the house all day, and in the evening they
+carried over the furniture, and I went to inspect our new dwelling.
+
+It looked beautifully clean and neat. Bell had whitewashed all the
+black, smoky walls and boarded ceilings, and scrubbed the dirty
+window-frames, and polished the fly-spotted panes of glass, until
+they actually admitted a glimpse of the clear air and the blue sky.
+Snow-white fringed curtains, and a bed, with furniture to correspond,
+a carpeted floor, and a large pot of green boughs on the hearthstone,
+gave an air of comfort and cleanliness to a room which, only a few
+hours before, had been a loathsome den of filth and impurity.
+
+This change would have been very gratifying, had not a strong,
+disagreeable odour almost deprived me of my breath as I entered the
+room. It was unlike anything I had ever smelt before, and turned me
+so sick and faint that I had to cling to the door-post for support.
+
+"Where does this dreadful smell come from?"
+
+"The guidness knows, ma'am; John and I have searched the house from
+the loft to the cellar, but we canna find out the cause of thae
+stink."
+
+"It must be in the room, Bell; and it is impossible to remain here,
+or live in this house, until it is removed."
+
+Glancing my eyes all round the place, I spied what seemed to me a
+little cupboard, over the mantel-shelf, and I told John to see if
+I was right. The lad mounted upon a chair, and pulled open a small
+door, but almost fell to the ground with the dreadful stench which
+seemed to rush from the closet.
+
+"What is it, John?" I cried from the open door.
+
+"A skunk! ma'am, a skunk! Shure, I thought the divil had scorched
+his tail, and left the grizzled hair behind him. What a strong
+perfume it has!" he continued, holding up the beautiful but odious
+little creature by the tail.
+
+"By dad! I know all about it now. I saw Ned Layton, only two days
+ago, crossing the field with Uncle Joe, with his gun on his
+shoulder, and this wee bit baste in his hand. They were both
+laughing like sixty. 'Well, if this does not stink the Scotchman
+out of the house,' said Joe, 'I'll be contint to be tarred and
+feathered;' and thin they both laughed until they stopped to draw
+breath."
+
+I could hardly help laughing myself; but I begged Monaghan to convey
+the horrid creature away, and putting some salt and sulphur into a
+tin plate, and setting fire to it, I placed it on the floor in the
+middle of the room, and closed all the doors for an hour, which
+greatly assisted in purifying the house from the skunkification.
+Bell then washed out the closet with strong ley, and in a short time
+no vestige remained of the malicious trick that Uncle Joe had played
+off upon us.
+
+The next day, we took possession of our new mansion, and no one was
+better pleased with the change than little Katie. She was now
+fifteen months old, and could just begin to prattle, but she dared
+not venture to step alone, although she would stand by a chair all
+day, and even climb upon it. She crept from room to room, feeling
+and admiring everything, and talking to it in her baby language.
+So fond was the dear child of flowers, that her father used to hold
+her up to the apple-trees, then rich in their full spring beauty,
+that she might kiss the blossoms. She would pat them with her soft
+white hands, murmuring like a bee among the branches. To keep her
+quiet whilst I was busy, I had only to give her a bunch of wild
+flowers. She would sit as still as a lamb, looking first at one
+and then another, pressing them to her little breast in a sort of
+ecstacy, as if she comprehended the worth of this most beautiful
+of God's gifts to man.
+
+She was a sweet, lovely flower herself, and her charming infant
+graces reconciled me, more than aught else, to a weary lot. Was she
+not purely British? Did not her soft blue eyes, and sunny curls, and
+bright rosy cheeks for ever remind me of her Saxon origin, and bring
+before me dear forms and faces I could never hope to behold again?
+
+The first night we slept in the new house, a demon of unrest had
+taken possession of it in the shape of a countless swarm of mice.
+They scampered over our pillows, and jumped upon our faces,
+squeaking and cutting a thousand capers over the floor. I never
+could realise the true value of Whittington's invaluable cat until
+that night. At first we laughed until our sides ached, but in
+reality it was no laughing matter. Moodie remembered that we had
+left a mouse-trap in the old house; he went and brought it over,
+baited it, and set it on the table near the bed. During the night
+no less than fourteen of the provoking vermin were captured; and for
+several succeeding nights the trap did equal execution. How Uncle
+Joe's family could have allowed such a nuisance to exist astonished
+me; to sleep with these creatures continually running over us was
+impossible; and they were not the only evils in the shape of vermin
+we had to contend with. The old logs which composed the walls of the
+house were full of bugs and large black ants; and the place, owing
+to the number of dogs that always had slept under the beds with the
+children, was infested with fleas. It required the utmost care to
+rid the place of these noisome and disgusting tenants.
+
+Arriving in the country in the autumn, we had never experienced
+any inconvenience from the mosquitoes, but after the first moist,
+warm spring days, particularly after the showers, these tormenting
+insects annoyed us greatly. The farm, lying in a valley cut up
+with little streams in every direction, made us more liable to their
+inflictions. The hands, arms, and face of the poor babe were covered
+every morning with red inflamed bumps, which often threw out
+blisters.
+
+The banks of the little streams abounded with wild strawberries,
+which, although small, were of a delicious flavour. Thither Bell
+and I, and the baby, daily repaired to gather the bright red berries
+of Nature's own providing. Katie, young as she was, was very expert
+at helping herself, and we used to seat her in the middle of a fine
+bed, whilst we gathered farther on. Hearing her talking very
+lovingly to something in the grass, which she tried to clutch
+between her white hands, calling it "Pitty, pitty;" I ran to the
+spot, and found that it was a large garter-snake that she was so
+affectionately courting to her embrace. Not then aware that this
+formidable-looking reptile was perfectly harmless, I snatched the
+child up in my arms, and ran with her home; never stopping until
+I gained the house, and saw her safely seated in her cradle.
+
+It had been a very late, cold spring, but the trees had fully
+expanded into leaf, and the forest world was glorious in its beauty.
+Every patch of cleared land presented a vivid green to the eye; the
+brook brawled in the gay sunshine, and the warm air was filled with
+soft murmurs. Gorgeous butterflies floated about like winged
+flowers, and feelings allied to poetry and gladness once more
+pervaded my heart. In the evening we wandered through the woodland
+paths, beneath the glowing Canadian sunset, and gathered rare
+specimens of strange plants and flowers. Every object that met my
+eyes was new to me, and produced that peculiar excitement which has
+its origin in a thirst for knowledge, and a love of variety.
+
+We had commenced gardening, too, and my vegetables did great credit
+to my skill and care; and, when once the warm weather sets in, the
+rapid advance of vegetation in Canada is astonishing.
+
+Not understanding much about farming, especially in a climate like
+Canada, Moodie was advised by a neighbouring settler to farm his
+farm upon shares. This advice seemed very reasonable; and had it
+been given disinterestedly, and had the persons recommended (a man
+and his wife) been worthy or honest people, we might have done very
+well. But the farmer had found out their encroaching ways, was
+anxious to get rid of them himself, and saw no better way of doing
+so than by palming them upon us.
+
+From our engagement with these people commenced that long series
+of losses and troubles to which their conduct formed the prelude.
+They were to live in the little shanty that we had just left, and
+work the farm. Moodie was to find them the land, the use of his
+implements and cattle, and all the seed for the crops; and to share
+with them the returns. Besides this, they unfortunately were allowed
+to keep their own cows, pigs, and poultry. The produce of the
+orchard, with which they had nothing to do, was reserved for our own
+use.
+
+For the first few weeks, they were civil and obliging enough; and
+had the man been left to himself, I believe we should have done
+pretty well; but the wife was a coarse-minded, bold woman, who
+instigated him to every mischief. They took advantage of us in every
+way they could, and were constantly committing petty depredations.
+
+From our own experience of this mode of farming, I would strenuously
+advise all new settlers never to embrace any such offer, without
+they are well acquainted with the parties, and can thoroughly rely
+upon their honesty; or else, like Mrs. O---, they may impudently
+tell you that they can cheat you as they please, and defy you to
+help yourself. All the money we expended upon the farm was entirely
+for these people's benefit, for by their joint contrivances very
+little of the crops fell to our share; and when any division was
+made, it was always when Moodie was absent from home; and there was
+no person present to see fair play. They sold what apples and
+potatoes they pleased, and fed their hogs ad libitum. But even their
+roguery was more tolerable than the irksome restraint which their
+near vicinity, and constantly having to come in contact with them,
+imposed. We had no longer any privacy, our servants were
+cross-questioned, and our family affairs canvassed by these
+gossiping people, who spread about a thousand falsehoods regarding
+us. I was so much disgusted with this shareship, that I would gladly
+have given them all the proceeds of the farm to get rid of them, but
+the bargain was for twelve months, and bad as it was, we could not
+break our engagement.
+
+One little trick of this woman's will serve to illustrate her
+general conduct. A neighbouring farmer's wife had presented me with
+some very pretty hens, who followed to the call of old Betty Fye's
+handsome game-cock. I was always fond of fowls, and the innocent
+Katie delighted in her chicks, and would call them round her to the
+sill of the door to feed from her hand. Mrs. O--- had the same
+number as I had, and I often admired them when marshalled forth by
+her splendid black rooster. One morning I saw her eldest son chop
+off the head of the fine bird; and I asked his mother why she had
+allowed him to kill the beautiful creature. She laughed, and merely
+replied that she wanted it for the pot. The next day my sultan
+walked over to the widowed hens, and took all his seraglio with him.
+From that hour I never gathered a single egg; the hens deposited all
+their eggs in Mrs. O---'s hen-house. She used to boast of this as an
+excellent joke among her neighbours.
+
+On the 9th of June, my dear little Agnes was born. A few days after
+this joyful event, I heard a great bustle in the room adjoining to
+mine, and old Dolly Rowe, my Cornish nurse, informed me that it was
+occasioned by the people who came to attend the funeral of Phoebe
+R---. She only survived the removal of the family a week; and at her
+own request had been brought all the way from the --- lake plains to
+be interred in the burying ground on the hill which overlooked the
+stream.
+
+As I lay upon my pillow I could distinctly see the spot, and mark
+the long funeral procession, as it wound along the banks of the
+brook. It was a solemn and imposing spectacle, that humble funeral.
+When the waggons reached the rude enclosure, the coffin was
+carefully lifted to the ground, the door in the lid opened, and
+old and young approached, one after another, to take a last look
+at the dead, before consigning her to the oblivion of the grave.
+
+Poor Phoebe! Gentle child, of coarse, unfeeling parents, few shed
+more sincerely a tear for thy early fate than the stranger whom they
+hated and despised. Often have I stood beside that humble mound,
+when the song of the lark was above me, and the bee murmuring at my
+feet, and thought that it was well for thee that God opened the eyes
+of thy soul, and called thee out of the darkness of ignorance and
+sin to glory in His marvellous light. Sixteen years have passed away
+since I heard anything of the family, or what had become of them,
+when I was told by a neighbour of theirs, whom I accidentally met
+last winter, that the old woman, who now nearly numbers a hundred
+years, is still living, and inhabits a corner of her son's barn, as
+she still quarrels too much with his wife to reside with Joe; that
+the girls are all married and gone; and that Joe himself, although
+he does not know a letter, has commenced travelling preacher. After
+this, who can doubt the existence of miracles in the nineteenth
+century?
+
+
+THE FAITHFUL HEART THAT LOVES THEE STILL
+
+  I kneel beside the cold grey stone
+  That tells me, dearest, thou art gone
+  To realms more bless'd--and left me still
+  To struggle with this world of ill.
+  But oft from out the silent mound
+  Delusive fancy breathes a sound;
+  My pent-up heart within me burns,
+  And all the blessed past returns.
+  Thy form is present to mine eye,
+    Thy voice is whispering in mine ear,
+  The love that spake in days gone by;
+    And rapture checks the starting tear.
+  Thy deathless spirit wakes to fill
+  The faithful heart that loves thee still.
+
+  For thee the day's bright glow is o'er,
+  And summer's roses bloom no more;
+  The song of birds in twilight bowers,
+  The breath of spring's delicious flowers,
+  The towering wood and mountain height,
+  The glorious pageantry of night;
+  Which fill'd thy soul with musings high,
+  And lighted up thy speaking eye;
+  The mournful music of the wave
+  Can never reach thy lonely grave.
+  Thou dost but sleep! It cannot be
+    That ardent heart is silent now--
+  That death's dark door has closed on thee;
+    And made thee cold to all below.
+  Ah, no! the flame death could not chill,
+  Thy tender love survives thee still.
+
+  That love within my breast enshrined,
+  In death alone shall be resign'd;
+  And when the eve, thou lovest so well,
+  Pours on my soul its soothing spell,
+  I leave the city's busy scene
+  To seek thy dwelling, cold and green,--
+  In quiet sadness here to shed
+  Love's sacred tribute o'er the dead--
+  To dream again of days gone by,
+    And hold sweet converse here with thee;
+  In the soft air to feel thy sigh,
+    Whilst winds and waters answer me.
+  Yes!--though resign'd to Heaven's high will,
+  My joy shall be to love thee still!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BRIAN, THE STILL-HUNTER
+
+
+
+  "O'er memory's glass I see his shadow flit,
+  Though he was gathered to the silent dust
+  Long years ago. A strange and wayward man,
+  That shunn'd companionship, and lived apart;
+  The leafy covert of the dark brown woods,
+  The gleamy lakes, hid in their gloomy depths,
+  Whose still, deep waters never knew the stroke
+  Of cleaving oar, or echoed to the sound
+  Of social life, contained for him the sum
+  Of human happiness. With dog and gun,
+  Day after day he track'd the nimble deer
+  Through all the tangled mazes of the forest."
+
+
+It was early day. I was alone in the old shanty, preparing
+breakfast, and now and then stirring the cradle with my foot, when
+a tall, thin, middle-aged man walked into the house, followed by two
+large, strong dogs.
+
+Placing the rifle he had carried on his shoulder, in a corner of the
+room, he advanced to the hearth, and without speaking, or seemingly
+looking at me, lighted his pipe and commenced smoking. The dogs,
+after growling and snapping at the cat, who had not given the
+strangers a very courteous reception, sat down on the hearth-stone
+on either side of their taciturn master, eyeing him from time to
+time, as if long habit had made them understand all his motions.
+There was a great contrast between the dogs. The one was a brindled
+bulldog of the largest size, a most formidable and powerful brute;
+the other a staghound, tawny, deep-chested, and strong-limbed. I
+regarded the man and his hairy companions with silent curiosity.
+
+He was between forty and fifty years of age; his head, nearly bald,
+was studded at the sides with strong, coarse, black curling hair.
+His features were high, his complexion brightly dark, and his eyes,
+in size, shape, and colour, greatly resembled the eyes of a hawk.
+The face itself was sorrowful and taciturn; and his thin, compressed
+lips looked as if they were not much accustomed to smile, or often
+to unclose to hold social communion with any one. He stood at the
+side of the huge hearth, silently smoking, his eyes bent on the
+fire, and now and then he patted the heads of his dogs, reproving
+their exuberant expression of attachment, with--"Down, Music; down,
+Chance!"
+
+"A cold, clear morning," said I, in order to attract his attention
+and draw him into conversation.
+
+A nod, without raising his head, or withdrawing his eyes from the
+fire, was his only answer; and, turning from my unsociable guest,
+I took up the baby, who just then awoke, sat down on a low stool by
+the table, and began feeding her. During this operation, I once or
+twice caught the stranger's hawk-eye fixed upon me and the child,
+but word spoke he none; and presently, after whistling to his dogs,
+he resumed his gun, and strode out.
+
+When Moodie and Monaghan came in to breakfast, I told them what a
+strange visitor I had had; and Moodie laughed at my vain attempt to
+induce him to talk.
+
+"He is a strange being," I said; "I must find out who and what he is."
+
+In the afternoon an old soldier, called Layton, who had served
+during the American war, and got a grant of land about a mile in
+the rear of our location, came in to trade for a cow. Now, this
+Layton was a perfect ruffian; a man whom no one liked, and whom all
+feared. He was a deep drinker, a great swearer, in short, a perfect
+reprobate; who never cultivated his land, but went jobbing about
+from farm to farm, trading horses and cattle, and cheating in a
+pettifogging way. Uncle Joe had employed him to sell Moodie a young
+heifer, and he had brought her over for him to look at. When he
+came in to be paid, I described the stranger of the morning; and
+as I knew that he was familiar with every one in the neighbourhood,
+I asked if he knew him.
+
+"No one should know him better than myself," he said; "'tis old
+Brian B---, the still-hunter, and a near neighbour of your'n. A
+sour, morose, queer chap he is, and as mad as a March hare! He's
+from Lancashire, in England, and came to this country some twenty
+years ago, with his wife, who was a pretty young lass in those days,
+and slim enough then, though she's so awful fleshy now. He had lots
+of money, too, and he bought four hundred acres of land, just at the
+corner of the concession line, where it meets the main road. And
+excellent land it is; and a better farmer, while he stuck to his
+business, never went into the bush, for it was all bush here then.
+He was a dashing, handsome fellow, too, and did not hoard the money,
+either; he loved his pipe and his pot too well; and at last he left
+off farming, and gave himself to them altogether. Many a jolly booze
+he and I have had, I can tell you. Brian was an awful passionate
+man, and, when the liquor was in, and the wit was out, as savage and
+as quarrelsome as a bear. At such times there was no one but Ned
+Layton dared go near him. We once had a pitched battle, in which I
+was conqueror; and ever arter he yielded a sort of sulky obedience
+to all I said to him. Arter being on the spree for a week or two, he
+would take fits of remorse, and return home to his wife; would fall
+down at her knees, and ask her forgiveness, and cry like a child. At
+other times he would hide himself up in the woods, and steal home at
+night, and get what he wanted out of the pantry, without speaking a
+word to any one. He went on with these pranks for some years, till
+he took a fit of the blue devils.
+
+"'Come away, Ned, to the --- lake, with me,' said he; 'I am weary of
+my life, and I want a change.'
+
+"'Shall we take the fishing-tackle?' says I. 'The black bass are in
+prime season, and F--- will lend us the old canoe. He's got some
+capital rum up from Kingston. We'll fish all day, and have a spree
+at night.'
+
+"'It's not to fish I'm going,' says he.
+
+"'To shoot, then? I've bought Rockwood's new rifle.'
+
+"'It's neither to fish nor to shoot, Ned: it's a new game I'm going
+to try; so come along.'
+
+"Well, to the --- lake we went. The day was very hot, and our path
+lay through the woods, and over those scorching plains, for eight
+long miles. I thought I should have dropped by the way; but during
+our long walk my companion never opened his lips. He strode on
+before me, at a half-run, never once turning his head.
+
+"'The man must be the devil!' says I, 'and accustomed to a warmer
+place, or he must feel this. Hollo, Brian! Stop there! Do you mean
+to kill me?'
+
+"'Take it easy,' says he; 'you'll see another day arter this--I've
+business on hand, and cannot wait.'
+
+"Well, on we went, at the same awful rate, and it was mid-day when
+we got to the little tavern on the lake shore, kept by one F---, who
+had a boat for the convenience of strangers who came to visit the
+place. Here we got our dinner, and a glass of rum to wash it down.
+But Brian was moody, and to all my jokes he only returned a sort of
+grunt; and while I was talking with F---, he steps out, and a few
+minutes arter we saw him crossing the lake in the old canoe.
+
+"'What's the matter with Brian?' says F---; 'all does not seem right
+with him, Ned. You had better take the boat, and look arter him.'
+
+"'Pooh!' says I; 'he's often so, and grows so glum nowadays that I
+will cut his acquaintance altogether if he does not improve.'
+
+"'He drinks awful hard,' says F---; 'may be he's got a fit of the
+delirium-tremulous. There is no telling what he may be up to at this
+minute.'
+
+"My mind misgave me, too, so I e'en takes the oars, and pushes out,
+right upon Brian's track; and, by the Lord Harry! if I did not find
+him, upon my landing on the opposite shore, lying wallowing in his
+blood with his throat cut. 'Is that you, Brian?' says I, giving him
+a kick with my foot, to see if he was alive or dead. 'What on earth
+tempted you to play me and F--- such a dirty, mean trick, as to go
+and stick yourself like a pig, bringing such a discredit upon the
+house?--and you so far from home and those who should nurse you?'
+
+"I was so mad with him, that (saving your presence, ma'am) I swore
+awfully, and called him names that would be ondacent to repeat here;
+but he only answered with groans and a horrid gurgling in his
+throat. 'It's a choking you are,' said I, 'but you shan't have your
+own way, and die so easily, either, if I can punish you by keeping
+you alive.' So I just turned him upon his stomach, with his head
+down the steep bank; but he still kept choking and growing black in
+the face."
+
+Layton then detailed some particulars of his surgical practice which
+it is not necessary to repeat. He continued--
+
+"I bound up his throat with my handkerchief, and took him neck and
+heels, and threw him into the bottom of the boat. Presently he came
+to himself a little, and sat up in the boat; and--would you believe
+it?--made several attempts to throw himself in the water. 'This will
+not do,' says I; 'you've done mischief enough already by cutting
+your weasand! If you dare to try that again, I will kill you with
+the oar.' I held it up to threaten him; he was scared, and lay down
+as quiet as a lamb. I put my foot upon his breast. 'Lie still, now!
+or you'll catch it.' He looked piteously at me; he could not speak,
+but his eyes seemed to say, 'Have pity upon me, Ned; don't kill me.'
+
+"Yes, ma'am; this man, who had just cut his throat, and twice arter
+that tried to drown himself, was afraid that I should knock him on
+the head and kill him. Ha! ha! I shall never forget the work that
+F--- and I had with him arter I got him up to the house.
+
+"The doctor came, and sewed up his throat; and his wife--poor
+crittur!--came to nurse him. Bad as he was, she was mortal fond of
+him! He lay there, sick and unable to leave his bed, for three
+months, and did nothing but pray to God to forgive him, for he
+thought the devil would surely have him for cutting his own throat;
+and when he got about again, which is now twelve years ago, he left
+off drinking entirely, and wanders about the woods with his dogs,
+hunting. He seldom speaks to any one, and his wife's brother carries
+on the farm for the family. He is so shy of strangers that 'tis a
+wonder he came in here. The old wives are afraid of him; but you
+need not heed him--his troubles are to himself, he harms no one."
+
+Layton departed, and left me brooding over the sad tale which he had
+told in such an absurd and jesting manner. It was evident from the
+account he had given of Brian's attempt at suicide, that the hapless
+hunter was not wholly answerable for his conduct--that he was a
+harmless maniac.
+
+The next morning, at the very same hour, Brian again made his
+appearance; but instead of the rifle across his shoulder, a large
+stone jar occupied the place, suspended by a stout leather thong.
+Without saying a word, but with a truly benevolent smile, that
+flitted slowly over his stern features, and lighted them up, like
+a sunbeam breaking from beneath a stormy cloud, he advanced to the
+table, and unslinging the jar, set it down before me, and in a low
+and gruff, but by no means an unfriendly voice, said, "Milk, for
+the child," and vanished.
+
+"How good it was of him! How kind!" I exclaimed, as I poured the
+precious gift of four quarts of pure new milk out into a deep pan.
+I had not asked him--had never said that the poor weanling wanted
+milk. It was the courtesy of a gentleman--of a man of benevolence
+and refinement.
+
+For weeks did my strange, silent friend steal in, take up the empty
+jar, and supply its place with another replenished with milk. The
+baby knew his step, and would hold out her hands to him and cry,
+"Milk!" and Brian would stoop down and kiss her, and his two great
+dogs lick her face.
+
+"Have you any children, Mr. B---?"
+
+"Yes, five; but none like this."
+
+"My little girl is greatly indebted to you for your kindness."
+
+"She's welcome, or she would not get it. You are strangers; but I
+like you all. You look kind, and I would like to know more about
+you."
+
+Moodie shook hands with the old hunter, and assured him that we
+should always be glad to see him. After this invitation, Brian
+became a frequent guest. He would sit and listen with delight to
+Moodie while he described to him elephant-hunting at the Cape;
+grasping his rifle in a determined manner, and whistling an
+encouraging air to his dogs. I asked him one evening what made
+him so fond of hunting.
+
+"'Tis the excitement," he said; "it drowns thought, and I love to
+be alone. I am sorry for the creatures, too, for they are free and
+happy; yet I am led by an instinct I cannot restrain to kill them.
+Sometimes the sight of their dying agonies recalls painful feelings;
+and then I lay aside the gun, and do not hunt for days. But 'tis
+fine to be alone with God in the great woods--to watch the sunbeams
+stealing through the thick branches, the blue sky breaking in upon
+you in patches, and to know that all is bright and shiny above you,
+in spite of the gloom that surrounds you."
+
+After a long pause, he continued, with much solemn feeling in his
+look and tone--
+
+"I lived a life of folly for years, for I was respectably born and
+educated, and had seen something of the world, perhaps more than was
+good, before I left home for the woods; and from the teaching I had
+received from kind relatives and parents I should have known how to
+have conducted myself better. But, madam, if we associate long with
+the depraved and ignorant, we learn to become even worse than they
+are. I felt deeply my degradation--felt that I had become the slave
+to low vice; and in order to emancipate myself from the hateful
+tyranny of evil passions, I did a very rash and foolish thing. I
+need not mention the manner in which I transgressed God's holy laws;
+all the neighbours know it, and must have told you long ago. I could
+have borne reproof, but they turned my sorrow into indecent jests,
+and, unable to bear their coarse ridicule, I made companions of my
+dogs and gun, and went forth into the wilderness. Hunting became a
+habit. I could no longer live without it, and it supplies the
+stimulant which I lost when I renounced the cursed whiskey bottle.
+
+"I remember the first hunting excursion I took alone in the forest.
+How sad and gloomy I felt! I thought that there was no creature in
+the world so miserable as myself. I was tired and hungry, and I sat
+down upon a fallen tree to rest. All was still as death around me,
+and I was fast sinking to sleep, when my attention was aroused by
+a long, wild cry. My dog, for I had not Chance then, and he's no
+hunter, pricked up his ears, but instead of answering with a bark of
+defiance, he crouched down, trembling, at my feet. 'What does this
+mean?' I cried, and I cocked my rifle and sprang upon the log. The
+sound came nearer upon the wind. It was like the deep baying of a
+pack of hounds in full cry. Presently a noble deer rushed past me,
+and fast upon his trail--I see them now, like so many black
+devils--swept by a pack of ten or fifteen large, fierce wolves, with
+fiery eyes and bristling hair, and paws that seemed hardly to touch
+the ground in their eager haste. I thought not of danger, for, with
+their prey in view, I was safe; but I felt every nerve within me
+tremble for the fate of the poor deer. The wolves gained upon him
+at every bound. A close thicket intercepted his path, and, rendered
+desperate, he turned at bay. His nostrils were dilated, and his
+eyes seemed to send forth long streams of light. It was wonderful
+to witness the courage of the beast. How bravely he repelled the
+attacks of his deadly enemies, how gallantly he tossed them to the
+right and left, and spurned them from beneath his hoofs; yet all
+his struggles were useless, and he was quickly overcome and torn
+to pieces by his ravenous foes. At that moment he seemed more
+unfortunate than even myself, for I could not see in what manner he
+had deserved his fate. All his speed and energy, his courage and
+fortitude, had been exerted in vain. I had tried to destroy myself;
+but he, with every effort vigorously made for self-preservation, was
+doomed to meet the fate he dreaded! Is God just to his creatures?"
+
+With this sentence on his lips, he started abruptly from his seat,
+and left the house.
+
+One day he found me painting some wild flowers, and was greatly
+interested in watching the progress I made in the group. Late in
+the afternoon of the following day he brought me a large bunch
+of splendid spring flowers.
+
+"Draw these," said he; "I have been all the way to the --- lake
+plains to find them for you."
+
+Little Katie, grasping them one by one, with infantile joy, kissed
+every lovely blossom.
+
+"These are God's pictures," said the hunter, "and the child, who is
+all nature, understands them in a minute. Is it not strange that
+these beautiful things are hid away in the wilderness, where no eyes
+but the birds of the air, and the wild beasts of the wood, and the
+insects that live upon them, ever see them? Does God provide, for
+the pleasure of such creatures, these flowers? Is His benevolence
+gratified by the admiration of animals whom we have been taught to
+consider as having neither thought nor reflection? When I am alone
+in the forest, these thoughts puzzle me."
+
+Knowing that to argue with Brian was only to call into action the
+slumbering fires of his fatal malady, I turned the conversation by
+asking him why he called his favourite dog Chance?
+
+"I found him," he said, "forty miles back in the bush. He was a mere
+skeleton. At first I took him for a wolf, but the shape of his head
+undeceived me. I opened my wallet, and called him to me. He came
+slowly, stopping and wagging his tail at every step, and looking me
+wistfully in the face. I offered him a bit of dried venison, and he
+soon became friendly, and followed me home, and has never left me
+since. I called him Chance, after the manner I happened with him;
+and I would not part with him for twenty dollars."
+
+Alas, for poor Chance! he had, unknown to his master, contracted a
+private liking for fresh mutton, and one night he killed no less
+than eight sheep that belonged to Mr. D---, on the front road; the
+culprit, who had been long suspected, was caught in the very act,
+and this mischance cost him his life. Brian was sad and gloomy for
+many weeks after his favourite's death.
+
+"I would have restored the sheep fourfold," he said, "if he would
+but have spared the life of my dog."
+
+My recollections of Brian seemed more particularly to concentrate in
+the adventures of one night, when I happened to be left alone, for
+the first time since my arrival in Canada. I cannot now imagine how
+I could have been such a fool as to give way for four-and-twenty
+hours to such childish fears; but so it was, and I will not disguise
+my weakness from my indulgent reader.
+
+Moodie had bought a very fine cow of a black man, named Mollineux,
+for which he was to give twenty-seven dollars. The man lived twelve
+miles back in the woods; and one fine, frosty spring day--(don't
+smile at the term frosty, thus connected with the genial season of
+the year; the term is perfectly correct when applied to the Canadian
+spring, which, until the middle of May, is the most dismal season of
+the year)--he and John Monaghan took a rope, and the dog, and
+sallied forth to fetch the cow home. Moodie said that they should be
+back by six o'clock in the evening, and charged me to have something
+cooked for supper when they returned, as he doubted not their long
+walk in the sharp air would give them a good appetite. This was
+during the time that I was without a servant, and living in old
+Mrs. ---'s shanty.
+
+The day was so bright and clear, and Katie was so full of frolic and
+play, rolling upon the floor, or toddling from chair to chair, that
+the day passed on without my feeling remarkably lonely. At length
+the evening drew nigh, and I began to expect my husband's return,
+and to think of the supper that I was to prepare for his reception.
+The red heifer that we had bought of Layton, came lowing to the door
+to be milked; but I did not know how to milk in those days, and,
+besides this, I was terribly afraid of cattle. Yet, as I knew that
+milk would be required for the tea, I ran across the meadow to Mrs.
+Joe, and begged that one of her girls would be so kind as to milk
+for me. My request was greeted with a rude burst of laughter from
+the whole set.
+
+"If you can't milk," said Mrs. Joe, "it's high time you should
+learn. My girls are above being helps."
+
+"I would not ask you but as a great favour; I am afraid of cows."
+
+"Afraid of cows! Lord bless the woman! A farmer's wife, and afraid
+of cows!"
+
+Here followed another laugh at my expense; and, indignant at the
+refusal of my first and last request, when they had all borrowed
+so much from me, I shut the inhospitable door, and returned home.
+
+After many ineffectual attempts, I succeeded at last, and bore my
+half-pail of milk in triumph to the house. Yes! I felt prouder of
+that milk than many an author of the best thing he ever wrote,
+whether in verse or prose; and it was doubly sweet when I considered
+that I had procured it without being under any obligation to my
+ill-natured neighbours. I had learned a useful lesson of
+independence, to which, in after-years, I had often again to refer.
+
+I fed little Katie and put her to bed, made the hot cakes for tea,
+boiled the potatoes, and laid the ham, cut in nice slices, in the
+pan, ready to cook the moment I saw the men enter the meadow, and
+arranged the little room with scrupulous care and neatness. A
+glorious fire was blazing on the hearth, and everything was ready
+for their supper; and I began to look out anxiously for their
+arrival.
+
+The night had closed in cold and foggy, and I could no longer
+distinguish any object at more than a few yards from the door.
+Bringing in as much wood as I thought would last me for several
+hours, I closed the door; and for the first time in my life I found
+myself at night in a house entirely alone. Then I began to ask
+myself a thousand torturing questions as to the reason of their
+unusual absence. Had they lost their way in the woods? Could they
+have fallen in with wolves (one of my early bugbears)? Could any
+fatal accident have befallen them? I started up, opened the door,
+held my breath, and listened. The little brook lifted up its voice
+in loud, hoarse wailing, or mocked, in its babbling to the stones,
+the sound of human voices. As it became later, my fears increased in
+proportion. I grew too superstitious and nervous to keep the door
+open. I not only closed it, but dragged a heavy box in front, for
+bolt there was none. Several ill-looking men had, during the day,
+asked their way to Toronto. I felt alarmed, lest such rude wayfarers
+should come to-night and demand a lodging, and find me alone and
+unprotected. Once I thought of running across to Mrs. Joe, and
+asking her to let one of the girls stay with me until Moodie
+returned; but the way in which I had been repulsed in the evening
+prevented me from making a second appeal to their charity.
+
+Hour after hour wore away, and the crowing of the cocks proclaimed
+midnight, and yet they came not. I had burnt out all my wood, and I
+dared not open the door to fetch in more. The candle was expiring in
+the socket, and I had not courage to go up into the loft and procure
+another before it went finally out. Cold, heart-weary, and faint,
+I sat and cried. Every now and then the furious barking of the dogs
+at the neighbouring farms, and the loud cackling of the geese upon
+our own, made me hope that they were coming; and then I listened
+till the beating of my own heart excluded all other sounds. Oh,
+that unwearied brook! how it sobbed and moaned like a fretful
+child;--what unreal terrors and fanciful illusions my too active
+mind conjured up, whilst listening to its mysterious tones!
+
+Just as the moon rose, the howling of a pack of wolves, from the
+great swamp in our rear, filled the whole air. Their yells were
+answered by the barking of all the dogs in the vicinity, and the
+geese, unwilling to be behind-hand in the general confusion, set
+up the most discordant screams. I had often heard, and even been
+amused, during the winter, particularly on thaw nights, with hearing
+the howls of these formidable wild beasts; but I had never before
+heard them alone, and when one dear to me was abroad amid their
+haunts. They were directly in the track that Moodie and Monaghan
+must have taken; and I now made no doubt that they had been attacked
+and killed on their return through the woods with the cow, and I
+wept and sobbed until the cold grey dawn peered in upon me through
+the small dim window. I have passed many a long cheerless night,
+when my dear husband was away from me during the rebellion, and I
+was left in my forest home with five little children, and only an
+old Irish woman to draw and cut wood for my fire, and attend to the
+wants of the family, but that was the saddest and longest night I
+ever remember.
+
+Just as the day broke, my friends the wolves set up a parting
+benediction, so loud, and wild, and near to the house, that I was
+afraid lest they should break through the frail window, or come down
+the low wide chimney, and rob me of my child. But their detestable
+howls died away in the distance, and the bright sun rose up and
+dispersed the wild horrors of the night, and I looked once more
+timidly around me. The sight of the table spread, and the uneaten
+supper, renewed my grief, for I could not divest myself of the idea
+that Moodie was dead. I opened the door, and stepped forth into the
+pure air of the early day. A solemn and beautiful repose still hung
+like a veil over the face of Nature. The mists of night still rested
+upon the majestic woods, and not a sound but the flowing of the
+waters went up in the vast stillness. The earth had not yet raised
+her matin hymn to the throne of the Creator. Sad at heart, and weary
+and worn in spirit, I went down to the spring and washed my face and
+head, and drank a deep draught of its icy waters. On returning to
+the house I met, near the door, old Brian the hunter, with a large
+fox dangling across his shoulder, and the dogs following at his
+heels.
+
+"Good God! Mrs. Moodie, what is the matter? You are early abroad
+this morning, and look dreadful ill. Is anything wrong at home?
+Is the baby or your husband sick?"
+
+"Oh!" I cried, bursting into tears, "I fear he is killed by the
+wolves."
+
+The man stared at me, as if he doubted the evidence of his senses,
+and well he might; but this one idea had taken such strong
+possession of my mind that I could admit no other. I then told him,
+as well as I could find words, the cause of my alarm, to which he
+listened very kindly and patiently.
+
+"Set your heart at rest; your husband is safe. It is a long journey
+on foot to Mollineux, to one unacquainted with a blazed path in a
+bush road. They have stayed all night at the black man's shanty,
+and you will see them back at noon."
+
+I shook my head and continued to weep.
+
+"Well, now, in order to satisfy you, I will saddle my mare, and ride
+over to the nigger's, and bring you word as fast as I can."
+
+I thanked him sincerely for his kindness, and returned, in somewhat
+better spirits, to the house. At ten o'clock my good messenger
+returned with the glad tidings that all was well.
+
+The day before, when half the journey had been accomplished, John
+Monaghan let go the rope by which he led the cow, and she had broken
+away through the woods, and returned to her old master; and when
+they again reached his place, night had set in, and they were
+obliged to wait until the return of day. Moodie laughed heartily at
+all my fears; but indeed I found them no joke.
+
+Brian's eldest son, a lad of fourteen, was not exactly an idiot,
+but what, in the old country, is very expressively termed by the
+poor people a "natural." He could feed and assist himself, had been
+taught imperfectly to read and write, and could go to and from the
+town on errands, and carry a message from one farm-house to another;
+but he was a strange, wayward creature, and evidently inherited, in
+no small degree, his father's malady.
+
+During the summer months he lived entirely in the woods, near his
+father's dwelling, only returning to obtain food, which was
+generally left for him in an outhouse. In the winter, driven home
+by the severity of the weather, he would sit for days together
+moping in the chimney-corner, without taking the least notice of
+what was passing around him. Brian never mentioned this boy--who
+had a strong, active figure; a handsome, but very inexpressive
+face--without a deep sigh; and I feel certain that half his own
+dejection was occasioned by the mental aberration of his child.
+
+One day he sent the lad with a note to our house, to know if Moodie
+would purchase the half of an ox that he was going to kill. There
+happened to stand in the corner of the room an open wood box, into
+which several bushels of fine apples had been thrown; and, while
+Moodie was writing an answer to the note, the eyes of the idiot were
+fastened, as if by some magnetic influence, upon the apples. Knowing
+that Brian had a very fine orchard, I did not offer the boy any of
+the fruit. When the note was finished, I handed it to him. The lad
+grasped it mechanically, without removing his fixed gaze from the
+apples.
+
+"Give that to your father, Tom."
+
+The boy answered not--his ears, his eyes, his whole soul, were
+concentrated in the apples. Ten minutes elapsed, but he stood
+motionless, like a pointer at dead set.
+
+"My good boy, you can go."
+
+He did not stir.
+
+"Is there anything you want?"
+
+"I want," said the lad, without moving his eyes from the objects of
+his intense desire, and speaking in a slow, pointed manner, which
+ought to have been heard to be fully appreciated, "I want ap-ples!"
+
+"Oh, if that's all, take what you like."
+
+The permission once obtained, the boy flung himself upon the box
+with the rapacity of a hawk upon its prey, after being long poised
+in the air, to fix its certain aim; thrusting his hands to the right
+and left, in order to secure the finest specimens of the coveted
+fruit, scarcely allowing himself time to breathe until he had filled
+his old straw hat, and all his pockets, with apples. To help
+laughing was impossible; while this new Tom o' Bedlam darted from
+the house, and scampered across the field for dear life, as if
+afraid that we should pursue him, to rob him of his prize.
+
+It was during this winter that our friend Brian was left a fortune
+of three hundred pounds per annum; but it was necessary for him to
+return to his native country, in order to take possession of the
+property. This he positively refused to do; and when we remonstrated
+with him on the apparent imbecility of this resolution, he declared
+that he would not risk his life, in crossing the Atlantic twice for
+twenty times that sum. What strange inconsistency was this, in a
+being who had three times attempted to take away that which he
+dreaded so much to lose accidentally!
+
+I was much amused with an account which he gave me, in his quaint
+way, of an excursion he went upon with a botanist, to collect
+specimens of the plants and flowers of Upper Canada.
+
+"It was a fine spring day, some ten years ago, and I was yoking my
+oxen to drag in some oats I had just sown, when a little, fat,
+punchy man, with a broad, red, good-natured face, and carrying a
+small black leathern wallet across his shoulder, called to me over
+the fence, and asked me if my name was Brian B---? I said, 'Yes;
+what of that?'
+
+"'Only you are the man I want to see. They tell me that you are
+better acquainted with the woods than any person in these parts;
+and I will pay you anything in reason if you will be my guide for
+a few days.'
+
+"'Where do you want to go?' said I.
+
+"'Nowhere in particular,' says he. 'I want to go here and there, in
+all directions, to collect plants and flowers.'
+
+"That is still-hunting with a vengeance, thought I. 'To-day I must
+drag in my oats. If to-morrow will suit, we will be off.'
+
+"'And your charge?' said he. 'I like to be certain of that.'
+
+"'A dollar a day. My time and labour upon my farm, at this busy
+season, is worth more than that.'
+
+"'True,' said he. 'Well, I'll give you what you ask. At what time
+will you be ready to start?'
+
+"'By daybreak, if you wish it.'
+
+"Away he went; and by daylight next morning he was at my door,
+mounted upon a stout French pony. 'What are you going to do with
+that beast?' said I. 'Horses are of no use on the road that you
+and I are to travel. You had better leave him in my stable.'
+
+"'I want him to carry my traps,' said he; 'it may be some days that
+we shall be absent.'
+
+"I assured him that he must be his own beast of burthen, and carry
+his axe, and blanket, and wallet of food upon his own back. The
+little body did not much relish this arrangement; but as there was
+no help for it, he very good-naturedly complied. Off we set, and
+soon climbed the steep ridge at the back of your farm, and got upon
+--- lake plains. The woods were flush with flowers; and the little
+man grew into such an ecstacy, that at every fresh specimen he
+uttered a yell of joy, cut a caper in the air, and flung himself
+down upon them, as if he was drunk with delight. 'Oh, what
+treasures! what treasures!' he cried. 'I shall make my fortune!'
+
+"It is seldom I laugh," quoth Brian, "but I could not help laughing
+at this odd little man; for it was not the beautiful blossoms, such
+as you delight to paint, that drew forth these exclamations, but the
+queer little plants, which he had rummaged for at the roots of old
+trees, among the moss and long grass. He sat upon a decayed trunk,
+which lay in our path, I do believe for a long hour, making an
+oration over some greyish things, spotted with red, that grew upon
+it, which looked more like mould than plants, declaring himself
+repaid for all the trouble and expense he had been at, if it were
+only to obtain a sight of them. I gathered him a beautiful blossom
+of the lady's slipper; but he pushed it back when I presented it to
+him, saying, 'Yes, yes; 'tis very fine. I have seen that often
+before; but these lichens are splendid.'
+
+"The man had so little taste that I thought him a fool, and so I
+left him to talk to his dear plants, while I shot partridges for our
+supper. We spent six days in the woods, and the little man filled
+his black wallet with all sorts of rubbish, as if he wilfully shut
+his eyes to the beautiful flowers, and chose only to admire ugly,
+insignificant plants that everybody else passes by without noticing,
+and which, often as I had been in the woods, I never had observed
+before. I never pursued a deer with such earnestness as he continued
+his hunt for what he called 'specimens.'
+
+"When we came to the Cold Creek, which is pretty deep in places, he
+was in such a hurry to get at some plants that grew under the water,
+that in reaching after them he lost his balance and fell head over
+heels into the stream. He got a thorough ducking, and was in a
+terrible fright; but he held on to the flowers which had caused the
+trouble, and thanked his stars that he had saved them as well as his
+life. Well, he was an innocent man," continued Brian; "a very little
+made him happy, and at night he would sing and amuse himself like a
+child. He gave me ten dollars for my trouble, and I never saw him
+again; but I often think of him, when hunting in the woods that we
+wandered through together, and I pluck the wee plants that he used
+to admire, and wonder why he preferred them to the fine flowers."
+
+When our resolution was formed to sell our farm, and take up our
+grant of land in the backwoods, no one was so earnest in trying to
+persuade us to give up this ruinous scheme as our friend Brian B---,
+who became quite eloquent in his description of the trials and
+sorrows that awaited us. During the last week of our stay in the
+township of H---, he visited us every evening, and never bade us
+good-night without a tear moistening his cheek. We parted with the
+hunter as with an old friend; and we never met again. His fate was a
+sad one. After we left that part of the country, he fell into a
+moping melancholy, which ended in self-destruction. But a kinder,
+warmer-hearted man, while he enjoyed the light of reason, has seldom
+crossed our path.
+
+
+THE DYING HUNTER TO HIS DOG
+
+  Lie down, lie down, my noble hound!
+    That joyful bark give o'er;
+  It wakes the lonely echoes round,
+    But rouses me no more.
+  Thy lifted ears, thy swelling chest,
+    Thine eye so keenly bright,
+  No longer kindle in my breast
+    The thrill of fierce delight;
+  As following thee, on foaming steed,
+  My eager soul outstripp'd thy speed.
+
+  Lie down, lie down, my faithful hound!
+    And watch this night with me.
+  For thee again the horn shall sound,
+    By mountain, stream, and tree;
+  And thou, along the forest glade,
+    Shall track the flying deer
+  When, cold and silent, I am laid
+    In chill oblivion here.
+  Another voice shall cheer thee on,
+  And glory when the chase is won.
+
+  Lie down, lie down, my gallant hound!
+    Thy master's life is sped;
+  And, couch'd upon the dewy ground,
+    'Tis thine to watch the dead.
+  But when the blush of early day
+    Is kindling in the sky,
+  Then speed thee, faithful friend, away,
+    And to my Agnes hie;
+  And guide her to this lonely spot,
+  Though my closed eyes behold her not.
+
+  Lie down, lie down, my trusty hound!
+    Death comes, and now we part.
+  In my dull ear strange murmurs sound--
+    More faintly throbs my heart;
+  The many twinkling lights of Heaven
+    Scarce glimmer in the blue--
+  Chill round me falls the breath of even,
+    Cold on my brow the dew;
+  Earth, stars, and heavens are lost to sight--
+  The chase is o'er!--brave friend, good-night!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE CHARIVARI
+
+
+
+  Our fate is seal'd! 'Tis now in vain to sigh
+    For home, or friends, or country left behind.
+  Come, dry those tears, and lift the downcast eye
+    To the high heaven of hope, and be resign'd;
+  Wisdom and time will justify the deed,
+  The eye will cease to weep, the heart to bleed.
+
+  Love's thrilling sympathies, affections pure,
+    All that endear'd and hallow'd your lost home,
+  Shall on a broad foundation, firm and sure,
+    Establish peace; the wilderness become,
+  Dear as the distant land you fondly prize,
+  Or dearer visions that in memory rise.
+
+
+The moan of the wind tells of the coming rain that it bears upon its
+wings; the deep stillness of the woods, and the lengthened shadows
+they cast upon the stream, silently but surely foreshow the bursting
+of the thunder-cloud; and who that has lived for any time upon the
+coast, can mistake the language of the waves; that deep prophetic
+surging that ushers in the terrible gale? So it is with the human
+heart--it has its mysterious warnings, its fits of sunshine and
+shade, of storm and calm, now elevated with anticipations of joy,
+now depressed by dark presentiments of ill.
+
+All who have ever trodden this earth, possessed of the powers of
+thought and reflection, of tracing effects back to their causes,
+have listened to these voices of the soul, and secretly acknowledged
+their power; but few, very few, have had courage boldly to declare
+their belief in them: the wisest and the best have given credence to
+them, and the experience of every day proves their truth; yea, the
+proverbs of past ages abound with allusions to the same subject, and
+though the worldly may sneer, and the good man reprobate the belief
+in a theory which he considers dangerous, yet the former, when he
+appears led by an irresistible impulse to enter into some fortunate,
+but until then unthought-of speculation; and the latter, when he
+devoutly exclaims that God has met him in prayer, unconsciously
+acknowledge the same spiritual agency. For my own part, I have no
+doubts upon the subject, and have found many times, and at different
+periods of my life, that the voice in the soul speaks truly; that if
+we gave stricter heed to its mysterious warnings, we should be saved
+much after-sorrow.
+
+Well do I remember how sternly and solemnly this inward monitor
+warned me of approaching ill, the last night I spent at home; how it
+strove to draw me back as from a fearful abyss, beseeching me not to
+leave England and emigrate to Canada, and how gladly would I have
+obeyed the injunction had it still been in my power. I had bowed to
+a superior mandate, the command of duty; for my husband's sake, for
+the sake of the infant, whose little bosom heaved against my
+swelling heart, I had consented to bid adieu for ever to my native
+shores, and it seemed both useless and sinful to draw back.
+
+Yet, by what stern necessity were we driven forth to seek a new
+home amid the western wilds? We were not compelled to emigrate.
+Bound to England by a thousand holy and endearing ties, surrounded
+by a circle of chosen friends, and happy in each other's love,
+we possessed all that the world can bestow of good--but WEALTH.
+The half-pay of a subaltern officer, managed with the most rigid
+economy, is too small to supply the wants of a family; and if of
+a good family, not enough to maintain his original standing in
+society. True, it may find his children bread, it may clothe them
+indifferently, but it leaves nothing for the indispensable
+requirements of education, or the painful contingencies of sickness
+and misfortune. In such a case, it is both wise and right to
+emigrate; Nature points it out as the only safe remedy for the
+evils arising out of an over-dense population, and her advice is
+always founded upon justice and truth.
+
+Up to the period of which I now speak, we had not experienced much
+inconvenience from our very limited means. Our wants were few, and
+we enjoyed many of the comforts and even some of the luxuries of
+life; and all had gone on smoothly and lovingly with us until the
+birth of our first child. It was then that prudence whispered to the
+father, "you are happy and contented now, but this cannot always
+last; the birth of that child whom you have hailed with as much
+rapture as though she were born to inherit a noble estate, is to
+you the beginning of care. Your family may increase, and your wants
+will increase in proportion; out of what fund can you satisfy their
+demands? Some provision must be made for the future, and made
+quickly, while youth and health enable you to combat successfully
+with the ills of life. When you married for inclination, you knew
+that emigration must be the result of such an act of imprudence in
+over-populated England. Up and be doing, while you still possess
+the means of transporting yourself to a land where the industrious
+can never lack bread, and where there is a chance that wealth and
+independence may reward virtuous toil."
+
+Alas! that truth should ever whisper such unpleasant realities to
+the lover of ease--to the poet, the author, the musician, the man
+of books, of refined taste and gentlemanly habits. Yet he took the
+hint, and began to bestir himself with the spirit and energy so
+characteristic of the glorious North, from whence he sprung.
+
+"The sacrifice," he said, "must be made, and the sooner the better.
+My dear wife, I feel confident that you will respond to the call of
+duty, and, hand-in-hand and heart-in-heart we will go forth to meet
+difficulties, and, by the help of God, to subdue them."
+
+Dear husband! I take shame to myself that my purpose was less firm,
+that my heart lingered so far behind yours in preparing for this
+great epoch in our lives; that, like Lot's wife, I still turned and
+looked back, and clung with all my strength to the land I was
+leaving. It was not the hardships of an emigrant's life I dreaded.
+I could bear mere physical privations philosophically enough; it was
+the loss of the society in which I had moved, the want of congenial
+minds, of persons engaged in congenial pursuits, that made me so
+reluctant to respond to my husband's call.
+
+I was the youngest in a family remarkable for their literary
+attainments; and, while yet a child, I had seen riches melt away
+from our once prosperous home, as the Canadian snows dissolve before
+the first warm days of spring, leaving the verdureless earth naked
+and bare.
+
+There was, however, a spirit in my family that rose superior to the
+crushing influences of adversity. Poverty, which so often degrades
+the weak mind, became their best teacher, the stern but fruitful
+parent of high resolve and ennobling thought. The very misfortunes
+that overwhelmed, became the source from whence they derived both
+energy and strength, as the inundation of some mighty river
+fertilises the shores over which it first spreads ruin and
+desolation. Without losing aught of their former position in
+society, they dared to be poor; to place mind above matter, and make
+the talents with which the great Father had liberally endowed them,
+work out their appointed end. The world sneered, and summer friends
+forsook them; they turned their backs upon the world, and upon the
+ephemeral tribes that live but in its smiles.
+
+From out of the solitude in which they dwelt, their names went forth
+through the crowded cities of that cold, sneering world, and their
+names were mentioned with respect by the wise and good; and what
+they lost in wealth, they more than regained in well-earned
+reputation.
+
+Brought up in this school of self-denial, it would have been strange
+indeed if all its wise and holy precepts had brought forth no
+corresponding fruit. I endeavoured to reconcile myself to the change
+that awaited me, to accommodate my mind and pursuits to the new
+position in which I found myself placed.
+
+Many a hard battle had we to fight with old prejudices, and many
+proud swellings of the heart to subdue, before we could feel the
+least interest in the land of our adoption, or look upon it as our
+home.
+
+All was new, strange, and distasteful to us; we shrank from the
+rude, coarse familiarity of the uneducated people among whom we were
+thrown; and they in return viewed us as innovators, who wished to
+curtail their independence, by expecting from them the kindly
+civilities and gentle courtesies of a more refined community. They
+considered us proud and shy, when we were only anxious not to give
+offense. The semi-barbarous Yankee squatters, who had "left their
+country for their country's good," and by whom we were surrounded in
+our first settlement, detested us, and with them we could have no
+feeling in common. We could neither lie nor cheat in our dealings
+with them; and they despised us for our ignorance in trading and our
+want of smartness.
+
+The utter want of that common courtesy with which a well-brought-up
+European addresses the poorest of his brethren, is severely felt at
+first by settlers in Canada. At the period of which I am now
+speaking, the titles of "sir" or "madam" were very rarely applied
+by inferiors. They entered your house without knocking; and while
+boasting of their freedom, violated one of its dearest laws, which
+considers even the cottage of the poorest labourer his castle, and
+his privacy sacred.
+
+"Is your man to hum?"--"Is the woman within?" were the general
+inquiries made to me by such guests, while my bare-legged, ragged
+Irish servants were always spoken to, as "sir" and "mem," as if
+to make the distinction more pointed.
+
+Why they treated our claims to their respect with marked insult and
+rudeness, I never could satisfactorily determine, in any way that
+could reflect honour on the species, or even plead an excuse for its
+brutality, until I found that this insolence was more generally
+practised by the low, uneducated emigrants from Britain, who better
+understood your claims to their civility, than by the natives
+themselves. Then I discovered the secret.
+
+The unnatural restraint which society imposes upon these people at
+home forces them to treat their more fortunate brethren with a
+servile deference which is repugnant to their feelings, and is
+thrust upon them by the dependent circumstances in which they are
+placed. This homage to rank and education is not sincere. Hatred
+and envy lie rankling at their heart, although hidden by outward
+obsequiousness. Necessity compels their obedience; they fawn, and
+cringe, and flatter the wealth on which they depend for bread. But
+let them once emigrate, the clog which fettered them is suddenly
+removed; they are free; and the dearest privilege of this freedom
+is to wreak upon their superiors the long-locked-up hatred of their
+hearts. They think they can debase you to their level by disallowing
+all your claims to distinction; while they hope to exalt themselves
+and their fellows into ladies and gentlemen by sinking you back to
+the only title you received from Nature--plain "man" and "woman."
+Oh, how much more honourable than their vulgar pretensions!
+
+I never knew the real dignity of these simple epithets until they
+were insultingly thrust upon us by the working-classes of Canada.
+
+But from this folly the native-born Canadian is exempt; it is only
+practised by the low-born Yankee, or the Yankeefied British
+peasantry and mechanics. It originates in the enormous reaction
+springing out of a sudden emancipation from a state of utter
+dependence to one of unrestrained liberty. As such, I not only
+excuse, but forgive it, for the principle is founded in nature; and,
+however disgusting and distasteful to those accustomed to different
+treatment from their inferiors, it is better than a hollow
+profession of duty and attachment urged upon us by a false and
+unnatural position. Still it is very irksome until you think more
+deeply upon it; and then it serves to amuse rather than to irritate.
+
+And here I would observe, before quitting this subject, that of all
+follies, that of taking out servants from the old country is one of
+the greatest, and is sure to end in the loss of the money expended
+in their passage, and to become the cause of deep disappointment and
+mortification to yourself.
+
+They no sooner set foot upon the Canadian shores then they become
+possessed with this ultra-republican spirit. All respect for their
+employers, all subordination, is at an end; the very air of Canada
+severs the tie of mutual obligation which bound you together. They
+fancy themselves not only equal to you in rank, but that ignorance
+and vulgarity give them superior claims to notice. They demand in
+terms the highest wages, and grumble at doing half the work, in
+return, which they cheerfully performed at home. They demand to eat
+at your table, and to sit in your company; and if you refuse to
+listen to their dishonest and extravagant claims, they tell you that
+"they are free; that no contract signed in the old country is
+binding in 'Meriky'; that you may look out for another person to
+fill their place as soon as you like; and that you may get the money
+expended in their passage and outfit in the best manner you can."
+
+I was unfortunately persuaded to take out a woman with me as a nurse
+for my child during the voyage, as I was in very poor health; and
+her conduct, and the trouble and expense she occasioned, were a
+perfect illustration of what I have described.
+
+When we consider the different position in which servants are placed
+in the old and new world, this conduct, ungrateful as it then
+appeared to me, ought not to create the least surprise. In Britain,
+for instance, they are too often dependent upon the caprice of their
+employers for bread. Their wages are low; their moral condition
+still lower. They are brought up in the most servile fear of the
+higher classes, and they feel most keenly their hopeless
+degradation, for no effort on their part can better their condition.
+They know that if once they get a bad character, they must starve or
+steal; and to this conviction we are indebted for a great deal of
+their seeming fidelity and long and laborious service in our
+families, which we owe less to any moral perception on their part of
+the superior kindness or excellence of their employers, than to the
+mere feeling of assurance, that as long as they do their work well,
+and are cheerful and obedient, they will be punctually paid their
+wages, and well housed and fed.
+
+Happy is it for them and their masters when even this selfish bond
+of union exists between them!
+
+But in Canada the state of things in this respect is wholly
+reversed. The serving class, comparatively speaking, is small, and
+admits of little competition. Servants that understand the work of
+the country are not easily procured, and such always can command the
+highest wages. The possession of a good servant is such an addition
+to comfort, that they are persons of no small consequence, for the
+dread of starving no longer frightens them into servile obedience.
+They can live without you, and they well know that you cannot do
+without them. If you attempt to practise upon them that common vice
+of English mistresses, to scold them for any slight omission or
+offence, you rouse into active operation all their new-found spirit
+of freedom and opposition. They turn upon you with a torrent of
+abuse; they demand their wages, and declare their intention of
+quitting you instantly. The more inconvenient the time for you, the
+more bitter become their insulting remarks. They tell you, with a
+high hand, that "they are as good as you; that they can get twenty
+better places by the morrow, and that they don't care a snap for
+your anger." And away they bounce, leaving you to finish a large
+wash, or a heavy job of ironing, in the best way you can.
+
+When we look upon such conduct as the reaction arising out of their
+former state, we cannot so much blame them, and are obliged to own
+that it is the natural result of a sudden emancipation from former
+restraint. With all their insolent airs of independence, I must
+confess that I prefer the Canadian to the European servant. If they
+turn out good and faithful, it springs more from real respect and
+affection, and you possess in your domestic a valuable assistant and
+friend; but this will never be the case with a servant brought out
+with you from the old country, for the reasons before assigned. The
+happy independence enjoyed in this highly-favoured land is nowhere
+better illustrated than in the fact that no domestic can be treated
+with cruelty or insolence by an unbenevolent or arrogant master.
+
+Forty years has made as great a difference in the state of society
+in Canada as it has in its commercial and political importance.
+When we came to the Canadas, society was composed of elements
+which did not always amalgamate in the best possible manner.
+
+We were reckoned no addition to the society of C---. Authors and
+literary people they held in supreme detestation; and I was told by
+a lady, the very first time I appeared in company, that "she heard
+that I wrote books, but she could tell me that they did not want a
+Mrs. Trollope in Canada."
+
+I had not then read Mrs. Trollope's work on America, or I should
+have comprehended at once the cause of her indignation; for she was
+just such a person as would have drawn forth the keen satire of that
+far-seeing observer of the absurdities of our nature, whose witty
+exposure of American affectation has done more towards producing a
+reform in that respect, than would have resulted from a thousand
+grave animadversions soberly written.
+
+Another of my self-constituted advisers informed me, with great
+asperity in her look and tone, that "it would be better for me to
+lay by the pen, and betake myself to some more useful employment;
+that she thanked her God that she could make a shirt, and see to
+the cleaning of her house!"
+
+These remarks were perfectly gratuitous, and called forth by no
+observation of mine; for I tried to conceal my blue stockings
+beneath the long conventional robes of the tamest common-place,
+hoping to cover the faintest tinge of the objectionable colour. I
+had spoken to neither of these women in my life, and was much amused
+by their remarks; particularly as I could both make a shirt, and
+attend to the domestic arrangement of my family, as well as either
+of them.
+
+I verily believe that they expected to find an author one of a
+distinct species from themselves; that they imagined the aforesaid
+biped should neither eat, drink, sleep, nor talk like other
+folks;--a proud, useless, self-conceited, affected animal, that
+deserved nothing but kicks and buffets from the rest of mankind.
+
+Anxious not to offend them, I tried to avoid all literary subjects.
+I confined my conversation to topics of common interest; but this
+gave greater offence than the most ostentatious show of learning,
+for they concluded that I would not talk on such subjects, because I
+thought them incapable of understanding me. This was more wounding
+to their self-love than the most arrogant assumption on my part; and
+they regarded me with a jealous, envious stand-a-loofishness, that
+was so intolerable that I gave up all ideas of visiting them. I was
+so accustomed to hear the whispered remark, or to have it retailed
+to me by others, "Oh, yes; she can write, but she can do nothing
+else," that I was made more diligent in cultivating every branch of
+domestic usefulness; so that these ill-natured sarcasms ultimately
+led to my acquiring a great mass of most useful practical knowledge.
+Yet--such is the contradiction inherent in our poor fallen
+nature--these people were more annoyed by my proficiency in the
+common labours of the household, than they would have been by any
+displays of my unfortunate authorship. Never was the fable of the
+old man and his ass so truly verified.
+
+There is a very little of the social, friendly visiting among
+the Canadians which constitutes the great charm of home. Their
+hospitality is entirely reserved for those monster meetings in which
+they vie with each other in displaying fine clothes and costly
+furniture. As these large parties are very expensive, few families
+can afford to give more than one during the visiting season, which
+is almost exclusively confined to the winter. The great gun, once
+fired, you meet no more at the same house around the social board
+until the ensuing year, and would scarcely know that you had a
+neighbor, were it not for a formal morning call made now and then,
+just to remind you that such individuals are in the land of the
+living, and still exist in your near vicinity.
+
+I am speaking of visiting in the towns and villages. The manners and
+habits of the European settlers in the country are far more simple
+and natural, and their hospitality more genuine and sincere. They
+have not been sophisticated by the hard, worldly wisdom of a
+Canadian town, and still retain a warm remembrance of the kindly
+humanities of home.
+
+Among the women, a love of dress exceeds all other passions. In
+public they dress in silks and satins, and wear the most expensive
+ornaments, and they display considerable taste in the arrangement
+and choice of colours. The wife of a man in moderate circumstances,
+whose income does not exceed two or three hundred pounds a-year,
+does not hesitate in expending ten or fifteen pounds upon one
+article of outside finery, while often her inner garments are not
+worth as many sous; thus sacrificing to outward show all the real
+comforts of life.
+
+The aristocracy of wealth is bad enough; but the aristocracy of
+dress is perfectly contemptible. Could Raphael visit Canada in rags,
+he would be nothing in their eyes beyond a common sign-painter.
+
+Great and manifold, even to the ruin of families, are the evils
+arising from this inordinate love for dress. They derive their
+fashions from the French and the Americans--seldom from the English,
+whom they far surpass in the neatness and elegance of their costume.
+
+The Canadian women, while they retain the bloom and freshness of
+youth, are exceedingly pretty; but these charms soon fade, owing,
+perhaps, to the fierce extremes of their climate, or the withering
+effect of the dry metallic air of stoves, and their going too early
+into company and being exposed, while yet children, to the noxious
+influence of late hours, and the sudden change from heated rooms to
+the cold, biting, bitter winter blast.
+
+Though small of stature, they are generally well and symmetrically
+formed, and possess a graceful, easy carriage. The early age at
+which they marry, and are introduced into society, takes from them
+all awkwardness and restraint. A girl of fourteen can enter a
+crowded ball-room with as much self-possession, and converse with as
+much confidence, as a matron of forty. The blush of timidity and
+diffidence is, indeed, rare upon the cheek of a Canadian beauty.
+
+Their education is so limited and confined to so few
+accomplishments, and these not very perfectly taught, that their
+conversation seldom goes beyond a particular discussion on their
+own dress, or that of their neighbours, their houses, furniture,
+and servants, sometimes interlarded with a LITTLE HARMLESS GOSSIP,
+which, however, tells keenly upon the characters of their dear
+friends.
+
+Yet they have abilities, excellent practical abilities, which, with
+a little mental culture, would render them intellectual and charming
+companions. At present, too many of these truly lovely girls remind
+one of choice flowers half buried in weeds.
+
+Music and dancing are their chief accomplishments. In the former
+they seldom excel. Though possessing an excellent general taste for
+music, it is seldom in their power to bestow upon its study the time
+which is required to make a really good musician. They are admirable
+proficients in the other art, which they acquire readily, with the
+least instruction, often without any instruction at all, beyond that
+which is given almost intuitively by a good ear for time, and a
+quick perception of the harmony of motion.
+
+The waltz is their favorite dance, in which old and young join with
+the greatest avidity; it is not unusual to see parents and their
+grown-up children dancing in the same set in a public ball-room.
+
+Their taste in music is not for the sentimental; they prefer the
+light, lively tunes of the Virginian minstrels to the most
+impassioned strains of Bellini.
+
+On entering one of the public ball-rooms, a stranger would be
+delighted with such a display of pretty faces and neat figures. I
+have hardly ever seen a really plain Canadian girl in her teens;
+and a downright ugly one is almost unknown.
+
+The high cheek-bones, wide mouth, and turned-up nose of the Saxon
+race, so common among the lower classes in Britain, are here
+succeeded in the next generation, by the small oval face, straight
+nose, and beautifully-cut mouth of the American; while the glowing
+tint of the Albion rose pales before the withering influence of late
+hours and stove-heat.
+
+They are naturally a fine people, and possess capabilities and
+talents, which when improved by cultivation will render them second
+to no people in the world; and that period is not far distant.
+
+Idiots and mad people are so seldom met with among natives of the
+colony, that not one of this description of unfortunates has ever
+come under my own immediate observation.
+
+To the benevolent philanthropist, whose heart has bled over the
+misery and pauperism of the lower classes in Great Britain, the
+almost entire absence of mendicity from Canada would be highly
+gratifying. Canada has few, if any, native beggars; her objects of
+charity are generally imported from the mother country, and these
+are never suffered to want food or clothing. The Canadians are a
+truly charitable people; no person in distress is driven with harsh
+and cruel language from their doors; they not only generously
+relieve the wants of suffering strangers cast upon their bounty, but
+they nurse them in sickness, and use every means in their power to
+procure them employment. The number of orphan children yearly
+adopted by wealthy Canadians, and treated in every respect as their
+own, is almost incredible.
+
+It is a glorious country for the labouring classes, for while
+blessed with health they are always certain of employment, and
+certain also to derive from it ample means of support for their
+families. An industrious, hard-working man in a few years is able
+to purchase from his savings a homestead of his own; and in process
+of time becomes one of the most important and prosperous class of
+settlers in Canada, her free and independent yeomen, who form the
+bones and sinews of this rising country, and from among whom she
+already begins to draw her senators, while their educated sons
+become the aristocrats of the rising generation.
+
+It has often been remarked to me by people long resident in the
+colony, that those who come to the country destitute of means, but
+able and willing to work, invariably improve their condition and
+become independent; while the gentleman who brings out with him a
+small capital is too often tricked and cheated out of his property,
+and drawn into rash and dangerous speculations which terminate in
+his ruin. His children, neglected and uneducated, yet brought up
+with ideas far beyond their means, and suffered to waste their time
+in idleness, seldom take to work, and not unfrequently sink down to
+the lowest class.
+
+But I have dwelt long enough upon these serious subjects; and I will
+leave my husband, who is better qualified than myself, to give a
+more accurate account of the country, while I turn to matters of a
+lighter and a livelier cast.
+
+It was towards the close of the summer of 1833, which had been
+unusually cold and wet for Canada, while Moodie was absent at D---,
+inspecting a portion of his government grant of land, that I was
+startled one night, just before retiring to rest, by the sudden
+firing of guns in our near vicinity, accompanied by shouts and
+yells, the braying of horns, the beating of drums, and the barking
+of all the dogs in the neighborhood. I never heard a more stunning
+uproar of discordant and hideous sounds.
+
+What could it all mean? The maid-servant, as much alarmed as myself,
+opened the door and listened.
+
+"The goodness defend us!" she exclaimed, quickly closing it, and
+drawing a bolt seldom used. "We shall be murdered. The Yankees must
+have taken Canada, and are marching hither."
+
+"Nonsense! that cannot be it. Besides they would never leave the
+main road to attack a poor place like this. Yet the noise is very
+near. Hark! they are firing again. Bring me the hammer and some
+nails, and let us secure the windows."
+
+The next moment I laughed at my folly in attempting to secure a log
+hut, when the application of a match to its rotten walls would
+consume it in a few minutes. Still, as the noise increased, I was
+really frightened. My servant, who was Irish (for my Scotch girl,
+Bell, had taken to herself a husband and I had been obliged to hire
+another in her place, who had only been a few days in the country),
+began to cry and wring her hands, and lament her hard fate in coming
+to Canada.
+
+Just at this critical moment, when we were both self-convicted of an
+arrant cowardice, which would have shamed a Canadian child of six
+years old, Mrs. O--- tapped at the door, and although generally a
+most unwelcome visitor, from her gossiping, mischievous
+propensities, I gladly let her in.
+
+"Do tell me," I cried, "the meaning of this strange uproar?"
+
+"Oh, 'tis nothing," she replied, laughing; "you and Mary look as
+white as a sheet; but you need not be alarmed. A set of wild fellows
+have met to charivari Old Satan, who has married his fourth wife
+to-night, a young gal of sixteen. I should not wonder if some
+mischief happens among them, for they are a bad set, made up of all
+the idle loafers about Port H--- and C---."
+
+"What is a charivari?" said I. "Do, pray, enlighten me."
+
+"Have you been nine months in Canada, and ask that question? Why I
+thought you knew everything! Well, I will tell you what it is. The
+charivari is a custom that the Canadians got from the French, in the
+Lower Province, and a queer custom it is. When an old man marries a
+young wife, or an old woman a young husband, or two old people, who
+ought to be thinking of their graves, enter for the second or third
+time into the holy estate of wedlock, as the priest calls it, all
+the idle young fellows in the neighborhood meet together to
+charivari them. For this purpose they disguise themselves,
+blackening their faces, putting their clothes on hind part before,
+and wearing horrible masks, with grotesque caps on their head,
+adorned with cocks' feathers and bells. They then form in a regular
+body, and proceed to the bridegroom's house, to the sound of tin
+kettles, horns, and drums, cracked fiddles, and all the discordant
+instruments they can collect together. Thus equipped, they surround
+the house where the wedding is held, just at the hour when the happy
+couple are supposed to be about to retire to rest--beating upon the
+door with clubs and staves, and demanding of the bridegroom
+admittance to drink the bride's health, or in lieu there of to
+receive a certain sum of money to treat the band at the nearest
+tavern.
+
+"If the bridegroom refuses to appear and grant their request, they
+commence the horrible din you hear, firing guns charged with peas
+against the doors and windows, rattling old pots and kettles, and
+abusing him for his stinginess in no measured terms. Sometimes they
+break open the doors, and seize upon the bridegroom; and he may
+esteem himself a very fortunate man, under such circumstances, if
+he escapes being ridden upon a rail, tarred and feathered, and
+otherwise maltreated. I have known many fatal accidents arise out
+of an imprudent refusal to satisfy the demands of the assailants.
+People have even lost their lives in the fray; and I think the
+government should interfere, and put down these riotous meetings.
+Surely, it is very hard, that an old man cannot marry a young gal,
+if she is willing to take him, without asking the leave of such a
+rabble as that. What right have they to interfere with his private
+affairs?"
+
+"What, indeed?" said I, feeling a truly British indignation at such
+a lawless infringement upon the natural rights of man.
+
+"I remember," continued Mrs. O---, who had got fairly started upon a
+favorite subject, "a scene of this kind, that was acted two years
+ago, at ---, when old Mr. P--- took his third wife. He was a very
+rich storekeeper, and had made during the war a great deal of money.
+He felt lonely in his old age, and married a young, handsome widow,
+to enliven his house. The lads in the village were determined to
+make him pay for his frolic. This got wind, and Mr. P--- was advised
+to spend the honeymoon in Toronto; but he only laughed, and said
+that 'he was not going to be frightened from his comfortable home by
+the threats of a few wild boys.' In the morning, he was married at
+the church, and spent the day at home, where he entertained a large
+party of his own and the bride's friends. During the evening, all
+the idle chaps in the town collected round the house, headed by a
+mad young bookseller, who had offered himself for their captain,
+and, in the usual forms, demanded a sight of the bride, and liquor
+to drink her health. They were very good-naturedly received by Mr.
+P---, who sent a friend down to them to bid them welcome, and to
+inquire on what terms they would consent to let him off, and
+disperse.
+
+"The captain of the band demanded sixty dollars, as he, Mr. P---,
+could well afford to pay it.
+
+"'That's too much, my fine fellows!' cried Mr. P--- from the open
+window. 'Say twenty-five, and I will send you down a cheque upon the
+bank of Montreal for the money.'
+
+"'Thirty! thirty! thirty! old boy!' roared a hundred voices. 'Your
+wife's worth that. Down with the cash, and we will give you three
+cheers, and three times three for the bride, and leave you to sleep
+in peace. If you hang back, we will raise such a 'larum about your
+ears that you shan't know that your wife's your own for a month to
+come!'
+
+"'I'll give you twenty-five,' remonstrated the bridegroom, not the
+least alarmed at their threats, and laughing all the time in his
+sleeve.
+
+"'Thirty; not one copper less!' Here they gave him such a salute of
+diabolical sounds that he ran from the window with his hands to his
+ears, and his friend came down stairs to the verandah, and gave them
+the sum they required. They did not expect that the old man would
+have been so liberal, and they gave him the 'Hip, hip, hip hurrah!'
+in fine style, and marched off the finish the night and spend the
+money at the tavern."
+
+"And do people allow themselves to be bullied out of their property
+by such ruffians?"
+
+"Ah, my dear! 'tis the custom of the country, and 'tis not so easy
+to put it down. But I can tell you that a charivari is not always a
+joke.
+
+"There was another affair that happened, just before you came to the
+place, that occasioned no small talk in the neighbourhood; and well
+it might, for it was a most disgraceful piece of business, and
+attended with very serious consequences. Some of the charivari party
+had to fly, or they might have ended their days in the penitentiary.
+
+"There was runaway nigger from the States came to the village, and
+set up a barber's poll, and settled among us. I am no friend to the
+blacks; but really Tom Smith was such a quiet, good-natured fellow,
+and so civil and obliging, that he soon got a good business. He was
+clever, too, and cleaned old clothes until they looked almost as
+good as new. Well, after a time he persuaded a white girl to marry
+him. She was not a bad-looking Irish woman, and I can't think what
+bewitched the creature to take him.
+
+"Her marriage with the black man created a great sensation in the
+town. All the young fellows were indignant at his presumption and
+her folly, and they determined to give them the charivari in fine
+style, and punish them both for the insult they had put upon the
+place.
+
+"Some of the young gentlemen in the town joined in the frolic. They
+went so far as to enter the house, drag the poor nigger from his
+bed, and in spite of his shrieks for mercy, they hurried him out
+into the cold air--for it was winter--and almost naked as he was,
+rode him upon a rail, and so ill-treated him that he died under
+their hands.
+
+"They left the body, when they found what had happened, and fled.
+The ringleaders escaped across the lake to the other side; and those
+who remained could not be sufficiently identified to bring them to
+trial. The affair was hushed up; but it gave great uneasiness to
+several respectable families whose sons were in the scrape."
+
+"Good heavens! are such things permitted in a Christian country?
+But scenes like these must be of rare occurrence?"
+
+"They are more common than you imagine. A man was killed up at W---
+the other day, and two others dangerously wounded, at a charivari.
+The bridegroom was a man in middle life, a desperately resolute and
+passionate man, and he swore that if such riff-raff dared to
+interfere with him, he would shoot at them with as little
+compunction as he would at so many crows. His threats only increased
+the mischievous determination of the mob to torment him; and when he
+refused to admit their deputation, or even to give them a portion of
+the wedding cheer, they determined to frighten him into compliance
+by firing several guns, loaded with peas, at his door. Their salute
+was returned from the chamber windows, by the discharge of a
+double-barrelled gun, loaded with buck-shot. The crowd gave back
+with a tremendous yell. Their leader was shot through the heart, and
+two of the foremost in the scuffle dangerously wounded. They vowed
+they would set fire to the house, but the bridegroom boldly stepped
+to the window, and told them to try it, and before they could light
+a torch he would fire among them again, as his gun was reloaded, and
+he would discharge it at them as long as one of them dared to remain
+on his premises.
+
+"They cleared off; but though Mr. A--- was not punished for the
+ACCIDENT, as it was called, he became a marked man, and lately
+left the colony, to settle in the United States.
+
+"Why, Mrs. Moodie, you look quite serious. I can, however, tell you
+a less dismal tale, A charivari would seldom be attended with bad
+consequences if people would take it as a joke, and join in the
+spree."
+
+"A very dignified proceeding, for a bride and bridegroom to make
+themselves the laughing-stock of such people!"
+
+"Oh, but custom reconciles us to everything; and 'tis better to give
+up a little of our pride than endanger the lives of our
+fellow-creatures. I have been told a story of a lady in the Lower
+Province, who took for her second husband a young fellow, who, as
+far as his age was concerned, might have been her son. The mob
+surrounded her house at night, carrying her effigy in an open
+coffin, supported by six young lads, with white favours in their
+hats; and they buried the poor bride, amid shouts of laughter, and
+the usual accompaniments, just opposite her drawing-room windows.
+The widow was highly amused by the whole of their proceedings, but
+she wisely let them have their own way. She lived in a strong stone
+house, and she barred the doors, and closed the iron shutters, and
+set them at defiance.
+
+"'As long as she enjoyed her health,' she said, 'they were welcome
+to bury her in effigy as often as they pleased; she was really glad
+to be able to afford amusement to so many people.'
+
+"Night after night, during the whole of that winter, the same party
+beset her house with their diabolical music; but she only laughed at
+them.
+
+"The leader of the mob was a young lawyer from these parts, a sad,
+mischievous fellow; the widow became aware of this, and she invited
+him one evening to take tea with a small party at her house. He
+accepted the invitation, was charmed with her hearty and hospitable
+welcome, and soon found himself quite at home; but only think how
+ashamed he must have felt, when the same 'larum commenced, at the
+usual hour, in front of the lady's house!
+
+"'Oh,' said Mrs. R---, smiling to her husband, 'here come our
+friends. Really, Mr. K---, they amuse us so much of an evening that
+I should feel quite dull without them.'
+
+"From that hour the charivari ceased, and the old lady was left to
+enjoy the society of her young husband in quiet.
+
+"I assure you, Mrs. M---, that the charivari often deters old people
+from making disgraceful marriages, so that it is not wholly without
+its use."
+
+A few days after the charivari affair, Mrs. D--- stepped in to see
+me. She was an American; a very respectable old lady, who resided
+in a handsome frame-house on the main road. I was at dinner, the
+servant-girl, in the meanwhile, nursing my child at a distance.
+Mrs. D--- sat looking at me very seriously until I concluded my
+meal, her dinner having been accomplished several hours before.
+When I had finished, the girl gave me the child, and then removed
+the dinner-service into an outer room.
+
+"You don't eat with your helps," said my visitor. "Is not that
+something like pride?"
+
+"It is custom," said I; "we were not used to do so at home, and I
+think that keeping a separate table is more comfortable for both
+parties."
+
+"Are you not both of the same flesh and blood? The rich and the poor
+meet together, and the Lord is the maker of them all."
+
+"True. Your quotation is just, and I assent to it with all my heart.
+There is no difference in the flesh and blood; but education makes a
+difference in the mind and manners, and, till these can assimilate,
+it is better to keep them apart."
+
+"Ah! you are not a good Christian, Mrs. Moodie. The Lord thought
+more of the poor than he did of the rich, and he obtained more
+followers from among them. Now, WE always take our meals with
+our people."
+
+Presently after, while talking over the affairs of our households,
+I happened to say that the cow we had bought of Mollineux had turned
+out extremely well, and gave a great deal of milk.
+
+"That man lived with us several years," she said; "he was an
+excellent servant, and D--- paid him his wages in land. The farm he
+now occupies formed a part of our U.E. grant. But, for all his good
+conduct, I never could abide him, for being a BLACK."
+
+"Indeed! Is he not the same flesh and blood as the rest?"
+
+The colour rose into Mrs. D---'s sallow face, and she answered with
+much warmth--
+
+"What! do you mean to compare ME with a NIGGER!"
+
+"Not exactly. But, after all, the colour makes the only difference
+between him and uneducated men of the same class."
+
+"Mrs. Moodie!" she exclaimed, holding up her hands in pious horror;
+"they are the children of the devil! God never condescended to make
+a nigger."
+
+"Such an idea is an impeachment of the power and majesty of the
+Almighty. How can you believe such an ignorant fable?"
+
+"Well, then," said my monitress, in high dudgeon, "if the devil did
+not make them, they are descended from Cain."
+
+"But all Cain's posterity perished in the flood."
+
+My visitor was puzzled.
+
+"The African race, it is generally believed, are the descendants of
+Ham, and to many of their tribes the curse pronounced against him
+seems to cling. To be the servant of servants is bad enough, without
+our making their condition worse by our cruel persecutions. Christ
+came to seek and to save that which was lost; and in proof of this
+inestimable promise, he did not reject the Ethiopian eunuch who was
+baptised by Philip, and who was, doubtless, as black as the rest of
+his people. Do you not admit Mollineux to your table with your other
+helps?"
+
+"Mercy sake! do you think that I would sit down at the same table
+with a nigger? My helps would leave the house if I dared to put such
+an affront upon them. Sit down with a dirty black, indeed!"
+
+"Do you think, Mrs. D---, that there will be any negroes in heaven?"
+
+"Certainly not, or I, for one, would never wish to go there;" and
+out of the house she sallied in high disdain.
+
+Yet this was the woman who had given me such a plausible lecture
+on pride. Alas, for our fallen nature! Which is more subversive of
+peace and Christian fellowship--ignorance of our own characters,
+or the characters of others?
+
+Our departure for the woods became now a frequent theme of
+conversation. My husband had just returned from an exploring
+expedition to the backwoods, and was delighted with the prospect of
+removing thither. The only thing I listened to in their praise, with
+any degree of interest, was a lively song, which he had written
+during his brief sojourn at Douro:--
+
+
+TO THE WOODS!--TO THE WOODS!
+
+  To the woods!--to the woods!--The sun shines bright,
+    The smoke rises high in the clear frosty air;
+  Our axes are sharp, and our hearts are light,
+    Let us toil while we can and drive away care.
+  Though homely our food, we are merry and strong,
+    And labour is wealth, which no man can deny;
+  At eve we will chase the dull hours with a song,
+    And at grey peep of dawn let this be our cry,
+
+        To the woods!--to the woods!--&c.
+
+  Hark! how the trees crack in the keen morning blast,
+    And see how the rapids are cover'd with steam;
+  Thaw your axes, my lads, the sun rises fast,
+    And gilds the pine tops with his bright golden beam.
+
+        To the woods!--to the woods!--&c.
+
+  Come, chop away, lads! the wild woods resound,
+    Let your quick-falling strokes in due harmony ring;
+  See, the lofty tree shivers--it falls to the ground!
+    Now with voices united together we'll sing--
+  To the woods!--to the woods!--The sun shines bright,
+    The smoke rises high in the clear frosty air;
+  Our axes are sharp, and our hearts are light,
+    Let us toil while we can and drive away care,
+      And drive away care.
+
+J.W.D.M.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE VILLAGE HOTEL
+
+
+
+  Well, stranger, here you are all safe and sound;
+    You're now on shore. Methinks you look aghast,--
+  As if you'd made some slight mistake, and found
+    A land you liked not. Think not of the past;
+  Your leading-strings are cut; the mystic chain
+    That bound you to your fair and smiling shore
+  Is sever'd now, indeed. 'Tis now in vain
+    To sigh for joys that can return no more.
+
+
+Emigration, however necessary as the obvious means of providing
+for the increasing population of early-settled and over-peopled
+countries, is indeed a very serious matter to the individual
+emigrant and his family. He is thrown adrift, as it were, on a
+troubled ocean, the winds and currents of which are unknown to him.
+His past experience, and his judgment founded on experience, will
+be useless to him in this new sphere of action. In an old country,
+where generation after generation inhabits the same spot, the mental
+dispositions and prejudices of our ancestors become in a manner
+hereditary, and descend to their children with their possessions.
+In a new colony, on the contrary, the habits and associations of
+the emigrant having been broken up for ever, he is suddenly thrown
+on his own internal resources, and compelled to act and decide at
+once; not unfrequently under pain of misery or starvation. He is
+surrounded with dangers, often without the ordinary means which
+common-sense and prudence suggest of avoiding them,--because the
+EXPERIENCE on which these common qualities are founded is wanting.
+Separated for ever from those warm-hearted friends, who in his
+native country would advise or assist him in his first efforts, and
+surrounded by people who have an interest in misleading and imposing
+upon him, every-day experience shows that no amount of natural
+sagacity or prudence, founded on experience in other countries,
+will be an effectual safeguard against deception and erroneous
+conclusions.
+
+It is a fact worthy of observation, that among emigrants possessing
+the qualities of industry and perseverance so essential to success
+in all countries, those who possess the smallest share of original
+talent and imagination, and the least of a speculative turn of mind,
+are usually the most successful. They follow the beaten track and
+prosper. However humbling this reflection may be to human vanity,
+it should operate as a salutary check on presumption and hasty
+conclusions. After a residence of sixteen years in Canada, during
+which my young and helpless family have been exposed to many
+privations, while we toiled incessantly and continued to hope even
+against hope, these reflections naturally occur to our minds, not
+only as the common-sense view of the subject, but as the fruit of
+long and daily-bought experience.
+
+After all this long probation in the backwoods of Canada, I find
+myself brought back in circumstances nearly to the point from
+whence I started, and am compelled to admit that had I only
+followed my own unassisted judgment, when I arrived with my wife
+and child in Canada, and quietly settled down on the cleared farm
+I had purchased, in a well-settled neighbourhood, and with the
+aid of the means I then possessed, I should now in all probability
+have been in easy if not in affluent circumstances.
+
+Native Canadians, like Yankees, will make money where people from
+the old country would almost starve. Their intimate knowledge of
+the country, and of the circumstances of the inhabitants, enables
+them to turn their money to great advantage; and I must add, that
+few people from the old country, however avaricious, can bring
+themselves to stoop to the unscrupulous means of acquiring property
+which are too commonly resorted to in this country. These
+reflections are a rather serious commencement of a sketch which was
+intended to be of a more lively description; one of my chief objects
+in writing this chapter being to afford a connecting link between
+my wife's sketches, and to account for some circumstances connected
+with our situation, which otherwise would be unintelligible to
+the reader. Before emigrating to Canada, I had been settled as a
+bachelor in South Africa for about twelve years. I use the word
+settled, for want of a better term--for a bachelor can never,
+properly, be said to be settled. He has no object in life--no aim.
+He is like a knife without a blade, or a gun without a barrel. He
+is always in the way, and nobody cares for him. If he work on a
+farm, as I did, for I never could look on while others were
+working without lending a hand, he works merely for the sake of
+work. He benefits nobody by his exertions, not even himself; for
+he is restless and anxious, has a hundred indescribable ailments,
+which no one but himself can understand; and for want of the
+legitimate cares and anxieties connected with a family, he is full
+of cares and anxieties of his own creating. In short, he is in a
+false position, as every man must be who presumes to live alone
+when he can do better.
+
+This was my case in South Africa. I had plenty of land, and of
+all the common necessaries of life; but I lived for years without
+companionship, for my nearest English neighbour was twenty-five
+miles off. I hunted the wild animals of the country, and had plenty
+of books to read; but, from talking broken Dutch for months
+together, I almost forgot how to speak my own language correctly.
+My very ideas (for I had not entirely lost the reflecting faculty)
+became confused and limited, for want of intellectual companions to
+strike out new lights, and form new combinations in the regions of
+thought; clearly showing that man was not intended to live alone.
+Getting, at length, tired of this solitary and unproductive life,
+I started for England, with the resolution of placing my domestic
+matters on a more comfortable footing. By a happy accident, at the
+house of a literary friend in London, I became acquainted with one
+to whose cultivated mind, devoted affections, and untiring energy of
+character, I have been chiefly indebted for many happy hours, under
+the most adverse circumstances, as well as for much of that hope
+and firm reliance upon Providence which have enabled me to bear up
+against overwhelming misfortunes. I need not here repeat what has
+been already stated respecting the motives which induced us to
+emigrate to Canada. I shall merely observe that when I left South
+Africa it was with the intention of returning to that colony, where
+I had a fine property, to which I was attached in no ordinary
+degree, on account of the beauty of the scenery and delightful
+climate. However, Mrs. Moodie, somehow or other, had imbibed an
+invincible dislike to that colony, for some of the very reasons that
+I liked it myself. The wild animals were her terror, and she fancied
+that every wood and thicket was peopled with elephants, lions, and
+tigers, and that it would be utterly impossible to take a walk
+without treading on dangerous snakes in the grass. Unfortunately,
+she had my own book on South Africa to quote triumphantly in
+confirmation of her vague notions of danger; and, in my anxiety to
+remove these exaggerated impressions, I would fain have retracted my
+own statements of the hair-breadth escapes I had made, in conflicts
+with wild animals, respecting which the slightest insinuation of
+doubt from another party would have excited my utmost indignation.
+
+In truth, before I became familiarised with such danger, I had
+myself entertained similar notions, and my only wonder, in reading
+such narratives before leaving my own country, was how the
+inhabitants of the country managed to attend to their ordinary
+business in the midst of such accumulated dangers and annoyances.
+Fortunately, these hair-breadth escapes are of rare occurrence;
+but travellers and book-makers, like cooks, have to collect
+high-flavoured dishes, from far and near, the better to please
+the palates of their patrons. So it was with my South African
+adventures; I threw myself in the way of danger from the love of
+strong excitement, and I collected all my adventures together, and
+related them in pure simplicity, without very particularly informing
+the reader over what space of time or place my narrative extended,
+or telling him that I could easily have kept out of harm's way had I
+felt so inclined. All these arguments, however, had little influence
+on my good wife, for I could not deny that I had seen such animals
+in abundance in South Africa; and she thought she should never be
+safe among such neighbours. At last, between my wife's fear of the
+wild animals of Africa, and a certain love of novelty, which formed
+a part of my own character, I made up my mind, as they write on
+stray letters in the post-office, to "try Canada." So here we are,
+just arrived in the village of C---, situated on the northern shore
+of Lake Ontario.
+
+Mrs. Moodie has already stated that we procured lodgings at a
+certain hotel in the village of C--- kept by S---, a truly excellent
+and obliging American. The British traveller is not a little struck,
+and in many instances disgusted, with a certain air of indifference
+in the manners of such persons in Canada, which is accompanied with
+a tone of equality and familiarity exceedingly unlike the limber and
+oily obsequiousness of tavern-keepers in England. I confess I felt
+at the time not a little annoyed with Mr. S---'s free-and-easy
+manner, and apparent coolness and indifference when he told us he
+had no spare room in his house to accommodate our party. We
+endeavoured to procure lodgings at another tavern, on the opposite
+side of the street; but soon learned that, in consequence of the
+arrival of an unusual number of immigrants, all the taverns in the
+village were already filled to overflowing. We returned to Mr. S---,
+and after some further conversation, he seemed to have taken a kind
+of liking to us, and became more complaisant in his manner, until
+our arrangement with Tom Wilson, as already related, relieved us
+from further difficulty.
+
+I NOW perfectly understand the cause of this apparent indifference
+on the part of our host. Of all people, Englishmen, when abroad, are
+the most addicted to the practice of giving themselves arrogant airs
+towards those persons whom they look upon in the light of dependents
+on their bounty; and they forget that an American tavern-keeper
+holds a very different position in society from one of the same
+calling in England. The manners and circumstances of new countries
+are utterly opposed to anything like pretension in any class of
+society; and our worthy host, and his excellent wife--who had both
+held a respectable position in the society of the United States--had
+often been deeply wounded in their feelings by the disgusting and
+vulgar arrogance of English GENTLEMEN and LADIES, as they are
+called. Knowing from experience the truth of the saying that "what
+cannot be cured must be endured," we were particularly civil to Mr.
+S---; and it was astonishing how quickly his manners thawed. We had
+not been long in the house before we were witnesses of so many
+examples of the purest benevolence, exhibited by Mr. S--- and his
+amiable family, that it was impossible to regard them with any
+feeling but that of warm regard and esteem. S--- was, in truth, a
+noble-hearted fellow. Whatever he did seemed so much a matter of
+habit, that the idea of selfish design or ostentation was utterly
+excluded from the mind. I could relate several instances of the
+disinterested benevolence of this kind-hearted tavern-keeper. I
+shall just mention one, which came under my own observation while
+I lived near C---.
+
+I had frequently met a young Englishman, of the name of M---, at Mr.
+S---'s tavern. His easy and elegant manners, and whole deportment,
+showed that he had habitually lived in what is called the best
+society. He had emigrated to Canada with 3,000 or 4,000 pounds, had
+bought horses, run races, entertained many of the wealthy people of
+Toronto, or York, as it was then called, and had done a number of
+other exceedingly foolish things. Of course his money was soon
+absorbed by the thirsty Canadians, and he became deeply involved in
+debt. M--- had spent a great deal of money at S---'s tavern, and
+owed him 70 or 80 pounds. At length he was arrested for debt by some
+other party, was sent to the district gaol, which was nearly two
+miles from C---, and was compelled at first to subsist on the gaol
+allowance. What greatly aggravated the misfortunes of poor M---,
+a man without suspicion or guile, was a bitter disappointment in
+another quarter. He had an uncle in England, who was very rich, and
+who intended to leave him all his property. Some kind friend, to
+whom M--- had confided his expectations, wrote to England, informing
+the old man of his nephew's extravagance and hopes. The uncle
+there-upon cast him off, and left his property, when he died, to
+another relative.
+
+As soon as the kind-hearted tavern-keeper heard of the poor fellow's
+imprisonment, he immediately went to see him, and, though he had not
+the slightest hope of ever being paid one farthing of his claim, Mr.
+S---, for many months that poor M--- lay in gaol, continued to send
+him an excellent dinner every day from his tavern, to which he
+always added a bottle of wine; for as Mr. S--- remarked, "Poor M---,
+I guess, is accustomed to live well."
+
+As soon as Mr. S--- found that we did not belong to that class of
+people who fancy they exalt themselves by insulting others, there
+were no bounds to the obligingness of his disposition. As I had
+informed him that I wished to buy a cleared farm near Lake Ontario,
+he drove me out every day in all directions, and wherever he thought
+farms were to be had cheap.
+
+Before proceeding further in my account of the inhabitants, I shall
+endeavour to give the reader some idea of the appearance of the
+village and the surrounding country. Of course, from the existence
+of a boundless forest, only partially cleared, there is a great
+sameness and uniformity in Canadian scenery.
+
+We had a stormy passage from Kingston to C---, and the wind being
+directly ahead, the plunging of the steam-boat between the sharp
+seas of Lake Ontario produced a "motion" which was decidedly
+"unconstitutional;" and, for the first time since we left England,
+we experienced a sensation which strongly reminded us of
+sea-sickness. The general appearance of the coast from the lake was
+somewhat uninviting. The land appeared to be covered everywhere with
+the dense unbroken forest, and though there were some gently sloping
+hills and slight elevations, showing the margin of extensive
+clearings, there was a general want of a background of high hills or
+mountains, which imparts so much interest to the scenery of every
+country. On reaching C---, however, we found that we had been much
+deceived as to the features of the country, when viewed at a less
+distance.
+
+Immediately on the shores of the great lake, the land is generally
+flat for two or three miles inland; and as the farms are there
+measured out in long, narrow strips, a mile and a quarter long, and
+a quarter of a mile wide, the back parts of the lots, which are
+reserved for firewood, are only visible at a distance. This narrow
+belt of the primeval forest, which runs along the rear of all the
+lots in the first line of settlements, or concession as it is here
+called, necessarily conceals the houses and clearings of the next
+concession, unless the land beyond rises into hills. This
+arrangement, however convenient, tends greatly to mar the beauty
+of Canadian scenery.
+
+The unvarying monotony of rail-fences and quadrangular enclosures,
+occasions a tiresome uniformity in the appearance of the country,
+which is increased by the almost total absence of those little
+graceful ornaments in detail, in the immediate neighbourhood of
+the homesteads, which give such a charm to English rural scenery.
+
+The day after our arrival, we had an opportunity to examine the
+town, or rather village, of C---. It then consisted chiefly of one
+long street, parallel with the shore of the lake, and the houses,
+with very few exceptions, were built of wood; but they were all
+finished, and painted with such a degree of neatness, that their
+appearance was showy, and in some instances elegant, from the
+symmetry of their proportions. Immediately beyond the bounds of the
+village, we, for the first time, witnessed the operation of clearing
+up a thick cedar-swamp. The soil looked black and rich, but the
+water stood in pools, and the trunks and branches of the cedars were
+leaning in all directions, and at all angles, with their thick
+foliage and branches intermingled in wild confusion. The roots
+spread along the uneven surface of the ground so thickly that they
+seemed to form a vast net-work, and apparently covered the greater
+part of the surface of the ground. The task of clearing such a
+labyrinth seemed utterly hopeless. My heart almost sickened at the
+prospect of clearing such land, and I was greatly confirmed in my
+resolution of buying a farm cleared to my hand.
+
+The clearing process, however, in this unpromising spot, was going
+on vigorously. Several acres had been chopped down, and the fire had
+run through the prostrate trees, consuming all the smaller branches
+and foliage, and leaving the trunks and ground as black as charcoal
+could make them. Among this vast mass of ruins, four or five men
+were toiling with yoke of oxen. The trees were cut into manageable
+lengths, and were then dragged by the oxen together, so that they
+could be thrown up into large log-heaps to burn. The men looked,
+with their bare arms, hands, and faces begrimed with charcoal, more
+like negroes than white men; and were we, like some shallow people,
+to compare their apparent condition with that of the negro slaves in
+more favoured regions, we should be disposed to consider the latter
+the happier race. But this disgusting work was the work of freemen,
+high-spirited and energetic fellows, who feared neither man nor wild
+beast, and trusted to their own strong arms to conquer all
+difficulties, while they could discern the light of freedom and
+independence glimmering through the dark woods before them.
+
+A few years afterwards, I visited C---, and looked about for the
+dreadful cedar-swamp which struck such a chill into my heart, and
+destroyed the illusion which had possessed my mind of the beauty of
+the Canadian woods. The trees were gone, the tangled roots were
+gone, and the cedar-swamp was converted into a fair grassy meadow,
+as smooth as a bowling-green. About sixteen years after my first
+visit to this spot, I saw it again, and it was covered with stone
+and brick houses; and one portion of it was occupied by a large
+manufactory, five or six stories high, with steam-engines,
+spinning-jennies, and all the machinery for working up the wool
+of the country into every description of clothing. This is
+civilisation! This is freedom!
+
+The sites of towns and villages in Canada are never selected at
+random. In England, a concurrence of circumstances has generally led
+to the gradual formation of hamlets, villages, and towns. In many
+instances, towns have grown up in barbarous ages around a place of
+refuge during war; around a fortalice or castle, and more frequently
+around the ford over a river, where the detention of travellers has
+led to the establishment of a place of entertainment, a blacksmith's
+or carpenter's shop. A village or town never grows to any size in
+Canada without a saw or a grist mill, both which require a certain
+amount of water-power to work the machinery. Whenever there is a
+river or stream available for such purposes, and the surrounding
+country is fertile, the village rapidly rises to be a considerable
+town. Frame-houses are so quickly erected, and the materials are so
+easily procured near a saw-mill, that, in the first instance, no
+other description of houses is to be found in our incipient towns.
+But as the town increases, brick and stone houses rapidly supplant
+these less substantial edifices, which seldom remain good for more
+than thirty or forty years.
+
+Mr. S---'s tavern, or hotel, was an extensive frame-building of the
+kind common in the country. All the lodgers frequent the same long
+table at all their meals, at one end of which the landlord generally
+presides. Mr. S---, however, usually preferred the company of his
+family in another part of the house; and some one of the gentlemen
+who boarded at the tavern, and who possessed a sufficiently large
+organ of self-esteem, voted himself into the post of honour, without
+waiting for an invitation from the rest of the company. This happy
+individual is generally some little fellow, with a long, protruding
+nose; some gentleman who can stretch his neck and backbone almost
+to dislocation, and who has a prodigious deal of talk, all about
+nothing.
+
+The taverns in this country are frequented by all single men, and
+by many married men without children, who wish to avoid the trouble
+and greater expense of keeping house. Thus a large portion of the
+population of the towns take all their meals at the hotels or
+taverns, in order to save both expense and time. The extraordinary
+despatch used at meals in the United States has often been mentioned
+by travellers. The same observation equally applies to Canada, and
+for the same reason. Wages are high, and time is, therefore,
+valuable in both countries, and as one clerk is waiting in the shop
+while another is bolting his dinner, it would of course be
+exceedingly unkind to protract unnecessarily the sufferings of the
+hungry expectant; no one possessing any bowels of compassion could
+act so cruelly. For the same reason, every one is expected to take
+care of himself, without minding his neighbours. At times a degree
+of compassion is extended by some naturalised old countryman towards
+some diffident, over-scrupulous new comer, by offering to help him
+first; but such marks of consideration, except to ladies, to whom
+all classes in Canada are attentive, are never continued a bit
+longer than is thought sufficient for becoming acquainted with the
+ways of the country.
+
+Soon after our arrival at C---, I remember asking a person, who
+was what the Canadians call "a hickory Quaker," from the north of
+Ireland, to help me to a bit of very nice salmon-trout, which was
+vanishing alarmingly fast from the breakfast-table.
+
+Obadiah very considerately lent a deaf ear to my repeated
+entreaties, pretending to be intently occupied with his own plate of
+fish; then, transferring the remains of the salmon-trout to his own
+place, he turned round to me with the most innocent face imaginable,
+saying very coolly, "I beg your pardon, friend, did you speak to me?
+There is such a noise at the table, I cannot hear very well."
+
+Between meals there is "considerable of drinking," among the idlers
+about the tavern, of the various ingenious Yankee inventions
+resorted to in this country to disturb the brain. In the evening the
+plot thickens, and a number of young and middle-aged men drop in,
+and are found in little knots in the different public rooms.
+
+The practice of "treating" is almost universal in this country, and,
+though friendly and sociable in its way, is the fruitful source of
+much dissipation. It is almost impossible, in travelling, to steer
+clear of this evil habit. Strangers are almost invariably drawn into
+it in the course of business.
+
+The town of C--- being the point where a large number of emigrants
+landed on their way to the backwoods of this part of the colony,
+it became for a time a place of great resort, and here a number of
+land-jobbers were established, who made a profitable trade of buying
+lands from private individuals, or at the government sales of wild
+land, and selling them again to the settlers from the old country.
+Though my wife had some near relatives settled in the backwoods,
+about forty miles inland, to the north of C---, I had made up my
+mind to buy a cleared farm near Lake Ontario, if I could get one to
+my mind, and the price of which would come within my limited means.
+
+A number of the recent settlers in the backwoods, among whom were
+several speculators, resorted frequently to C---; and as soon as a
+new batch of settlers arrived on the lake shore, there was a keen
+contest between the land-jobbers of C--- and those of the backwoods
+to draw the new comer into their nets. The demand created by the
+continual influx of immigrants had caused a rapid increase in the
+price of lands, particularly of wild lands, and the grossest
+imposition was often practiced by these people, who made enormous
+profits by taking advantage of the ignorance of the new settlers
+and of their anxiety to settle themselves at once.
+
+I was continually cautioned by these people against buying a farm
+in any other locality than the particular one they themselves
+represented as most eligible, and their rivals were always
+represented as unprincipled land-jobbers. Finding these accusations
+to be mutual, I naturally felt myself constrained to believe both
+parties to be alike.
+
+Sometimes I got hold of a quiet farmer, hoping to obtain something
+like disinterested advice; but in nine cases out of ten, I am sorry
+to say, I found that the rage for speculation and trading in land,
+which was so prevalent in all the great thoroughfares, had already
+poisoned their minds also, and I could rarely obtain an opinion or
+advice which was utterly free from self-interest. They generally had
+some lot of land to sell--or, probably, they would like to have a
+new comer for a neighbour, in the hope of selling him a span of
+horses or some cows at a higher price than they could obtain from
+the older settlers. In mentioning this unamiable trait in the
+character of the farmers near C---, I by no means intend to give
+it as characteristic of the farmers in general. It is, properly
+speaking, a LOCAL vice, produced by the constant influx of strangers
+unacquainted with the ways of the country, which tempts the farmers
+to take advantage of their ignorance.
+
+
+STANZAS
+
+  Where is religion found? In what bright sphere
+    Dwells holy love, in majesty serene
+    Shedding its beams, like planet o'er the scene;
+  The steady lustre through the varying year
+    Still glowing with the heavenly rays that flow
+    In copious streams to soften human woe?
+
+  It is not 'mid the busy scenes of life,
+    Where careworn mortals crowd along the way
+    That leads to gain--shunning the light of day;
+  In endless eddies whirl'd, where pain and strife
+    Distract the soul, and spread the shades of night,
+    Where love divine should dwell in purest light.
+
+  Short-sighted man!--go seek the mountain's brow,
+    And cast thy raptured eye o'er hill and dale;
+    The waving woods, the ever-blooming vale,
+  Shall spread a feast before thee, which till now
+    Ne'er met thy gaze--obscured by passion's sway;
+    And Nature's works shall teach thee how to pray.
+
+  Or wend thy course along the sounding shore,
+    Where giant waves resistless onward sweep
+    To join the awful chorus of the deep--
+  Curling their snowy manes with deaf'ning roar,
+    Flinging their foam high o'er the trembling sod,
+    And thunder forth their mighty song to God!
+
+J.W.D.M.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE LAND-JOBBER
+
+
+
+  Some men, like greedy monsters of the deep,
+  Still prey upon their kind;--their hungry maws
+  Engulph their victims like the rav'nous shark
+  That day and night untiring plies around
+  The foamy bubbling wake of some great ship;
+  And when the hapless mariner aloft
+  Hath lost his hold, and down he falls
+  Amidst the gurgling waters on her lee,
+  Then, quick as thought, the ruthless felon-jaws
+  Close on his form;--the sea is stain'd with blood--
+  One sharp wild shriek is heard--and all is still!
+  The lion, tiger, alligator, shark--
+  The wily fox, the bright enamelled snake--
+  All seek their prey by force or stratagem;
+  But when--their hunger sated--languor creeps
+  Around their frames, they quickly sink to rest.
+  Not so with man--HE never hath enough;
+  He feeds on all alike; and, wild or tame,
+  He's but a cannibal. He burns, destroys,
+  And scatters death to sate his morbid lust
+  For empty fame. But when the love of gain
+  Hath struck its roots in his vile, sordid heart,--
+  Each gen'rous impulse chill'd,--like vampire, now,
+  He sucks the life-blood of his friends or foes
+  Until he viler grows than savage beast.
+  And when, at length, stretch'd on his bed of death,
+  And powerless, friendless, o'er his clammy brow
+  The dark'ning shades descend, strong to the last
+  His avarice lives; and while he feebly plucks
+  His wretched coverlet, he gasps for breath,
+  And thinks he gathers gold!
+
+J.W.D.M.
+
+
+I had a letter of introduction to a gentleman of large property, at
+C---, who, knowing that I wished to purchase a farm, very kindly
+drove me out to several lots of land in the immediate neighbourhood.
+He showed me seven or eight very eligible lots of cleared land, some
+of them with good houses and orchards; but somehow or other, on
+inquiry, I found they all belonged to himself, and, moreover, the
+prices were beyond my limited means. For one farm he asked 1000
+pounds; for another, 1500 pounds, and so on. After inquiring in
+other quarters, I saw I had no chance of getting a farm in that
+neighbourhood for the price I could afford to pay down, which was
+only about 300 pounds. After satisfying myself as to this fact, I
+thought it the wiser course at once to undeceive my very obliging
+friend, whose attentions were obviously nicely adjusted to the
+estimate he had formed in his own mind of my pecuniary resources.
+
+On communicating this discouraging fact, my friend's countenance
+instantly assumed a cold and stony expression, and I almost expected
+that he would have stopped his horses and set me down, to walk with
+other poor men. As may well be supposed, I was never afterwards
+honoured with a seat in his carriage. He saw just what I was worth,
+and I saw what his friendship was worth; and thus our brief
+acquaintance terminated.
+
+Having thus let the cat out of the bag, when I might, according to
+the usual way of the world, have sported for awhile in borrowed
+plumage, and rejoiced in the reputation of being in more prosperous
+circumstances without fear of detection, I determined to pursue the
+same course, and make use of the little insight I had obtained into
+the ways of the land-jobbers of Canada, to procure a cleared farm
+on more reasonable terms.
+
+It is not uncommon for the land speculators to sell a farm to a
+respectable settler at an unusually low price, in order to give a
+character to a neighbourhood where they hold other lands, and thus
+to use him as a decoy duck for friends or countrymen.
+
+There was very noted character at C---, Mr. Q---, a great
+land-jobber, who did a large business in this way on his own
+account, besides getting through a great deal of dirty work for
+other more respectable speculators, who did not wish to drink at
+taverns and appear personally in such matters. To Mr. Q--- I
+applied, and effected a purchase of a farm of one hundred and fifty
+acres, about fifty of which were cleared, for 300 pounds, as I shall
+mention more particularly in the sequel. In the meantime, the
+character of this distinguished individual was--for he was long gone
+to give an account of his misdeeds in the other world--so
+remarkable, that I must endeavour to describe it for the edification
+of the reader. Q--- kept a shop, or store, in C---; but he left the
+principal management of this establishment to his clerks; while,
+taking advantage of the influx of emigrants, he pursued, with
+unrivalled success, the profitable business of land-jobbing.
+
+In his store, before taking to this business, he had been accustomed
+for many years to retail goods to the farmers at high prices, on the
+usual long credit system. He had thus got a number of farmers deeply
+in his debt, and, in many cases, in preference to suing them, had
+taken mortgages on their farms. By this means, instead of merely
+recovering the money owing to him by the usual process of law, he
+was enabled, by threatening to foreclose the mortgages, to compel
+them to sell their farms nearly on his own terms, whenever an
+opportunity occurred to re-sell them advantageously to new comers.
+Thus, besides making thirty or forty per cent. on his goods, he
+often realised more than a hundred per cent. on his land
+speculations.
+
+In a new country, where there is no great competition in mercantile
+business, and money is scarce, the power and profits of
+store-keepers are very great. Mr. Q--- was one of the most grasping
+of this class. His heart was case-hardened, and his conscience, like
+gum, elastic; it would readily stretch, on the shortest notice, to
+any required extent, while his well-tutored countenance betrayed no
+indication of what was passing in his mind. But I must not forget to
+give a sketch of the appearance, or outward man, of this
+highly-gifted individual.
+
+He was about the middle size, thin and limber, and somewhat loose
+in his lower joints, like most of the native Canadians and Yankees.
+He had a slight stoop in his shoulders, and his long, thin neck was
+continually stretched out before him, while his restless little
+cunning eyes were roaming about in search of prey. His face, when
+well watched, was an index to his selfish and unfeeling soul.
+Complexion he had none, except that sempiternally enduring
+red-and-tawny mixture which is acquired by exposure and hard
+drinking. His cheeks and the corners of his eyes were marked by an
+infinity of curved lines, and, like most avaricious and deceitful
+men, he had a long, crooked chin, and that peculiar prominent and
+slightly aquiline nose which, by people observant of such
+indications, has been called "the rogue's nose." But how shall I
+describe his eye--that small hole through which you can see an
+honest man's heart? Q---'s eye was like no other eye I had ever
+seen. His face and mouth could assume a good-natured expression, and
+smile; but his eye was still the same--it never smiled, but remained
+cold, hard, dry, and inscrutable. If it had any expression at all,
+it was an unhappy one. Such were the impressions created by his
+appearance, when the observer was unobserved by him; for he had
+the art of concealing the worst traits of his character in an
+extraordinary degree, and when he suspected that the curious
+hieroglyphics which Nature had stamped on his visage were too
+closely scanned, he knew well how to divert the investigator's
+attention to some other object.
+
+He was a humorist, besides, in his way, because he found that jokes
+and fun admirably served his turn. They helped to throw people off
+their guard, and to conceal his hang-dog look.
+
+He had a hard head, as well as hard heart, and could stand any
+quantity of drink. His drinking, however, like everything else about
+him, had a motive; and, instead of trying to appear sober, like
+other drunkards, he rather wished to appear a little elevated. In
+addition to his other acquirements, Q--- was a most accomplished
+gambler. In short, no virtuous man, who employs every passing moment
+of his short life in doing good to his fellow-creatures, could be
+more devoted and energetic in his endeavours to serve God and
+mankind, than Q--- was in his endeavours to ease them of their spare
+cash.
+
+He possessed a great deal of that free-and-easy address and tact
+which distinguish the Canadians; and, in addition to the current
+coin of vulgar flattery which is found so useful in all countries,
+his quick eye could discover the high-minded gentleman by a kind of
+instinct, which did not seem quite natural to his sordid character,
+and, knowing that such men are not to be taken by vulgar adulation,
+he could address them with deferential respect; against which no
+minds are entirely secure. Thus he wriggled himself into their good
+graces. After a while the unfavourable impression occasioned by his
+sinister countenance would become more faint, while his well-feigned
+kindness and apparent indulgence to his numerous debtors would tell
+greatly in his favour.
+
+My first impression of this man was pretty nearly such as I have
+described; and, though I suspected and shunned him, I was sure to
+meet him at every turn. At length this unfavourable feeling wore off
+in some degree, and finding him in the best society of the place,
+I began to think that his countenance belied him, and I reproached
+myself for my ungenerous suspicions.
+
+Feeling a certain security in the smallness of my available capital,
+I did not hesitate in applying to Mr. Q--- to sell me a farm,
+particularly as I was aware of his anxiety to induce me to settle
+near C---, for the reasons already stated. I told him that 300
+pounds was the very largest sum I could give for a farm, and that,
+if I could not get one for that price, I should join my friends in
+the backwoods.
+
+Q---, after scratching his head, and considering for a few minutes,
+told me that he knew a farm which he could sell me for that price,
+particularly as he wished to get rid of a set of Yankee rascals who
+prevented emigrants from settling in that neighbourhood. We
+afterwards found that there was but too good reason for the
+character he gave of some of our neighbours.
+
+Q--- held a mortgage for 150 pounds on a farm belonging to a certain
+Yankee settler, named Joe H---, as security for a debt incurred for
+goods at his store, in C---. The idea instantly struck Q--- that he
+would compel Joe H--- to sell him his farm, by threatening to
+foreclose the mortgage. I drove out with Mr. Q--- next day to see
+the farm in question. It was situated in a pretty retired valley,
+surrounded by hills, about eight miles from C---, and about a mile
+from the great road leading to Toronto. There was an extensive
+orchard upon the farm, and two log houses, and a large frame-barn.
+A considerable portion of the cleared land was light and sandy; and
+the uncleared part of the farm, situated on the flat, rocky summit
+of a high hill, was reserved for "a sugar bush," and for supplying
+fuel. On the whole, I was pleased with the farm, which was certainly
+cheap at the price of 300 pounds; and I therefore at once closed the
+bargain with Mr. Q---.
+
+At that time I had not the slightest idea but that the farm actually
+belonged to the land-jobber; and I am to this day unable to tell by
+what means he succeeded in getting Mr. H--- to part with his
+property.
+
+The father of Joe H--- had cleared the farm, and while the soil was
+new it gave good crops; but as the rich surface, or "black muck," as
+it is called, became exhausted by continual cropping, nothing but a
+poor, meagre soil remained.
+
+The early settlers were wretched farmers; they never ploughed deep
+enough, and never thought of manuring the land. After working the
+land for several years, they would let it lie waste for three or
+four years without sowing grass-seeds, and then plough it up again
+for wheat. The greater part of the hay raised on these farms was
+sold in the towns, and the cattle were fed during the long severe
+winter on wheat-straw. The natural result of this poor nourishment
+was, that their cattle continually degenerated, and great numbers
+died every spring of a disease called the "hollow horn," which
+appears to be peculiar to this country. When the lands became
+sterile, from this exhausting treatment, they were called "worn-out
+farms;" and the owners generally sold them to new settlers from the
+old country, and with the money they received, bought a larger
+quantity of wild lands, to provide for their sons; by whom the same
+improvident process was recommenced.
+
+These early settlers were, in fact, only fit for pioneers to a more
+thrifty class of settlers.
+
+Joe H---, or "Uncle Joe," as the country people call any
+acquaintance, after a fashion borrowed, no doubt, from the Dutch
+settlers of the State of New York, was, neither by his habits nor
+industry, likely to become more prosperous than his neighbours of
+the same thoughtless class. His father had worked hard in his time,
+and Uncle Joe thought he had a good right to enjoy himself. The
+nearest village was only five miles from his place, and he was never
+without some excuse for going thither every two or three days. His
+horse wanted shoeing, or his plough or waggon wanted "to be fixed"
+by the blacksmith or carpenter. As a matter of course, he came home
+"pretty high;" for he was in the constant habit of pouring a
+half-tumbler of whiskey down his throat, standing bolt upright at
+the bar of the tavern, after which he would drink about the same
+quantity of cold water to wash it down. These habits together with
+bad farming, and a lazy, slovenly helpmate, in a few years made Joe
+as poor as he could desire to be; and at last he was compelled to
+sell his farm to Mr. Q---.
+
+After we had got settled down on this farm, I had often occasion to
+drive into C---, for the purpose of buying groceries and other
+necessaries, as we then thought them, at the store of Mr. Q---. On
+these occasions I always took up my quarters, for the time, at the
+tavern of our worthy Yankee friend, Mr. S---. As I drove up to the
+door, I generally found S--- walking about briskly on the boarded
+platform, or "stoop," in front of the house, welcoming his guests
+in his own peculiar free-and-easy style, looking after their horses,
+and seeing that his people were attentive to their duties. I think
+I see him now before me with his thin, erect, lathy figure, his snub
+nose, and puckered-up face, wriggling and twisting himself about,
+in his desire to please his customers.
+
+On stopping in front of the tavern, shortly after our settlement on
+the farm, Mr. S--- stepped up to me, in the most familiar manner
+imaginable, holding out his hand quite condescendingly,--"Ah, Mister
+Moodie, ha-a-w do you do?--and ha-a-w's the old woman?"
+
+At first I could not conceive whom he meant by this very homely
+appellation; and I very simply asked him what person he alluded to,
+as I had no old woman in my establishment.
+
+"Why, YOUR old woman, to be sure--your missus--Mrs. Moodie,
+I guess. You don't quite understand our language yet."
+
+"O! now I understand you; she's quite well, I thank you; and how
+is our friend Mrs. S---?" I replied, laying a slight emphasis on
+the MRS., by way of a gentle hint for his future guidance.
+
+"Mrs. S---, I guess she's smart, pret-ty CON-siderable. She'll
+be right glad to see you, for you're pretty considerable of a
+favour-ITE with her, I tell you; but now tell me what you will
+drink?--for it's my treat."
+
+As he said these words, he strutted into the tavern before me,
+throwing his head and shoulders back, and rising on his tiptoes at
+every step.
+
+Mrs. S--- had been a very handsome woman, and still retained much
+of her good looks. She was a most exemplary housewife and manager.
+I was often astonished to witness the incessant toil she had to
+ensure in attending to the wants of such a numerous household.
+
+She had plenty of Irish "helps" in the kitchen; but they knew as
+much of cookery as they did of astronomy, and poor Mrs. S---'s
+hands, as well as her head, were in constant requisition.
+
+She had two very pretty daughters, whom she would not suffer to do
+any rough work which would spoil their soft white hands. Mrs. S---,
+no doubt, foresaw that she could not expect to keep such fair
+creatures long in such a marrying country as Canada, and, according
+to the common caution of divines, she held these blessings with a
+loose hand.
+
+There was one sweet little girl, whom I had often seen in her
+father's arms, with her soft dark eyes, and her long auburn ringlets
+hanging in wild profusion over his shoulders.
+
+"I guess she likes pa, SOME," Mr. S--- would say when I remarked her
+fondness for him.
+
+This little fairy had a natural genius for music, and though she was
+only four years old, she would sit for an hour at a time at the door
+of our room to hear me play on the flute, and would afterwards sing
+all the airs she picked up, with the sweetest voice in the world.
+
+Humble as the calling of a tavern-keeper may be considered in
+England, it is looked upon in the United States, where Mrs. S--- was
+"raised," as extremely respectable; and I have never met with women,
+in any class of society elsewhere, who possessed more of the
+good-feeling and unobtrusive manners which should belong to ladies
+than in the family of this worthy tavern-keeper.
+
+When I contrast their genuine kindness and humanity with the
+haughty, arrogant airs assumed by some ladies of a higher standing
+in society from England who sojourned in their house at the same
+time with ourselves--when I remember their insolent way of giving
+their orders to Mrs. S---, and their still more wounding
+condescension--I confess I cannot but feel ashamed of my
+countrywomen. All these patronising airs, I doubt not, were assumed
+purposely to impress the minds of those worthy people with an idea
+of their vast superiority. I have sometimes, I confess, been a
+little annoyed with the familiarity of the Americans, Canadians as
+well as Yankees; but I must say that experience has taught me to
+blame myself at least as much as them. If, instead of sending our
+youthful aristocracy to the continent of Europe, to treat the
+natives with contempt and increase the unpopularity of the British
+abroad, while their stock of native arrogance is augmented by the
+cringing complaisance of those who only bow to their superiority in
+wealth, they were sent to the United States, or even to Canada, they
+would receive a lesson or two which would be of infinite service to
+them; some of their most repulsive prejudices and peculiarities
+would soon be rubbed off by the rough towel of democracy.
+
+It is curious to observe the remarkable diversity in the accounts
+given by recent emigrants to this country of their treatment, and of
+the manners and character of the people in the United States and in
+Canada. Some meet with constant kindness, others with nothing but
+rudeness and brutality. Of course there is truth in both accounts;
+but strangers from an aristocratical country do not usually make
+sufficient allowance for the habits and prejudices of a people of a
+land, in which, from the comparatively equal distribution of
+property, and the certain prosperity attendant on industry, the
+whole constitution of society is necessarily democratical,
+irrespectively of political institutions. Those who go to such a
+country with the notion that they will carry everything before them
+by means of pretence and assumption, will find themselves grievously
+deceived. To use a homely illustration, it is just as irrational to
+expect to force a large body through a small aperture. In both cases
+they will meet with unyielding resistance.
+
+When a poor and industrious mechanic, farmer, or labourer comes here
+without pretensions of any kind, no such complaints are to be heard.
+He is treated with respect, and every one seems willing to help him
+forward. If in after-years the manners of such a settler should grow
+in importance with his prosperity--which is rarely the case--his
+pretensions would be much more readily tolerated than those of any
+unknown or untried individual in a higher class of society.
+
+The North Americans generally are much more disposed to value people
+according to the estimate they form of their industry, and other
+qualities which more directly lead to the acquisition of property,
+and to the benefit of the community, than for their present and
+actual wealth. While they pay a certain mock homage to a wealthy
+immigrant, when they have a motive in doing so, they secretly are
+more inclined to look on him as a well-fledged goose who has come to
+America to be plucked. In truth, many of them are so dexterous in
+this operation that the unfortunate victim is often stripped naked
+before he is aware that he has lost a feather.
+
+There seems to be a fatality attending riches imported into Canada.
+They are sure to make to themselves wings and flee away, while
+wealth is no less certain to adhere to the poor and industrious
+settler. The great fault of the Canadian character is an
+unwillingness to admit the just claims of education and talent,
+however unpretending, to some share of consideration. In this
+respect the Americans of the United States are greatly superior to
+the Canadians, because they are better educated and their country
+longer settled. These genuine Republicans, when their theory of the
+original and natural equality among them is once cheerfully
+admitted, are ever ready to show respect to MENTAL superiority,
+whether natural or acquired.
+
+My evenings on visiting C--- were usually spent at Mr. S---'s
+tavern, where I was often much amused with the variety of characters
+who were there assembled, and who, from the free-and-easy
+familiarity of the colonial manners, had little chance of concealing
+their peculiarities from an attentive observer.
+
+Mr Q---, of course, was always to be found there, drinking, smoking
+cigars, and cracking jokes. To a casual observer he appeared to be a
+regular boon companion without an object but that of enjoying the
+passing hour. Among his numerous accomplishments, he had learnt a
+number of sleight-of-hand tricks from the travelling conjurors who
+visit the country, and are generally willing to sell their secrets
+singly, at a regulated price. This seemed a curious investment for
+Q---, but he knew how to turn everything to account. By such means
+he was enabled to contribute to the amusement of the company, and
+thus became a kind of favourite. If he could not manage to sell a
+lot of land to an immigrant or speculator, he would carelessly
+propose to some of the company to have a game at whist or loo, to
+pass the time away; and he never failed to conjure most of their
+money into his pockets.
+
+At this time a new character made his appearance at C---, a Mr.
+B---, an English farmer of the true yeoman breed. He was a
+short-legged, long-bodied, corpulent little man. He wore a brown
+coat, with ample skirts, and a vast expanse of vest, with
+drab-coloured small-clothes and gaiters. B--- was a jolly,
+good-natured looking man, with an easy blunt manner which might
+easily pass for honesty.
+
+Q--- had sold him a lot of wild land in some out-of-the-way
+township, by making Mr. B--- believe that he could sell it again
+very soon, with a handsome profit. Of course his bargain was not a
+good one. He soon found from its situation that the land was quite
+unsaleable, there being no settlements in the neighbourhood. Instead
+of expressing any resentment, he fairly acknowledged that Q--- was
+his master at a bargain, and gave him full credit for his address
+and cunning, and quite resolved in his own mind to profit by the
+lesson he had received.
+
+Now, with all their natural acuteness and habitual dexterity in such
+matters, the Canadians have one weak point; they are too ready to
+believe that Englishmen are made of money. All that an emigrant has
+to do to acquire the reputation of having money, is to seem quite
+easy, and free from care or anxiety for the future, and to maintain
+a certain degree of reserve in talking of his private affairs. Mr.
+B--- perfectly understood how to play his cards with the
+land-jobber; and his fat, jolly physiognomy, and rustic, provincial
+manners and accent, greatly assisted him in the deception.
+
+Every day Q--- drove him out to look at different farms. B--- talked
+carelessly of buying some large "block" of land, that would have
+cost him some 3000 or 4000 pounds, providing he could only find
+the kind of soil he particularly liked for farming purposes. As he
+seemed to be in no hurry in making his selection, Q--- determined
+to make him useful, in the meantime, in promoting his views with
+respect to others. He therefore puffed Mr. B--- up to everybody as
+a Norfolk farmer of large capital, and always appealed to him to
+confirm the character he gave of any farm he wished to sell to a new
+comer. B---, on his side, was not slow in playing into Q---'s hand
+on these occasions, and without being at all suspected of collusion.
+
+In the evening, Mr. B--- would walk into the public room of the
+tavern, apparently fatigued with his exertions through the day;
+fling himself carelessly on a sofa, and unbutton his gaiters and the
+knees of his small-clothes. He took little notice of anybody unless
+he was spoken to, and his whole demeanour seemed to say, as plainly
+as words, "I care for nobody, nobody cares for me." This was just
+the kind of man for Q---. He instantly saw that he would be an
+invaluable ally and coadjutor, without seeming to be so. When B---
+made his appearance in the evening, Q--- was seldom at the tavern,
+for his time had not yet come. In the meanwhile, B--- was sure to
+be drawn gradually into conversation by some emigrants, who, seeing
+that he was a practical farmer, would be desirous of getting his
+opinion respecting certain farms which they thought of purchasing.
+There was such an appearance of blunt simplicity of character about
+him, that most of these inquirers thought he was forgetting his own
+interest in telling them so much as he did. In the course of
+conversation, he would mention several farms he had been looking at
+with the intention of purchasing, and he would particularly mention
+some one of them as possessing extraordinary advantages, but which
+had some one disadvantage which rendered it ineligible for him; such
+as being too small, a circumstance which, in all probability, would
+recommend it to another description of settler.
+
+It is hard to say whether Q--- was or was not deceived by B---; but
+though he used him for the present as a decoy, he no doubt expected
+ultimately to sell him some of his farms, with a very handsome
+profit. B---, however whose means were probably extremely small,
+fought shy of buying; and after looking at a number of farms, he
+told Q--- that, on mature reflection, he thought he could employ his
+capital more profitably by renting a number of farms, and working
+them in the English manner, which he felt certain would answer
+admirably in Canada, instead of sinking his capital at once in the
+purchase of lands. Q--- was fairly caught; and B--- hired some six
+or seven farms from him, which he worked for some time, no doubt
+greatly to his own advantage, for he neither paid rent nor wages.
+
+Occasionally, other land-speculators would drop into the tavern,
+when a curious game would be played between Q--- and them. Once of
+the speculators would ask another if he did not own some land in a
+particular part of the country, as he had bought some lots in the
+same quarter, without seeing them, and would like to know if they
+were good. The other would answer in the affirmative, and pretend
+to desire to purchase the lots mentioned. The former, in his turn,
+would pretend reluctance, and make a similar offer of buying. All
+this cunning manoeuvring would be continued for a time, in the hope
+of inducing some third party or stranger to make an offer for the
+land, which would be accepted. It often happened that some other
+person, who had hitherto taken no part in the course of these
+conversations, and who appeared to have no personal interest in
+the matter, would quietly inform the stranger that he knew the
+land in question, and that it was all of the very best quality.
+
+It would be endless to describe all the little artifices practised
+by these speculators to induce persons to purchase from them.
+
+Besides a few of these unprincipled traders in land, some of whom
+are found in most of the towns, there are a large number of
+land-speculators who own both wild and improved farms in all parts
+of the colony who do not descend to these discreditable arts, but
+wait quietly until their lands become valuable by the progress of
+improvement in their neighbourhood, when they readily find
+purchasers--or, rather, the purchasers find them out, and obtain
+their lands at reasonable prices.
+
+In 1832, when we came to Canada, a great speculation was carried on
+in the lands of the U.E. (or United Empire) Loyalists. The sons and
+daughters of these loyalists, who had fled to Canada from the United
+States at the time of the revolutionary war, were entitled to free
+grants of lots of wild land. Besides these, few free grants of land
+were made by the British Government, except those made to half-pay
+officers of the army and navy, and of course there was a rapid rise
+in their value.
+
+Almost all the persons entitled to such grants had settled in the
+eastern part of the Upper Province, and as the large emigration
+which had commenced to Canada had chiefly flowed into the more
+western part of the colony, they were, in general, ignorant of the
+increased value of their lands, and were ready to sell them for a
+mere trifle. They were bought by the speculators at from 2s. 6d. to
+3s. 9d. per acre, and often for much less, and were sold again, with
+an enormous profit, at from 5s. to 20s., and sometimes even 40s. per
+acre, according to their situation.
+
+As to personally examining these lands, it was a thing never thought
+of, for their price was so low that it was almost impossible to lose
+by the purchase. The supply of U.E. Loyalists' lands, or claims for
+land, for a long time seemed to be almost inexhaustible; for the
+loyal refugees appear to have been prolific beyond all precedent,
+and most of those who held office at the capital of the province,
+or who could command a small capital, became speculators and throve
+prodigiously. Many persons, during the early days of the colony,
+were thus enriched, without risk or labour, from the inexhaustible
+"quivers" of the U.E. Loyalists.
+
+Though the bulk of the speculators bought lands at haphazard,
+certain parties who found favour at the government offices managed
+to secure the best lands which were for sale or location, before
+they were exposed to fair competition at the periodical public sales
+in the different districts. Thus a large portion of the wild lands
+in the colony were and are still held: the absentee proprietors
+profiting from the increased value given to their property by the
+improvements of the actual settlers, while they contribute little
+or nothing to the cultivation of the country. The progress of the
+colony has thus been retarded, and its best interests sacrificed,
+to gratify the insatiable cupidity of a clique who boasted the
+exclusive possession of all the loyalty in the country; and every
+independent man who dared to raise his voice against such abuses was
+branded as a Republican.
+
+Mr. Q--- dealt largely in these "U.E. Rights," as they were called,
+and so great was the emigration in 1832 that the lands he bought at
+2s. 6d. per acre he could readily sell again to emigrants and
+Canadians at from 5s. to 15s. per acre, according to situation and
+the description of purchasers he met with. I have stated that the
+speculators generally buy lands at hap-hazard. By this I mean as to
+the quality of the lands. All colonists accustomed to observe the
+progress of settlement, and the local advantages which hasten
+improvement, acquire a peculiar sagacity in such matters.
+Unfortunately for many old countrymen, they are generally entirely
+destitute of this kind of knowledge, which is only acquired by long
+observation and experience in colonies.
+
+The knowledge of the causes which promote the rapid settlement of a
+new country, and of those in general which lead to the improvement
+of the physical condition of mankind may be compared to the
+knowledge of a language. The inhabitant of a civilised and
+long-settled country may speak and write his own language with the
+greatest purity, but very few ever reflect on the amount of thought,
+metaphor, and ingenuity which has been expended by their less
+civilised ancestors in bringing that language to perfection. The
+barbarian first feels the disadvantage of a limited means of
+communicating his ideas, and with great labour and ingenuity devises
+the means, from time to time, to remedy the imperfections of his
+language. He is compelled to analyse and study it in its first
+elements, and to augment the modes of expression in order to keep
+pace with the increasing number of his wants and ideas.
+
+A colony bears the same relation to an old-settled country that a
+grammar does to a language. In a colony, society is seen in its
+first elements, the country itself is in its rudest and simplest
+form. The colonist knows them in this primitive state, and watches
+their progress step by step. In this manner he acquires an intimate
+knowledge of the philosophy of improvement, which is almost
+unattainable by an individual who has lived from his childhood in
+a highly complex and artificial state of society, where everything
+around him was formed and arranged long before he came into the
+world; he sees the effects, the causes existed long before his time.
+His place in society--his portion of the wealth of the country--his
+prejudices--his religion itself, if he has any, are all more or less
+hereditary. He is in some measure a mere machine, or rather a part
+of one. He is a creature of education, rather than of original
+thought.
+
+The colonist has to create--he has to draw on his own stock of
+ideas, and to rouse up all his latent energies to meet all his wants
+in his new position. Thus his thinking principle is strengthened,
+and he is more energetic. When a moderate share of education is
+added to these advantages--for they are advantages in one sense--he
+becomes a superior being.
+
+I have indulged in these reflections, with manifest risk of being
+thought somewhat prosy by my more lively readers, in order to guard
+my countrymen, English, Scotch, and Irish, against a kind of
+presumption which is exceedingly common among them when they come
+to Canada--of fancying that they are as capable of forming correct
+opinions on local matters as the Canadians themselves. It is always
+somewhat humbling to our self-love to be compelled to confess what
+may be considered an error of judgment, but my desire to guard
+future settlers against similar mistakes overpowers my reluctance
+to own that I fell into the common error of many of my countrymen,
+of purchasing wild land, on speculation, with a very inadequate
+capital. This was one of the chief causes of much suffering, in
+which for many years my family became involved; but through which,
+supported by trust in Providence, and the energy of a devoted
+partner, I continued by her aid to struggle, until when least
+expected, the light of hope at length dawned upon us.
+
+In reflecting on this error--for error and imprudence it was, even
+though the result had been fortunate--I have still this poor
+comfort, that there was not one in a hundred of persons similarly
+situated but fell into the same mistake, of trusting too much to
+present appearances, without sufficient experience in the country.
+
+I had, as I have already stated, about 300 pounds when I arrived in
+Canada. This sum was really advantageously invested in a cleared
+farm, which possessed an intrinsic and not a merely speculative
+value. Afterwards a small legacy of about 700 pounds fell into my
+hands, and had I contented myself with this farm, and purchased two
+adjoining cleared farms containing two hundred acres of land of
+the finest quality which were sold far below their value by the
+thriftless owners, I should have done well, or at all events have
+invested my money profitably. But the temptation to buy wild land at
+5s. an acre, which was expected to double in value in a few months,
+with the example of many instances of similar speculation proving
+successful which came under my notice, proved irresistible.
+
+In 1832 emigration was just at its height, and a great number of
+emigrants, several of whom were of the higher class, and possessed
+of considerable capital, were directed to the town of C---, in the
+rear of which extensive tracts of land were offered to settlers
+at the provincial government sales. Had this extensive emigration
+continued, I should have been enabled to double my capital, by
+selling my wild lands to settlers; but, unfortunately, the
+prevalence of cholera during that year, and other causes, gave
+such a serious check to emigration to Canada that it has never
+been renewed to the same extent since that time. Besides the chance
+of a check to emigration generally, the influx of strangers is
+often extremely capricious in the direction it takes, flowing one
+year into one particular locality, and afterwards into another.
+Both these results, neither of which was foreseen by any one,
+unfortunately for me, ensued just at that time. It seemed natural
+that emigrants should flow into a fertile tract of land, and
+emigration was confidently expected steadily to increase; these
+were our anticipations, but neither of them was realised. Were it
+suitable to the character of these sketches, I would enter into the
+subject of emigration and the progress of improvement in Canada,
+respecting which my judgment has been matured by experience and
+observation; but such considerations would be out of place in
+volumes like the present, and I shall therefore proceed with my
+narrative.
+
+I had obtained my cleared farm on easy terms, and, in so far as the
+probability of procuring a comfortable subsistence was concerned,
+we had no reason to complain; but comfort and happiness do not
+depend entirely on a sufficiency of the necessaries of life. Some
+of our neighbours were far from being agreeable to us. Being fresh
+from England, it could hardly be expected that we could at once
+accommodate ourselves to the obtrusive familiarity of persons who
+had no conception of any differences in taste or manners arising
+from education and habits acquired in a more refined state of
+society. I allude more particularly to some rude and demoralised
+American farmers from the United States, who lived in our immediate
+neighbourhood. Our neighbours from the same country were worthy,
+industrious people; but, on the whole, the evil greatly predominated
+over the good amongst them.
+
+At a few miles' distance from our farm, we had some intelligent
+English neighbours, of a higher class; but they were always so
+busily occupied with their farming operations that they had little
+leisure or inclination for that sort of easy intercourse to which
+we had been accustomed. If we called in the forenoon, we generally
+found our neighbour hard at work in the fields, and his wife over
+head and ears in her domestic occupations. We had to ring the bell
+repeatedly before we could gain admittance, to allow her time to
+change her ordinary dress. Long before this could be effected, or we
+could enter the door, sundry reconnoitring parties of the children
+would peep at us round the corners of the house, and then scamper
+off to make their reports.
+
+It seems strange that sensible people should not at once see the
+necessity of accommodating their habits to their situation and
+circumstances, and receive their friends without appearing to be
+ashamed of their employments. This absurdity, however, is happily
+confined to the would-be-genteel people in the country, who visit
+in the towns, and occasionally are ambitious enough to give large
+parties to the aristocracy of the towns. The others, who do not
+pretend to vie with the townspeople in such follies, are a great
+deal more easy and natural in their manners, and more truly
+independent and hospitable.
+
+Now that we are better acquainted with the country, we much prefer
+the conversation of the intelligent and unpretending class of
+farmers, who, though their education has been limited, often possess
+a rich fund of strong commonsense and liberality of sentiment, and
+not unfrequently great observation and originality of mind. At the
+period I refer to, a number of the American settlers from the United
+States, who composed a considerable part of the population, regarded
+British settlers with an intense feeling of dislike, and found a
+pleasure in annoying and insulting them when any occasion offered.
+They did not understand us, nor did we them, and they generally
+mistook the reserve which is common with the British towards
+strangers for pride and superciliousness.
+
+"You Britishers are too superstitious," one of them told me on a
+particular occasion.
+
+It was some time before I found out what he meant by the term
+"superstitious," and that it was generally used by them for
+"supercilious."
+
+New settlers of the lower classes were then in the habit of
+imitating their rudeness and familiarity, which they mistook for
+independence. To a certain extent, this feeling still exists amongst
+the working class from Europe, but they have learnt to keep it
+within prudent bounds for their own sakes; and the higher class have
+learnt to moderate their pretensions, which will not be tolerated
+here, where labourers are less dependent on them for employment. The
+character of both classes, in fact, has been altered very much for
+the better, and a better and healthier feeling exists between
+them--much more so, indeed, than in England.
+
+The labouring class come to this country, too often with the idea
+that the higher class are their tyrants and oppressors; and, with
+a feeling akin to revenge, they are often inclined to make their
+employers in Canada suffer in their turn. This feeling is the effect
+of certain depressing causes, often remote and beyond the reach
+of legislation, but no less real on that account; and just in
+proportion to the degree of poverty and servility which exists among
+the labouring class in the particular part of the United Kingdom
+from which they come, will be the reaction here. When emigrants have
+been some years settled in Canada, they find out their particular
+and just position, as well as their duties and interests, and then
+they begin to feel truly happy. The fermentation arising from the
+strange mixture of discordant elements and feelings gradually
+subsides, but until this takes place, the state of society is
+anything but agreeable or satisfactory.
+
+Such was its state at C---, in 1832; and to us it was distasteful,
+that though averse, for various reasons, to commence a new
+settlement, we began to listen to the persuasions of our friends,
+who were settled in the township of D---, about forty miles from
+C---, and who were naturally anxious to induce us to settle among
+them.
+
+Mrs. Moodie's brother, S---, had recently formed a settlement in
+that township, and just before our arrival in Canada had been joined
+by an old brother officer and countryman of mine, Mr. T---, who was
+married to Mrs. Moodie's sister. The latter, who like myself, was a
+half-pay officer, had purchased a lot of wild land, close to the
+farm occupied by S---.
+
+Mr. S--- S--- had emigrated to Canada while quite a youth, and was
+thoroughly acquainted with the backwoods, and with the use of the
+felling-axe, which he wielded with all the ease and dexterity of a
+native.
+
+I had already paid some flying visits to the backwoods and found
+the state of society, though rude and rough, more congenial to
+our European tastes and habits, for several gentlemen of liberal
+education were settled in the neighbourhood, among whom there was a
+constant interchange of visits and good offices. All these gentlemen
+had recently arrived from England, Ireland, or Scotland, and all
+the labouring class were also fresh from the old country and
+consequently very little change had taken place in the manners or
+feelings of either class. There we felt we could enjoy the society
+of those who could sympathise with our tastes and prejudices, and
+who, from inclination as well as necessity, were inclined to assist
+each other in their farming operations.
+
+There is no situation in which men feel more the necessity of mutual
+assistance than in clearing land.
+
+Alone, a man may fell the trees on a considerable extent of
+woodland; but without the assistance of two or three others, he
+cannot pile up the logs previous to burning. Common labours and
+common difficulties, as among comrades during a campaign, produce
+a social unity of feeling among backwoods-men. There is, moreover,
+a peculiar charm in the excitement of improving a wilderness for
+the benefit of children and posterity; there is in it, also, that
+consciousness of usefulness which forms so essential an ingredient
+in true happiness. Every tree that falls beneath the axe opens a
+wider prospect, and encourages the settler to persevere in his
+efforts to attain independence.
+
+Mr. S--- had secured for me a portion of the military grant of four
+hundred acres, which I was entitled to as a half-pay officer, in his
+immediate neighbourhood. Though this portion amounted to only sixty
+acres, it was so far advantageous to me as being in a settled part
+of the country. I bought a clergy reserve of two hundred acres,
+in the rear of the sixty acres for 1 pound per acre, for which
+immediately afterwards I was offered 2 pounds per acre, for at that
+period there was such an influx of settlers into that locality that
+lands had risen rapidly to a fictitious price. I had also purchased
+one hundred acres more for 1 pound 10s. per acre, from a private
+individual; this also was considered cheap at the time.
+
+These lots, forming altogether a compact farm of three hundred and
+sixty acres, were situated on the sloping banks of a beautiful lake,
+or, rather, expansion of the river Otonabee, about half-a-mile wide,
+and studded with woody islets. From this lake I afterwards procured
+many a good meal for my little family, when all other means of
+obtaining food had failed us. I thus secured a tract of land which
+was amply sufficient for the comfortable subsistence of a family,
+had matters gone well with me.
+
+It should be distinctly borne in mind by the reader, that uncleared
+land in a remote situation from markets possesses, properly
+speaking, no intrinsic value, like cleared land, for a great deal of
+labour or money must be expended before it can be made to produce
+anything to sell. My half-pay, which amounted to about 100 pounds
+per annum of Canadian currency, was sufficient to keep us supplied
+with food, and to pay for clearing a certain extent of land, say
+ten acres every year, for wheat, which is immediately afterwards
+sown with grass-seeds to supply hay for the cattle during winter.
+Unfortunately, at this period, a great change took place in my
+circumstances, which it was impossible for the most prudent or
+cautious to have foreseen.
+
+An intimation from the War-office appeared in all the newspapers,
+calling on half-pay officers either to sell their commissions or to
+hold themselves in readiness to join some regiment. This was a hard
+alternative, as many of these officers were situated; for a great
+many of them had been tempted to emigrate to Canada by the grants
+of land which were offered them by government, and had expended all
+their means in improving these grants, which were invariably given
+to them in remote situations, where they were worse than worthless
+to any class of settlers but those who could command sufficient
+labour in their own families to make the necessary clearings and
+improvements.
+
+Rather than sell my commission, I would at once have made up my mind
+to join a regiment in any part of the world; but, when I came to
+think of the matter, I recollected that the expense of an outfit,
+and of removing my family--to say nothing of sacrificing my property
+in the colony--would render it utterly impossible for me to accept
+this unpleasant alternative after being my own master for eighteen
+years, and after effectually getting rid of all the habits which
+render a military life attractive to a young man. Under these
+circumstances, I too hastily determined to sell out of the army.
+This, of course, was easily managed. I expected to get about 600
+pounds for my commission; and, before the transaction was concluded,
+I was inquiring anxiously for some mode of investing the proceeds,
+as to yield a yearly income.
+
+Unfortunately, as it turned out, I made a bargain with Mr. Q--- for
+twenty-five shares, of 25 pounds each, in a fine steamer, which had
+just been built at C---, and which was expected to pay at least
+twenty-five per cent. to the shareholders. This amount of stock Q---
+offered me for the proceeds of my commission, whatever amount it
+might be sold for; offering at the same time to return all he should
+receive above 600 pounds sterling. As I had nothing but his word for
+this part of the agreement, he did not recollect it when he obtained
+700 pounds, which was 100 pounds more than I expected.
+
+Some boats on Lake Ontario, while the great emigration lasted, and
+there was less competition, yielded more than thirty per cent.; and
+there seemed then no reason to doubt that the new boat would be
+equally profitable.
+
+It is possible that Q--- foresaw what actually happened; or, more
+probably, he thought he could employ his money better in land
+speculations. As soon as the steamer began to run, a quarrel took
+place between the shareholders who resided at C---, where she
+was built, and those who lived at the capital of the Upper
+Province--York, as it was then called. The consequence was that she
+remained idle a long time, and at last she came under the entire
+control of the shareholders at York, who managed the boat as they
+liked, and to suit their own interests. Afterwards, though the boat
+continued to be profitably employed, somehow or other all her
+earnings were consumed in repairs, &c., and for several years I
+never received a penny for my shares. At last the steamer was sold,
+and I only received about a fourth part of my original stock. This,
+as may be supposed, was a bitter disappointment to me; for I had
+every reason to think that I had not only invested my money well,
+but very profitably, judging from the profits of the other boats on
+the lake. Had I received the proceeds of my commission, and bought
+bank stock in the colony--which then and still yields eight per
+cent.--my 700 pounds sterling, equal to 840 pounds currency, would
+have given me 60 pounds per annum, which, with my own labour, would
+have kept my family tolerably well, have helped to pay servants,
+and have saved us all much privation and harassing anxiety.
+
+Having thus supplied the painful details of a transaction, a
+knowledge of which was necessary to explain many circumstances in
+our situation, otherwise unintelligible, I shall proceed with my
+narrative.
+
+The government did not carry out its intention with respect to
+half-pay officers in the colonies; but many officers, like myself,
+had already sold their commissions, under the apprehension of being
+compelled to accept this hard alternative. I was suddenly thrown
+on my own resources, to support a helpless and increasing family,
+without any regular income. I had this consolation, however, under
+my misfortune, that I had acted from the best motives, and without
+the most remote idea that I was risking the comfort and happiness
+of those depending upon me. I found very soon, that I had been too
+precipitate, as people often are in extraordinary positions; though,
+had the result been more fortunate, most people would have commended
+my prudence and foresight. We determined, however, to bear up
+manfully against our ill-fortune, and trust to that Providence which
+never deserts those who do not forget their own duties in trying
+circumstances.
+
+It is curious how, on such occasions, some stray stanzas which hang
+about the outskirts of the memory, will suddenly come to our aid.
+Thus, I often caught myself humming over some of the verses of that
+excellent moral song "The Pilot," and repeating, with a peculiar
+emphasis, the concluding lines of each stanza,
+
+  "Fear not! but trust in Providence,
+  Wherever thou may'st be."
+
+Such songs do good; and a peculiar blessing seems to attend every
+composition, in prose or verse, which inculcates good moral
+sentiments, or tends to strengthen our virtuous resolutions. This
+fine song, I feel assured, will live embalmed in the memory of
+mankind long after the sickly, affected, and unnatural ditties of
+its author have gone to their merited oblivion. Sometimes, however,
+in spite of my good resolutions, when left alone, the dark clouds of
+despondency would close around me, and I could not help contrasting
+the happy past in our life with my gloomy anticipations of the
+future. Sleep, which should bring comfort and refreshment, often
+only aggravated my painful regrets, by recalling scenes which had
+nearly escaped my waking memory. In such a mood the following verses
+were written:--
+
+
+OH, LET ME SLEEP!
+
+  Oh, let me sleep! nor wake to sadness
+  The heart that, sleeping, dreams of gladness;
+  For sleep is death, without the pain--
+  Then wake me not to life again.
+  Oh, let me sleep! nor break the spell
+  That soothes the captive in his cell;
+  That bursts his chains, and sets him free,
+  To revel in his liberty.
+
+  Loved scenes, array'd in tenderest hue,
+  Now rise in beauty to my view;
+  And long-lost friends around me stand,
+  Or, smiling, grasp my willing hand.
+  Again I seek my island home;
+  Along the silent bays I roam,
+  Or, seated on the rocky shore,
+  I hear the angry surges roar.
+
+  And oh, how sweet the music seems
+  I've heard amid my blissful dreams!
+  But of the sadly pleasing strains,
+  Nought save the thrilling sense remains.
+  Those sounds so loved in scenes so dear,
+  Still--still they murmur in my ear:
+  But sleep alone can bless the sight
+  With forms that fade with morning's light.
+
+J.W.D.M.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A JOURNEY TO THE WOODS
+
+
+
+  'Tis well for us poor denizens of earth
+  That God conceals the future from our gaze;
+  Or Hope, the blessed watcher on Life's tower,
+  Would fold her wings, and on the dreary waste
+  Close the bright eye that through the murky clouds
+  Of blank Despair still sees the glorious sun.
+
+
+It was a bright frosty morning when I bade adieu to the farm, the
+birthplace of my little Agnes, who, nestled beneath my cloak, was
+sweetly sleeping on my knee, unconscious of the long journey before
+us into the wilderness. The sun had not as yet risen. Anxious to get
+to our place of destination before dark, we started as early as we
+could. Our own fine team had been sold the day before for forty
+pounds; and one of our neighbours, a Mr. D---, was to convey us and
+our household goods to Douro for the sum of twenty dollars. During
+the week he had made several journeys, with furniture and stores;
+and all that now remained was to be conveyed to the woods in two
+large lumber sleighs, one driven by himself, the other by a younger
+brother.
+
+It was not without regret that I left Melsetter, for so my husband
+had called the place, after his father's estate in Orkney. It was
+a beautiful, picturesque spot; and, in spite of the evil
+neighbourhood, I had learned to love it; indeed, it was much
+against my wish that it was sold. I had a great dislike to
+removing, which involves a necessary loss, and is apt to give to
+the emigrant roving and unsettled habits. But all regrets were now
+useless; and happily unconscious of the life of toil and anxiety
+that awaited us in those dreadful woods, I tried my best to be
+cheerful, and to regard the future with a hopeful eye.
+
+Our driver was a shrewd, clever man, for his opportunities. He took
+charge of the living cargo, which consisted of my husband, our
+maid-servant, the two little children, and myself--besides a large
+hamper, full of poultry, a dog, and a cat. The lordly sultan of
+the imprisoned seraglio thought fit to conduct himself in a very
+eccentric manner, for at every barn-yard we happened to pass, he
+clapped his wings, and crowed so long and loud that it afforded
+great amusement to the whole party, and doubtless was very edifying
+to the poor hens, who lay huddled together as mute as mice.
+
+"That 'ere rooster thinks he's on the top of the heap," said our
+driver, laughing. "I guess he's not used to travelling in a close
+conveyance. Listen! How all the crowers in the neighbourhood give
+him back a note of defiance! But he knows that he's safe enough at
+the bottom of the basket."
+
+The day was so bright for the time of year (the first week in
+February), that we suffered no inconvenience from the cold. Little
+Katie was enchanted with the jingling of the sleigh-bells, and,
+nestled among the packages, kept singing or talking to the horses
+in her baby lingo. Trifling as these little incidents were, before
+we had proceeded ten miles on our long journey, they revived my
+drooping spirits, and I began to feel a lively interest in the
+scenes through which we were passing.
+
+The first twenty miles of the way was over a hilly and well-cleared
+country; and as in winter the deep snow fills up the inequalities,
+and makes all roads alike, we glided as swiftly and steadily along
+as if they had been the best highways in the world. Anon, the
+clearings began to diminish, and tall woods arose on either side
+of the path; their solemn aspect, and the deep silence that brooded
+over their vast solitudes, inspiring the mind with a strange awe.
+Not a breath of wind stirred the leafless branches, whose huge
+shadows reflected upon the dazzling white covering of snow, lay
+so perfectly still, that it seemed as if Nature had suspended
+her operations, that life and motion had ceased, and that she
+was sleeping in her winding-sheet, upon the bier of death.
+
+"I guess you will find the woods pretty lonesome," said our driver,
+whose thoughts had been evidently employed on the same subject as
+our own. "We were once in the woods, but emigration has stepped
+ahead of us, and made our'n a cleared part of the country. When I
+was a boy, all this country, for thirty miles on every side of us,
+was bush land. As to Peterborough, the place was unknown; not a
+settler had ever passed through the great swamp, and some of them
+believed that it was the end of the world."
+
+"What swamp is that?" asked I.
+
+"Oh, the great Cavan swamp. We are just two miles from it; and I
+tell you that the horses will need a good rest, and ourselves a good
+dinner, by the time we are through it. Ah, Mrs. Moodie, if ever you
+travel that way in summer, you will know something about corduroy
+roads. I was 'most jolted to death last fall; I thought it would
+have been no bad notion to have insured my teeth before I left C---.
+I really expected that they would have been shook out of my head
+before we had done manoeuvring over the big logs."
+
+"How will my crockery stand it in the next sleigh?" quoth I. "If the
+road is such as you describe, I am afraid that I shall not bring a
+whole plate to Douro."
+
+"Oh, the snow is a great leveller--it makes all rough places smooth.
+But with regard to this swamp, I have something to tell you. About
+ten years ago, no one had ever seen the other side of it; and if
+pigs or cattle strayed away into it, they fell a prey to the wolves
+and bears, and were seldom recovered.
+
+"An old Scotch emigrant, who had located himself on this side of it,
+so often lost his beasts that he determined during the summer season
+to try and explore the place, and see if there were any end to it.
+So he takes an axe on his shoulder, and a bag of provisions for
+a week, not forgetting a flask of whiskey, and off he starts all
+alone, and tells his wife that if he never returned, she and
+little Jock must try and carry on the farm without him; but he was
+determined to see the end of the swamp, even if it led to the other
+world. He fell upon a fresh cattle-track, which he followed all that
+day; and towards night he found himself in the heart of a tangled
+wilderness of bushes, and himself half eaten up with mosquitoes and
+black-flies. He was more than tempted to give in, and return home
+by the first glimpse of light.
+
+"The Scotch are a tough people; they are not easily daunted--a few
+difficulties only seem to make them more eager to get on; and he
+felt ashamed the next moment, as he told me, of giving up. So he
+finds out a large thick cedar-tree for his bed, climbs up, and
+coiling himself among the branches like a bear, he was soon fast
+asleep.
+
+"The next morning, by daylight, he continued his journey, not
+forgetting to blaze with his axe the trees to the right and left as
+he went along. The ground was so spongy and wet that at every step
+he plunged up to his knees in water, but he seemed no nearer the end
+of the swamp than he had been the day before. He saw several deer,
+a raccoon, and a ground-hog, during his walk, but was unmolested by
+bears or wolves. Having passed through several creeks, and killed a
+great many snakes, he felt so weary towards the close of the second
+day that he determined to go home the next morning. But just as he
+began to think his search was fruitless he observed that the cedars
+and tamaracks which had obstructed his path became less numerous,
+and were succeeded by bass and soft maple. The ground, also, became
+less moist, and he was soon ascending a rising slope, covered with
+oak and beech, which shaded land of the very best quality. The old
+man was now fully convinced that he had cleared the great swamp; and
+that, instead of leading to the other world, it had conducted him
+to a country that would yield the very best returns for cultivation.
+His favourable report led to the formation of the road that we are
+about to cross, and to the settlement of Peterborough, which is one
+of the most promising new settlements in this district, and is
+surrounded by a splendid back country."
+
+We were descending a very steep hill, and encountered an ox-sleigh,
+which was crawling slowly up it in a contrary direction. Three
+people were seated at the bottom of the vehicle upon straw, which
+made a cheap substitute for buffalo-robes. Perched, as we were, upon
+the crown of the height, we looked completely down into the sleigh,
+and during the whole course of my life I never saw three uglier
+mortals collected into such a narrow space. The man was blear-eyed,
+with a hare-lip, through which protruded two dreadful yellow teeth
+that resembled the tusks of a boar. The woman was long-faced, high
+cheek-boned, red-haired, and freckled all over like a toad. The boy
+resembled his hideous mother, but with the addition of a villanous
+obliquity of vision which rendered him the most disgusting object
+in this singular trio.
+
+As we passed them, our driver gave a knowing nod to my husband,
+directing, at the same time, the most quizzical glance towards the
+strangers, as he exclaimed, "We are in luck, sir! I think that 'ere
+sleigh may be called Beauty's egg-basket!"
+
+We made ourselves very merry at the poor people's expense, and
+Mr. D---, with his odd stories and Yankeefied expressions, amused
+the tedium of our progress through the great swamp, which in summer
+presents for several miles one uniform bridge of rough and unequal
+logs, all laid loosely across huge sleepers, so that they jump up
+and down, when pressed by the wheels, like the keys of a piano.
+The rough motion and jolting occasioned by this collision is so
+distressing that it never fails to entail upon the traveller sore
+bones and an aching head for the rest of the day. The path is so
+narrow over these logs that two waggons cannot pass without great
+difficulty, which is rendered more dangerous by the deep natural
+ditches on either side of the bridge, formed by broad creeks that
+flow out of the swamp, and often terminate in mud-holes of very
+ominous dimensions. The snow, however, hid from us all the ugly
+features of the road, and Mr. D--- steered us through in perfect
+safety, and landed us at the door of a little log house which
+crowned the steep hill on the other side of the swamp, and which
+he dignified with the name of a tavern.
+
+It was now two o'clock. We had been on the road since seven;
+and men, women, and children were all ready for the good dinner that
+Mr. D--- had promised us at this splendid house of entertainment,
+where we were destined to stay for two hours, to refresh ourselves
+and rest the horses.
+
+"Well, Mrs. J---, what have you got for our dinner?" said our
+driver, after he had seen to the accommodation of his teams.
+
+"Pritters[1] and pork, sir. Nothing else to be had in the woods.
+Thank God, we have enough of that!"
+
+[1] Vulgar Canadian for potatoes.
+
+
+D--- shrugged up his shoulders, and looked at us. "We've plenty of
+that same at home. But hunger's good sauce. Come, be spry, widow,
+and see about it, for I am very hungry."
+
+I inquired for a private room for myself and the children, but
+there were no private rooms in the house. The apartment we occupied
+was like the cobbler's stall in the old song, and I was obliged to
+attend upon them in public.
+
+"You have much to learn, ma'am, if you are going to the woods,"
+said Mrs. J---.
+
+"To unlearn, you mean," said Mr. D---. "To tell you the truth,
+Mrs. Moodie, ladies and gentlemen have no business in the woods.
+Eddication spoils man or woman for that location. So, widow
+(turning to our hostess), you are not tired of living alone yet?"
+
+"No, sir; I have no wish for a second husband. I had enough of the
+first. I like to have my own way--to lie down mistress, and get up
+master."
+
+"You don't like to be put out of your old way," returned he, with a
+mischievous glance.
+
+She coloured very red; but it might be the heat of the fire over
+which she was frying the pork for our dinner.
+
+I was very hungry, but I felt no appetite for the dish she was
+preparing for us. It proved salt, hard, and unsavoury.
+
+D--- pronounced it very bad, and the whiskey still worse, with which
+he washed it down.
+
+I asked for a cup of tea and a slice of bread. But they were out of
+tea, and the hop-rising had failed, and there was no bread in the
+house. For this disgusting meal we paid at the rate of a quarter of
+a dollar a-head.
+
+I was glad when the horses being again put to, we escaped from the
+rank odour of the fried pork, and were once more in the fresh air.
+
+"Well, mister; did not you grudge your money for that bad meat?"
+said D---, when we were once more seated in the sleigh. "But in
+these parts, the worse the fare the higher the charge."
+
+"I would not have cared," said I, "if I could have got a cup of tea."
+
+"Tea! it's poor trash. I never could drink tea in my life. But I
+like coffee, when 'tis boiled till it's quite black. But coffee is
+not good without plenty of trimmings."
+
+"What do you mean by trimmings?"
+
+He laughed. "Good sugar, and sweet cream. Coffee is not worth
+drinking without trimmings."
+
+Often in after years have I recalled the coffee trimmings, when
+endeavouring to drink the vile stuff which goes by the name of
+coffee in the houses of entertainment in the country.
+
+We had now passed through the narrow strip of clearing which
+surrounded the tavern, and again entered upon the woods. It was near
+sunset, and we were rapidly descending a steep hill, when one of the
+traces that held our sleigh suddenly broke. D--- pulled up in order
+to repair the damage. His brother's team was close behind, and our
+unexpected stand-still brought the horses upon us before J. D---
+could stop them. I received so violent a blow from the head of one
+of them, just in the back of the neck, that for a few minutes I was
+stunned and insensible. When I recovered, I was supported in the
+arms of my husband, over whose knees I was leaning, and D--- was
+rubbing my hands and temples with snow.
+
+"There, Mr. Moodie, she's coming to. I thought she was killed. I
+have seen a man before now killed by a blow from a horse's head in
+the like manner." As soon as we could, we resumed our places in the
+sleigh; but all enjoyment of our journey, had it been otherwise
+possible, was gone.
+
+When we reached Peterborough, Moodie wished us to remain at the inn
+all night, as we had still eleven miles of our journey to perform,
+and that through a blazed forest-road, little travelled, and very
+much impeded by fallen trees and other obstacles; but D--- was
+anxious to get back as soon as possible to his own home, and he
+urged us very pathetically to proceed.
+
+The moon arose during our stay at the inn, and gleamed upon the
+straggling frame-houses which then formed the now populous and
+thriving town of Peterborough. We crossed the wild, rushing,
+beautiful Otonabee river by a rude bridge, and soon found ourselves
+journeying over the plains or level heights beyond the village,
+which were thinly wooded with picturesque groups of oak and pine,
+and very much resembled a gentleman's park at home.
+
+Far below, to our right (for we were upon the Smith-town side) we
+heard the rushing of the river, whose rapid waters never receive
+curb from the iron chain of winter. Even while the rocky banks are
+coated with ice, and the frost-king suspends from every twig and
+branch the most beautiful and fantastic crystals, the black waters
+rush foaming along, a thick steam rising constantly above the
+rapids, as from a boiling pot. The shores vibrate and tremble
+beneath the force of the impetuous flood, as it whirls round
+cedar-crowned islands and opposing rocks, and hurries on to pour its
+tribute into the Rice Lake, to swell the calm, majestic grandeur of
+the Trent, till its waters are lost in the beautiful bay of Quinte,
+and finally merged in the blue ocean of Ontario.
+
+The most renowned of our English rivers dwindle into little muddy
+rills when compared with the sublimity of the Canadian waters. No
+language can adequately express the solemn grandeur of her lake and
+river scenery; the glorious islands that float, like visions from
+fairy land, upon the bosom of these azure mirrors of her cloudless
+skies. No dreary breadth of marshes, covered with flags, hide from
+our gaze the expanse of heaven-tinted waters; no foul mud-banks
+spread their unwholesome exhalations around. The rocky shores are
+crowned with the cedar, the birch, the alder, and soft maple, that
+dip their long tresses in the pure stream; from every crevice in the
+limestone the hare-bell and Canadian rose wave their graceful
+blossoms.
+
+The fiercest droughts of summer may diminish the volume and power
+of these romantic streams, but it never leaves their rocky channels
+bare, nor checks the mournful music of their dancing waves.
+
+Through the openings in the forest, we now and then caught the
+silver gleam of the river tumbling on in moonlight splendour, while
+the hoarse chiding of the wind in the lofty pines above us gave a
+fitting response to the melancholy cadence of the waters.
+
+The children had fallen asleep. A deep silence pervaded the party.
+Night was above us with her mysterious stars. The ancient forest
+stretched around us on every side, and a foreboding sadness sunk
+upon my heart. Memory was busy with the events of many years. I
+retraced step by step the pilgrimage of my past life, until arriving
+at that passage in its sombre history, I gazed through tears upon
+the singularly savage scene around me, and secretly marvelled,
+"What brought me here?"
+
+"Providence," was the answer which the soul gave. "Not for your own
+welfare, perhaps, but for the welfare of your children, the unerring
+hand of the Great Father has led you here. You form a connecting
+link in the destinies of many. It is impossible for any human
+creature to live for himself alone. It may be your lot to suffer,
+but others will reap a benefit from your trials. Look up with
+confidence to Heaven, and the sun of hope will yet shed a cheering
+beam through the forbidding depths of this tangled wilderness."
+
+The road now became so bad that Mr. D--- was obliged to dismount,
+and lead his horses through the more intricate passages. The animals
+themselves, weary with their long journey and heavy load, proceeded
+at foot-fall. The moon, too, had deserted us, and the only light we
+had to guide us through the dim arches of the forest was from the
+snow and the stars, which now peered down upon us, through the
+leafless branches of the trees, with uncommon brilliancy.
+
+"It will be past midnight before we reach your brother's clearing"
+(where we expected to spend the night), said D---. "I wish, Mr.
+Moodie, we had followed your advice, and staid at Peterborough. How
+fares it with you, Mrs. Moodie, and the young ones? It is growing
+very cold."
+
+We were now in the heart of a dark cedar-swamp, and my mind was
+haunted with visions of wolves and bears; but beyond the long, wild
+howl of a solitary wolf, no other sound awoke the sepulchral silence
+of that dismal-looking wood.
+
+"What a gloomy spot!" said I to my husband. "In the old country,
+superstition would people it with ghosts."
+
+"Ghosts! There are no ghosts in Canada!" said Mr. D---. "The country
+is too new for ghosts. No Canadian is afear'd of ghosts. It is only
+in old countries, like your'n, that are full of sin and wickedness,
+that people believe in such nonsense. No human habitation has ever
+been erected in this wood through which you are passing. Until a
+very few years ago, few white persons had ever passed through it;
+and the Red Man would not pitch his tent in such a place as this.
+Now, ghosts, as I understand the word, are the spirits of bad men
+that are not allowed by Providence to rest in their graves but, for
+a punishment, are made to haunt the spots where their worst deeds
+were committed. I don't believe in all this; but, supposing it to be
+true, bad men must have died here before their spirits could haunt
+the place. Now, it is more than probable that no person ever ended
+his days in this forest, so that it would be folly to think of
+seeing his ghost."
+
+This theory of Mr. D---'s had the merit of originality, and it is
+not improbable that the utter disbelief in supernatural appearances
+which is common to most native-born Canadians, is the result of the
+same very reasonable mode of arguing. The unpeopled wastes of Canada
+must present the same aspect to the new settler that the world did
+to our first parents after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden;
+all the sin which could defile the spot, or haunt it with the
+association of departed evil, is concentrated in their own persons.
+Bad spirits cannot be supposed to linger near a place where crime
+has never been committed. The belief in ghosts, so prevalent in old
+countries, must first have had its foundation in the consciousness
+of guilt.
+
+After clearing this low, swampy portion of the wood, with much
+difficulty, and the frequent application of the axe, to cut away
+the fallen timber that impeded our progress, our ears were assailed
+by a low, roaring, rushing sound, as of the falling of waters.
+
+"That is Herriot's Falls," said our guide. "We are within two miles
+of our destination."
+
+Oh, welcome sound! But those two miles appeared more lengthy than
+the whole journey. Thick clouds, that threatened a snow-storm, had
+blotted out the stars, and we continued to grope our way through a
+narrow, rocky path, upon the edge of the river, in almost total
+darkness. I now felt the chillness of the midnight hour, and the
+fatigue of the long journey, with double force, and envied the
+servant and children, who had been sleeping ever since we left
+Peterborough. We now descended the steep bank, and prepared to
+cross the rapids.
+
+Dark as it was, I looked with a feeling of dread upon the foaming
+waters as they tumbled over their bed of rocks, their white crests
+flashing, life-like, amid the darkness of the night.
+
+"This is an ugly bridge over such a dangerous place," said D---,
+as he stood up in the sleigh and urged his tired team across the
+miserable, insecure log bridge, where darkness and death raged
+below, and one false step of his jaded horses would have plunged us
+into both. I must confess I drew a freer breath when the bridge was
+crossed, and D--- congratulated us on our safe arrival in Douro.
+
+We now continued our journey along the left bank of the river, but
+when in sight of Mr. S---'s clearing, a large pine-tree, which had
+newly fallen across the narrow path, brought the teams to a
+standstill.
+
+The mighty trunk which had lately formed one of the stately pillars
+in the sylvan temple of Nature, was of too large dimensions to chop
+in two with axes; and after about half an hour's labour, which to
+me, poor, cold, weary wight! seemed an age, the males of the party
+abandoned the task in despair. To go round it was impossible; its
+roots were concealed in an impenetrable wall of cedar-jungle on the
+right-hand side of the road, and its huge branches hung over the
+precipitous bank of the river.
+
+"We must try and make the horses jump over it," said D---. "We may
+get an upset, but there is no help for it; we must either make the
+experiment, or stay here all night, and I am too cold and hungry
+for that--so here goes." He urged his horses to leap the log;
+restraining their ardour for a moment as the sleigh rested on the
+top of the formidable barrier, but so nicely balanced, that the
+difference of a straw would almost have overturned the heavily-laden
+vehicle and its helpless inmates. We, however, cleared it in safety.
+He now stopped, and gave directions to his brother to follow the
+same plan that he had adopted; but whether the young man had less
+coolness, or the horses in his team were more difficult to manage, I
+cannot tell: the sleigh, as it hung poised upon the top of the log,
+was overturned with a loud crash, and all my household goods and
+chattels were scattered over the road.
+
+Alas, for my crockery and stone china! scarcely one article remained
+unbroken.
+
+"Never fret about the china," said Moodie; "thank God the man and
+the horses are uninjured."
+
+I should have felt more thankful had the crocks been spared too;
+for, like most of my sex, I had a tender regard for china, and I
+knew that no fresh supply could be obtained in this part of the
+world. Leaving his brother to collect the scattered fragments, D---
+proceeded on his journey. We left the road, and were winding our way
+over a steep hill, covered with heaps of brush and fallen timber,
+and as we reached the top, a light gleamed cheerily from the windows
+of a log house, and the next moment we were at my brother-in-law's
+door.
+
+I thought my journey was at an end; but here I was doomed to fresh
+disappointment. His wife was absent on a visit to her friends, and
+it had been arranged that we were to stay with my sister, Mrs. T---,
+and her husband. With all this I was unacquainted; and I was about
+to quit the sleigh and seek the warmth of the fire when I was told
+that I had yet further to go. Its cheerful glow was to shed no
+warmth on me, and, tired as I was, I actually buried my face and
+wept upon the neck of a hound which Moodie had given to Mr. S---,
+and which sprang up upon the sleigh to lick my face and hands. This
+was my first halt in that weary wilderness, where I endured so many
+bitter years of toil and sorrow. My brother-in-law and his family
+had retired to rest, but they instantly rose to receive the way-worn
+travellers; and I never enjoyed more heartily a warm welcome after
+a long day of intense fatigue, than I did that night of my first
+sojourn in the backwoods.
+
+
+THE OTONABEE
+
+  Dark, rushing, foaming river!
+    I love the solemn sound
+    That shakes thy shores around,
+  And hoarsely murmurs, ever,
+    As thy waters onward bound,
+      Like a rash, unbridled steed
+  Flying madly on its course;
+  That shakes with thundering force
+      The vale and trembling mead.
+  So thy billows downward sweep,
+    Nor rock nor tree can stay
+    Their fierce, impetuous way;
+  Now in eddies whirling deep,
+     Now in rapids white with spray.
+
+  I love thee, lonely river!
+    Thy hollow restless roar,
+    Thy cedar-girded shore;
+  The rocky isles that sever,
+    The waves that round them pour.
+      Katchawanook[1] basks in light,
+  But thy currents woo the shade
+  By the lofty pine-trees made,
+      That cast a gloom like night,
+  Ere day's last glories fade.
+    Thy solitary voice
+  The same bold anthem sung
+  When Nature's frame was young.
+     No longer shall rejoice
+  The woods where erst it rung!
+
+  Lament, lament, wild river!
+    A hand is on thy mane[2]
+    That will bind thee in a chain
+  No force of thine can sever.
+    Thy furious headlong tide,
+  In murmurs soft and low,
+    Is destined yet to glide
+  To meet the lake below;
+    And many a bark shall ride
+  Securely on thy breast,
+    To waft across the main
+    Rich stores of golden grain
+  From the valleys of the West.
+
+[1] The Indian name for one of the many expansions of this beautiful
+river.
+
+[2] Alluding to the projected improvements on the Trent, of which
+the Otonabee is a continuation. Fifteen years have passed away
+since this little poem was written; but the Otonabee still rushes
+on in its own wild strength. Some idea of the rapidity of this
+river may be formed from the fact that heavy rafts of timber are
+floated down from Herriot's Falls, a distance of nine miles from
+Peterborough, in less than an hour. The shores are bold and rocky,
+and abound in beautiful and picturesque views.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE WILDERNESS, AND OUR INDIAN FRIENDS
+
+
+
+  Man of strange race! stern dweller of the wild!
+  Nature's free-born, untamed, and daring child!
+
+
+The clouds of the preceding night, instead of dissolving in snow,
+brought on a rapid thaw. A thaw in the middle of winter is the most
+disagreeable change that can be imagined. After several weeks of
+clear, bright, bracing, frosty weather, with a serene atmosphere and
+cloudless sky, you awake one morning surprised at the change in the
+temperature; and, upon looking out of the window, behold the woods
+obscured by a murky haze--not so dense as an English November fog,
+but more black and lowering--and the heavens shrouded in a uniform
+covering of leaden-coloured clouds, deepening into a livid indigo at
+the edge of the horizon. The snow, no longer hard and glittering,
+has become soft and spongy, and the foot slips into a wet and
+insidiously-yielding mass at every step. From the roof pours down a
+continuous stream of water, and the branches of the trees collecting
+the moisture of the reeking atmosphere, shower it upon the earth
+from every dripping twig. The cheerless and uncomfortable aspect of
+things without never fails to produce a corresponding effect upon
+the minds of those within, and casts such a damp upon the spirits
+that it appears to destroy for a time all sense of enjoyment. Many
+persons (and myself among the number) are made aware of the approach
+of a thunder-storm by an intense pain and weight about the head; and
+I have heard numbers of Canadians complain that a thaw always made
+them feel bilious and heavy, and greatly depressed their animal
+spirits.
+
+I had a great desire to visit our new location, but when I looked
+out upon the cheerless waste, I gave up the idea, and contented
+myself with hoping for a better day on the morrow; but many morrows
+came and went before a frost again hardened the road sufficiently
+for me to make the attempt.
+
+The prospect from the windows of my sister's log hut was not very
+prepossessing. The small lake in front, which formed such a pretty
+object in summer, now looked like an extensive field covered with
+snow, hemmed in from the rest of the world by a dark belt of sombre
+pine-woods. The clearing round the house was very small, and only
+just reclaimed from the wilderness, and the greater part of it
+covered with piles of brushwood, to be burnt the first dry days of
+spring. The charred and blackened stumps on the few acres that had
+been cleared during the preceding year were everything but
+picturesque; and I concluded, as I turned, disgusted, from the
+prospect before me, that there was very little beauty to be found in
+the backwoods. But I came to this decision during a Canadian thaw,
+be it remembered, when one is wont to view every object with
+jaundiced eyes.
+
+Moodie had only been able to secure sixty-six acres of his
+government grant upon the Upper Katchawanook Lake, which, being
+interpreted, means in English, the "Lake of the Waterfalls," a very
+poetical meaning, which most Indian names have. He had, however,
+secured a clergy reserve of two hundred acres adjoining; and he
+afterwards purchased a fine lot, which likewise formed part of the
+same block, one hundred acres, for 150 pounds.[1] This was an
+enormously high price for wild land; but the prospect of opening
+the Trent and Otonabee for the navigation of steamboats and other
+small craft, was at that period a favourite speculation, and its
+practicability, and the great advantages to be derived from it,
+were so widely believed as to raise the value of the wild lands
+along these remote waters to an enormous price; and settlers in
+the vicinity were eager to secure lots, at any sacrifice, along
+their shores.
+
+[1] After a lapse of fifteen years, we have been glad to sell these
+lots of land, after considerable clearings had been made upon them,
+for less than they originally cost us.
+
+
+Our government grant was upon the lake shore, and Moodie had chosen
+for the site of his log house a bank that sloped gradually from the
+edge of the water, until it attained to the dignity of a hill. Along
+the top of this ridge, the forest road ran, and midway down the
+hill, our humble home, already nearly completed, stood, surrounded
+by the eternal forest. A few trees had been cleared in its immediate
+vicinity, just sufficient to allow the workmen to proceed, and to
+prevent the fall of any tree injuring the building, or the danger
+of its taking fire during the process of burning the fallow.
+
+A neighbour had undertaken to build this rude dwelling by contract,
+and was to have it ready for us by the first week in the new year.
+The want of boards to make the divisions in the apartments alone
+hindered him from fulfilling his contract. These had lately been
+procured, and the house was to be ready for our reception in the
+course of a week. Our trunks and baggage had already been conveyed
+thither by Mr. D---; and, in spite of my sister's kindness and
+hospitality, I longed to find myself once more settled in a home
+of my own.
+
+The day after our arrival, I was agreeably surprised by a visit from
+Monaghan, whom Moodie had once more taken into his service. The poor
+fellow was delighted that his nurse-child, as he always called
+little Katie, had not forgotten him, but evinced the most lively
+satisfaction at the sight of her dark friend.
+
+Early every morning, Moodie went off to the house; and the first
+fine day, my sister undertook to escort me through the wood, to
+inspect it. The proposal was joyfully accepted; and although I felt
+rather timid when I found myself with only my female companion in
+the vast forest, I kept my fears to myself, lest I should be
+laughed at. This foolish dread of encountering wild beasts in the
+woods, I never could wholly shake off, even after becoming a
+constant resident in their gloomy depths, and accustomed to follow
+the forest-path, alone, or attended with little children, daily.
+The cracking of an old bough, or the hooting of the owl, was
+enough to fill me with alarm, and try my strength in a precipitate
+flight. Often have I stopped and reproached myself for want of
+faith in the goodness of Providence, and repeated the text, "The
+wicked are afraid when no man pursueth: but the righteous are as
+bold as a lion," as if to shame myself into courage. But it would
+not do; I could not overcome the weakness of the flesh. If I had
+one of my infants with me, the wish to protect the child from any
+danger which might beset my path gave me for a time a fictitious
+courage; but it was like love fighting with despair.
+
+It was in vain that my husband assured me that no person had ever
+been attacked by wild animals in the woods, that a child might
+traverse them even at night in safety; whilst I knew that wild
+animals existed in those woods, I could not believe him, and my
+fears on this head rather increased than diminished.
+
+The snow had been so greatly decreased by the late thaw, that it
+had been converted into a coating of ice, which afforded a dangerous
+and slippery footing. My sister, who had resided for nearly twelve
+months in the woods, was provided for her walk with Indian
+moccasins, which rendered her quite independent; but I stumbled
+at every step. The sun shone brightly, the air was clear and
+invigorating, and, in spite of the treacherous ground and my foolish
+fears, I greatly enjoyed my first walk in the woods. Naturally of a
+cheerful, hopeful disposition, my sister was enthusiastic in her
+admiration of the woods. She drew such a lively picture of the
+charms of a summer residence in the forest that I began to feel
+greatly interested in her descriptions, and to rejoice that we, too,
+were to be her near neighbours and dwellers in the woods; and this
+circumstance not a little reconciled me to the change.
+
+Hoping that my husband would derive an income equal to the one he
+had parted with from the investment of the price of his commission
+in the steam-boat stock, I felt no dread of want. Our legacy of 700
+pounds had afforded us means to purchase land, build our house, and
+give out a large portion of land to be cleared, and, with a
+considerable sum of money still in hand, our prospects for the
+future were in no way discouraging.
+
+When we reached the top of the ridge that overlooked our cot, my
+sister stopped, and pointed out a log-house among the trees.
+"There, S---," she said, "is your home. When that black cedar-swamp
+is cleared away, that now hides the lake from us, you will have a
+very pretty view." My conversation with her had quite altered the
+aspect of the country, and predisposed me to view things in the most
+favourable light. I found Moodie and Monaghan employed in piling up
+heaps of bush near the house, which they intended to burn off by
+hand previous to firing the rest of the fallow, to prevent any risk
+to the building from fire. The house was made of cedar logs, and
+presented a superior air of comfort to most dwellings of the same
+kind. The dimensions were thirty-six feet in length, and thirty-two
+in breadth, which gave us a nice parlour, a kitchen, and two small
+bed-rooms, which were divided by plank partitions. Pantry or
+store-room there was none; some rough shelves in the kitchen, and
+a deal cupboard in a corner of the parlour, being the extent of our
+accommodations in that way.
+
+Our servant, Mary Tate, was busy scrubbing out the parlour and
+bed-room; but the kitchen, and the sleeping-room off it, were still
+knee-deep in chips, and filled with the carpenter's bench and tools,
+and all our luggage. Such as it was, it was a palace when compared
+to Old Satan's log hut, or the miserable cabin we had wintered in
+during the severe winter of 1833, and I regarded it with complacency
+as my future home.
+
+While we were standing outside the building, conversing with my
+husband, a young gentleman, of the name of Morgan, who had lately
+purchased land in that vicinity, went into the kitchen to light his
+pipe at the stove, and, with true backwood carelessness, let the
+hot cinder fall among the dry chips that strewed the floor. A few
+minutes after, the whole mass was in a blaze, and it was not without
+great difficulty that Moodie and Mr. R--- succeeded in putting out
+the fire. Thus were we nearly deprived of our home before we had
+taken up our abode in it.
+
+The indifference to the danger of fire in a country where most
+of the dwellings are composed of inflammable materials, is truly
+astonishing. Accustomed to see enormous fires blazing on every
+hearth-stone, and to sleep in front of these fires, his bedding
+often riddled with holes made by hot particles of wood flying out
+during the night, and igniting beneath his very nose, the sturdy
+backwoodsman never dreads an enemy in the element that he is used to
+regard as his best friend. Yet what awful accidents, what ruinous
+calamities arise, out of this criminal negligence, both to himself
+and others!
+
+A few days after this adventure, we bade adieu to my sister, and
+took possession of our new dwelling, and commenced "a life in the
+woods."
+
+The first spring we spent in comparative ease and idleness. Our cows
+had been left upon our old place during the winter. The ground had
+to be cleared before it could receive a crop of any kind, and I had
+little to do but to wander by the lake shore, or among the woods,
+and amuse myself.
+
+These were the halcyon days of the bush. My husband had purchased a
+very light cedar canoe, to which he attached a keel and a sail; and
+most of our leisure hours, directly the snows melted, were spent
+upon the water.
+
+These fishing and shooting excursions were delightful. The pure
+beauty of the Canadian water, the sombre but august grandeur of the
+vast forest that hemmed us in on every side and shut us out from the
+rest of the world, soon cast a magic spell upon our spirits, and we
+began to feel charmed with the freedom and solitude around us. Every
+object was new to us. We felt as if we were the first discoverers
+of every beautiful flower and stately tree that attracted our
+attention, and we gave names to fantastic rocks and fairy isles, and
+raised imaginary houses and bridges on every picturesque spot which
+we floated past during our aquatic excursions. I learned the use of
+the paddle, and became quite a proficient in the gentle craft.
+
+It was not long before we received visits from the Indians, a people
+whose beauty, talents, and good qualities have been somewhat
+overrated, and invested with a poetical interest which they scarcely
+deserve. Their honesty and love of truth are the finest traits in
+characters otherwise dark and unlovely. But these are two God-like
+attributes, and from them spring all that is generous and ennobling
+about them.
+
+There never was a people more sensible of kindness, or more grateful
+for any little act of benevolence exercised towards them. We met
+them with confidence; our dealings with them were conducted with the
+strictest integrity; and they became attached to our persons, and in
+no single instance ever destroyed the good opinion we entertained of
+them.
+
+The tribes that occupy the shores of all these inland waters, back
+of the great lakes, belong to the Chippewa or Missasagua Indians,
+perhaps the least attractive of all these wild people, both with
+regard to their physical and mental endowments.
+
+The men of this tribe are generally small of stature, with very
+coarse and repulsive features. The forehead is low and retreating,
+the observing faculties large, the intellectual ones scarcely
+developed; the ears large, and standing off from the face; the eyes
+looking towards the temples, keen, snake-like, and far apart; the
+cheek-bones prominent; the nose long and flat, the nostrils very
+round; the jaw-bone projecting, massy, and brutal; the mouth
+expressing ferocity and sullen determination; the teeth large, even,
+and dazzlingly white. The mouth of the female differs widely in
+expression from that of the male; the lips are fuller, the jaw less
+projecting, and the smile is simple and agreeable. The women are a
+merry, light-hearted set, and their constant laugh and incessant
+prattle form a strange contrast to the iron taciturnity of their
+grim lords.
+
+Now I am upon the subject, I will recapitulate a few traits and
+sketches of these people, as they came under my own immediate
+observation.
+
+A dry cedar-swamp, not far from the house, by the lake shore, had
+been their usual place of encampment for many years. The whole block
+of land was almost entirely covered with maple trees, and had
+originally been an Indian sugar-bush. Although the favourite spot
+had now passed into the hands of strangers, they still frequented
+the place, to make canoes and baskets, to fish and shoot, and
+occasionally to follow their old occupation.
+
+Scarcely a week passed away without my being visited by the dark
+strangers; and as my husband never allowed them to eat with the
+servants (who viewed them with the same horror that Mrs. D--- did
+black Mollineux), but brought them to his own table, they soon grew
+friendly and communicative, and would point to every object that
+attracted their attention, asking a thousand questions as to its
+use, the material of which it was made, and if we were inclined to
+exchange it for their commodities?
+
+With a large map of Canada, they were infinitely delighted. In a
+moment they recognised every bay and headland in Ontario, and almost
+screamed with delight when, following the course of the Trent with
+their fingers, they came to their own lake.
+
+How eagerly each pointed out the spot to his fellows; how intently
+their black heads were bent down, and their dark eyes fixed upon the
+map. What strange, uncouth exclamations of surprise burst from their
+lips as they rapidly repeated the Indian names for every lake and
+river on this wonderful piece of paper.
+
+The old chief, Peter Nogan, begged hard for the coveted treasure. He
+would give "Canoe, venison, duck, fish, for it; and more by and by."
+
+I felt sorry that I was unable to gratify his wishes; but the map
+had cost upwards of six dollars, and was daily consulted by my
+husband, in reference to the names and situations of localities
+in the neighbourhood.
+
+I had in my possession a curious Japanese sword, which had been
+given to me by an uncle of Tom Wilson's--a strange gift to a young
+lady; but it was on account of its curiosity, and had no reference
+to my warlike propensities. This sword was broad, and three-sided
+in the blade, and in shape resembled a moving snake. The hilt was
+formed of a hideous carved image of one of their war-gods; and
+a more villanous-looking wretch was never conceived by the most
+distorted imagination. He was represented in a sitting attitude, the
+eagle's claws, that formed his hands, resting upon his knees; his
+legs terminated in lion's paws; and his face was a strange compound
+of beast and bird--the upper part of his person being covered with
+feathers, the lower with long, shaggy hair. The case of this awful
+weapon was made of wood, and, in spite of its serpentine form,
+fitted it exactly. No trace of a join could be found in this
+scabbard, which was of hard wood, and highly polished.
+
+One of my Indian friends found this sword lying upon the bookshelf,
+and he hurried to communicate the important discovery to his
+companions. Moodie was absent, and they brought it to me to demand
+an explanation of the figure that formed the hilt.
+
+I told them that it was a weapon that belonged to a very fierce
+people who lived in the east, far over the Great Salt Lake; that
+they were not Christians as we were, but said their prayers to
+images made of silver, and gold, and ivory, and wood, and that this
+was one of them; that before they went into battle they said their
+prayers to that hideous thing, which they had made with their own
+hands.
+
+The Indians were highly amused by this relation, and passed the
+sword from one to the other, exclaiming, "A god!--Owgh!--A god!"
+
+But, in spite of these outward demonstrations of contempt, I was
+sorry to perceive that this circumstance gave the weapon a great
+value, in their eyes, and they regarded it with a sort of
+mysterious awe.
+
+For several days they continued to visit the house, bringing along
+with them some fresh companion to look at Mrs. Moodie's god!--until,
+vexed and annoyed by the delight they manifested at the sight of the
+eagle-beaked monster, I refused to gratify their curiosity by not
+producing him again.
+
+The manufacture of the sheath, which had caused me much perplexity,
+was explained by old Peter in a minute. "'Tis burnt out," he said.
+"Instrument made like sword--heat red-hot--burnt through--polished
+outside."
+
+Had I demanded a whole fleet of canoes for my Japanese sword, I am
+certain they would have agreed to the bargain.
+
+The Indian possesses great taste, which is displayed in the carving
+of his paddles, in the shape of his canoes, in the elegance and
+symmetry of his bows, in the cut of his leggings and moccasins, the
+sheath of his hunting-knife, and in all the little ornaments in
+which he delights. It is almost impossible for a settler to imitate
+to perfection an Indian's cherry-wood paddle. My husband made very
+creditable attempts, but still there was something wanting--the
+elegance of the Indian finish was not there. If you show them a
+good print, they invariably point out the most natural, and the
+best-executed figure in the group. They are particularly delighted
+with pictures, examine them long, and carefully, and seem to feel
+an artist-like pleasure in observing the effect produced by light
+and shade.
+
+I had been showing John Nogan, the eldest son of old Peter, some
+beautiful coloured engravings of celebrated females; to my
+astonishment he pounced upon the best, and grunted out his
+admiration in the most approved Indian fashion. After having looked
+for a long time at all the pictures very attentively, he took his
+dog Sancho upon his knee, and showed him the pictures, with as much
+gravity as if the animal really could have shared in his pleasure.
+
+The vanity of these grave men is highly amusing. They seem perfectly
+unconscious of it themselves and it is exhibited in the most
+child-like manner.
+
+Peter and his son John were taking tea with us, when we were joined
+by my brother, Mr. S---. The latter was giving us an account of the
+marriage of Peter Jones, the celebrated Indian preacher.
+
+"I cannot think," he said, "how any lady of property and education
+could marry such a man as Jones. Why, he's as ugly as Peter here."
+
+This was said, not with any idea of insulting the red-skin on
+the score of his beauty, of which he possessed not the smallest
+particle, but in total forgetfulness that our guest understood
+English. Never shall I forget the red flash of that fierce dark eye
+as it glared upon my unconscious brother. I would not have received
+such a fiery glance for all the wealth that Peter Jones obtained
+with his Saxon bride. John Nogan was highly amused by his father's
+indignation. He hid his face behind the chief; and though he kept
+perfectly still, his whole frame was convulsed with suppressed
+laughter.
+
+A plainer human being than poor Peter could scarcely be imagined;
+yet he certainly deemed himself handsome. I am inclined to think
+that their ideas of personal beauty differ very widely from ours.
+
+Tom Nogan, the chief's brother, had a very large, fat, ugly squaw
+for his wife. She was a mountain of tawny flesh; and, but for the
+innocent, good-natured expression which, like a bright sunbeam
+penetrating a swarthy cloud, spread all around a kindly glow, she
+might have been termed hideous.
+
+This woman they considered very handsome, calling her "a fine
+squaw--clever squaw--a much good woman;" though in what her
+superiority consisted, I never could discover, often as I visited
+the wigwam. She was very dirty, and appeared quite indifferent to
+the claims of common decency (in the disposal of the few filthy
+rags that covered her). She was, however, very expert in all Indian
+craft. No Jew could drive a better bargain than Mrs. Tom; and her
+urchins, of whom she was the happy mother of five or six, were as
+cunning and avaricious as herself.
+
+One day she visited me, bringing along with her a very pretty
+covered basket for sale. I asked her what she wanted for it, but
+could obtain from her no satisfactory answer. I showed her a small
+piece of silver. She shook her head. I tempted her with pork and
+flour, but she required neither. I had just given up the idea of
+dealing with her, in despair, when she suddenly seized upon me, and,
+lifting up my gown, pointed exultingly to my quilted petticoat,
+clapping her hands, and laughing immoderately.
+
+Another time she led me all over the house, to show me what she
+wanted in exchange for BASKET. My patience was well nigh exhausted
+in following her from place to place, in her attempt to discover the
+coveted article, when, hanging upon a peg in my chamber, she espied
+a pair of trousers belonging to my husband's logging-suit. The
+riddle was solved. With a joyful cry she pointed to them, exclaiming
+"Take basket. Give them!" It was with no small difficulty that I
+rescued the indispensables from her grasp.
+
+From this woman I learned a story of Indian coolness and courage
+which made a deep impression on my mind. One of their squaws, a near
+relation of her own, had accompanied her husband on a hunting
+expedition into the forest. He had been very successful, and having
+killed more deer than they could well carry home, he went to the
+house of a white man to dispose of some of it, leaving the squaw to
+take care of the rest until his return. She sat carelessly upon the
+log with his hunting-knife in her hand, when she heard the breaking
+of branches near her, and turning round, beheld a great bear only a
+few paces from her.
+
+It was too late to retreat; and seeing that the animal was very
+hungry, and determined to come to close quarters, she rose, and
+placed her back against a small tree, holding her knife close to her
+breast, and in a straight line with the bear. The shaggy monster
+came on. She remained motionless, her eyes steadily fixed upon her
+enemy, and as his huge arms closed around her, she slowly drove the
+knife into his heart. The bear uttered a hideous cry, and sank dead
+at her feet. When the Indian returned, he found the courageous woman
+taking the skin from the carcass of the formidable brute. What iron
+nerves these people must possess, when even a woman could dare and
+do a deed like this!
+
+The wolf they hold in great contempt, and scarcely deign to consider
+him as an enemy. Peter Nogan assured me that he never was near
+enough to one in his life to shoot it; that, except in large
+companies, and when greatly pressed by hunger, they rarely attack
+men. They hold the lynx, or wolverine, in much dread, as they often
+spring from trees upon their prey, fastening upon the throat with
+their sharp teeth and claws, from which a person in the dark could
+scarcely free himself without first receiving a dangerous wound.
+The cry of this animal is very terrifying, resembling the shrieks
+of a human creature in mortal agony.
+
+My husband was anxious to collect some of the native Indian airs,
+as they all sing well, and have a fine ear for music, but all his
+efforts proved abortive. "John," he said to young Nogan (who played
+very creditably on the flute, and had just concluded the popular air
+of "Sweet Home"), "cannot you play me one of your own songs?"
+
+"Yes,--but no good."
+
+"Leave me to be the judge of that. Cannot you give me a war-song?"
+
+"Yes,--but no good," with an ominous shake of the head.
+
+"A hunting-song?"
+
+"No fit for white man,"--with an air of contempt. "No good, no
+good!"
+
+"Do, John, sing us a love-song," said I, laughing, "if you have such
+a thing in your language."
+
+"Oh! much love-song--very much--bad--bad--no good for Christian man.
+Indian song no good for white ears." This was very tantalising, as
+their songs sounded very sweetly from the lips of their squaws, and
+I had a great desire and curiosity to get some of them rendered into
+English.
+
+To my husband they gave the name of "the musician," but I have
+forgotten the Indian word. It signified the maker of sweet sounds.
+They listened with intense delight to the notes of his flute,
+maintaining a breathless silence during the performance; their dark
+eyes flashing into fierce light at a martial strain, or softening
+with the plaintive and tender.
+
+The cunning which they display in their contests with their enemies,
+in their hunting, and in making bargains with the whites (who are
+too apt to impose on their ignorance), seems to spring more from a
+law of necessity, forced upon them by their isolated position and
+precarious mode of life, than from any innate wish to betray. The
+Indian's face, after all, is a perfect index of his mind. The eye
+chances its expression with every impulse and passion, and shows
+what is passing within as clearly as the lightning in a dark night
+betrays the course of the stream. I cannot think that deceit forms
+any prominent trait in the Indian's character. They invariably act
+with the strictest honour towards those who never attempt to impose
+upon them. It is natural for a deceitful person to take advantage
+of the credulity of others. The genuine Indian never utters a
+falsehood, and never employs flattery (that powerful weapon in the
+hands of the insidious), in his communications with the whites.
+
+His worst traits are those which he has in common with the wild
+animals of the forest, and which his intercourse with the lowest
+order of civilised men (who, in point of moral worth, are greatly
+his inferiors), and the pernicious effects of strong drink, have
+greatly tended to inflame and debate.
+
+It is a melancholy truth, and deeply to be lamented, that
+the vicinity of European settlers has always produced a very
+demoralising effect upon the Indians. As a proof of this,
+I will relate a simple anecdote.
+
+John, of Rice Lake, a very sensible, middle-aged Indian, was
+conversing with me about their language, and the difficulty he found
+in understanding the books written in Indian for their use. Among
+other things, I asked him if his people ever swore, or used profane
+language towards the Deity.
+
+The man regarded me with a sort of stern horror, as he replied,
+"Indian, till after he knew your people, never swore--no bad word in
+Indian. Indian must learn your words to swear and take God's name in
+vain."
+
+Oh, what a reproof to Christian men! I felt abashed, and degraded
+in the eyes of this poor savage--who, ignorant as he was in many
+respects, yet possessed that first great attribute of the soul, a
+deep reverence for the Supreme Being. How inferior were thousands
+of my countrymen to him in this important point.
+
+The affection of Indian parents to their children, and the deference
+which they pay to the aged, is another beautiful and touching trait
+in their character.
+
+One extremely cold, wintry day, as I was huddled with my little ones
+over the stove, the door softly unclosed, and the moccasined foot of
+an Indian crossed the floor. I raised my head, for I was too much
+accustomed to their sudden appearance at any hour to feel alarmed,
+and perceived a tall woman standing silently and respectfully before
+me, wrapped in a large blanket. The moment she caught my eye she
+dropped the folds of her covering from around her, and laid at my
+feet the attenuated figure of a boy, about twelve years of age, who
+was in the last stage of consumption.
+
+"Papouse die," she said, mournfully clasping her hands against her
+breast, and looking down upon the suffering lad with the most
+heartfelt expression of maternal love, while large tears trickled
+down her dark face. "Moodie's squaw save papouse--poor Indian woman
+much glad."
+
+Her child was beyond all human aid. I looked anxiously upon him, and
+knew, by the pinched-up features and purple hue of his wasted cheek,
+that he had not many hours to live. I could only answer with tears
+her agonising appeal to my skill.
+
+"Try and save him! All die but him." (She held up five of her
+fingers.) "Brought him all the way from Mutta Lake[1] upon my back,
+for white squaw to cure."
+
+[1] Mud Lake, or Lake Shemong, in Indian.
+
+
+"I cannot cure him, my poor friend. He is in God's care; in a few
+hours he will be with Him."
+
+The child was seized with a dreadful fit of coughing, which I
+expected every moment would terminate his frail existence. I gave
+him a teaspoonful of currant jelly, which he took with avidity, but
+could not retain a moment on his stomach.
+
+"Papouse die," murmured the poor woman; "alone--alone! No papouse;
+the mother all alone." She began re-adjusting the poor sufferer in
+her blanket. I got her some food, and begged her to stay and rest
+herself; but she was too much distressed to eat, and too restless to
+remain. She said little, but her face expressed the keenest anguish;
+she took up her mournful load, pressed for a moment his wasted,
+burning hand in hers, and left the room.
+
+My heart followed her a long way on her melancholy journey. Think
+what this woman's love must have been for that dying son, when she
+had carried a lad of his age six miles, through the deep snow, upon
+her back, on such a day, in the hope of my being able to do him some
+good. Poor heart-broken mother! I learned from Joe Muskrat's squaw
+some days after that the boy died a few minutes after Elizabeth
+Iron, his mother, got home.
+
+They never forget any little act of kindness. One cold night, late
+in the fall, my hospitality was demanded by six squaws, and puzzled
+I was how to accommodate them all. I at last determined to give them
+the use of the parlour floor during the night. Among these women
+there was one very old, whose hair was as white as snow. She was the
+only gray-haired Indian I ever saw, and on that account I regarded
+her with peculiar interest. I knew that she was the wife of a chief,
+by the scarlet embroidered leggings, which only the wives and
+daughters of chiefs are allowed to wear. The old squaw had a very
+pleasing countenance, but I tried in vain to draw her into
+conversation. She evidently did not understand me; and the Muskrat
+squaw, and Betty Cow, were laughing at my attempts to draw her out.
+I administered supper to them with my own hands, and after I had
+satisfied their wants (which is no very easy task, for they have
+great appetites), I told our servant to bring in several spare
+mattresses and blankets for their use. "Now mind, Jenny, and give
+the old squaw the best bed," I said; "the others are young, and can
+put up with a little inconvenience."
+
+The old Indian glanced at me with her keen, bright eye; but I had no
+idea that she comprehended what I said.
+
+Some weeks after this, as I was sweeping over my parlour floor, a
+slight tap drew me to the door. On opening it I perceived the old
+squaw, who immediately slipped into my hand a set of
+beautifully-embroidered bark trays, fitting one within the other,
+and exhibiting the very best sample of the porcupine quill-work.
+While I stood wondering what this might mean, the good old creature
+fell upon my neck, and kissing me, exclaimed, "You remember old
+squaw--make her comfortable! Old squaw no forget you. Keep them for
+her sake," and before I could detain her she ran down the hill with
+a swiftness which seemed to bid defiance to years. I never saw this
+interesting Indian again, and I concluded that she died during the
+winter, for she must have been of a great age.
+
+My dear reader, I am afraid I shall tire you with my Indian stories;
+but you must bear with me patiently whilst I give you a few more.
+The real character of a people can be more truly gathered from such
+seemingly trifling incidents than from any ideas we may form of them
+from the great facts in their history, and this is my reason for
+detailing events which might otherwise appear insignificant and
+unimportant.
+
+A friend was staying with us, who wished much to obtain a likeness
+of Old Peter. I promised to try and make a sketch of the old man the
+next time he paid us a visit. That very afternoon he brought us some
+ducks in exchange for pork, and Moodie asked him to stay and take a
+glass of whiskey with him and his friend Mr. K---. The old man had
+arrayed himself in a new blanket-coat, bound with red, and the seams
+all decorated with the same gay material. His leggings and moccasins
+were new, and elaborately fringed; and, to cap the climax of the
+whole, he had a blue cloth conical cap upon his head, ornamented
+with a deer's tail dyed blue, and several cock's feathers.
+
+He was evidently very much taken up with the magnificence of his own
+appearance, for he often glanced at himself in a small shaving-glass
+that hung opposite, with a look of grave satisfaction. Sitting
+apart, that I might not attract his observation, I got a tolerably
+faithful likeness of the old man, which after slightly colouring, to
+show more plainly his Indian finery, I quietly handed over to Mr.
+K---. Sly as I thought myself, my occupation and the object of it
+had not escaped the keen eye of the old man. He rose, came behind
+Mr. K---'s chair, and regarded the picture with a most affectionate
+eye. I was afraid that he would be angry at the liberty I had taken.
+No such thing! He was as pleased as Punch.
+
+"That Peter?" he grunted. "Give me--put up in wigwam--make dog too!
+Owgh! owgh!" and he rubbed his hands together, and chuckled with
+delight. Mr. K--- had some difficulty in coaxing the picture from
+the old chief; so pleased was he with this rude representation of
+himself. He pointed to every particular article of his dress, and
+dwelt with peculiar glee on the cap and blue deer's tail.
+
+A few days after this, I was painting a beautiful little snow-bird,
+that our man had shot out of a large flock that alighted near the
+door. I was so intent upon my task, to which I was putting the
+finishing strokes, that I did not observe the stealthy entrance (for
+they all walk like cats) of a stern-looking red man, till a slender,
+dark hand was extended over my paper to grasp the dead bird from
+which I was copying, and which as rapidly transferred it to the side
+of the painted one, accompanying the act with the deep guttural note
+of approbation, the unmusical, savage "Owgh."
+
+My guest then seated himself with the utmost gravity in a
+rocking-chair, directly fronting me, and made the modest demand that
+I should paint a likeness of him, after the following quaint
+fashion:--
+
+"Moodie's squaw know much--make Peter Nogan toder day on
+papare--make Jacob to-day--Jacob young--great hunter--give much
+duck--venison--to squaw."
+
+Although I felt rather afraid of my fierce-looking visitor, I could
+scarcely keep my gravity; there was such an air of pompous
+self-approbation about the Indian, such a sublime look of conceit
+in his grave vanity.
+
+"Moodie's squaw cannot do everything; she cannot paint young men,"
+said I, rising, and putting away my drawing-materials, upon which he
+kept his eye intently fixed, with a hungry, avaricious expression. I
+thought it best to place the coveted objects beyond his reach. After
+sitting for some time, and watching all my movements, he withdrew,
+with a sullen, disappointed air.
+
+This man was handsome, but his expression was vile. Though he often
+came to the house, I never could reconcile myself to his
+countenance.
+
+Late one very dark, stormy night, three Indians begged to be allowed
+to sleep by the kitchen stove. The maid was frightened out of her
+wits at the sight of these strangers, who were Mohawks from the
+Indian woods upon the Bay of Quinte, and they brought along with
+them a horse and cutter. The night was so stormy, that, after
+consulting our man--Jacob Faithful, as we usually called him--I
+consented to grant their petition, although they were quite
+strangers, and taller and fiercer-looking than our friends the
+Missasaguas.
+
+I was putting my children to bed, when the girl came rushing in,
+out of breath. "The Lord preserve us, madam, if one of these wild
+men has not pulled off his trousers, and is a-sitting, mending
+them behind the stove! and what shall I do?"
+
+"Do?--why, stay with me, and leave the poor fellow to finish his
+work."
+
+The simple girl had never once thought of this plan of pacifying her
+outraged sense of propriety.
+
+Their sense of hearing is so acute that they can distinguish sounds
+at an incredible distance, which cannot be detected by a European at
+all. I myself witnessed a singular exemplification of this fact. It
+was mid-winter; the Indians had pitched their tent, or wigwam, as
+usual, in our swamp. All the males were absent on a hunting
+expedition up the country, and had left two women behind to take
+care of the camp and its contents, Mrs. Tom Nogan and her children,
+and Susan Moore, a young girl of fifteen, and the only truly
+beautiful squaw I ever saw. There was something interesting about
+this girl's history, as well as her appearance. Her father had been
+drowned during a sudden hurricane, which swamped his canoe on Stony
+Lake; and the mother, who witnessed the accident from the shore, and
+was near her confinement with this child, boldly swam out to his
+assistance. She reached the spot where he sank, and even succeeded
+in recovering the body; but it was too late; the man was dead.
+
+The soul of an Indian that has been drowned is reckoned accursed,
+and he is never permitted to join his tribe on the happy
+hunting-grounds, but his spirit haunts the lake or river in which he
+lost his life. His body is buried on some lonely island, which the
+Indians never pass without leaving a small portion of food, tobacco,
+ammunition, to supply his wants; but he is never interred with the
+rest of his people.
+
+His children are considered unlucky, and few willingly unite
+themselves to the females of the family, lest a portion of the
+father's curse should be visited on them.
+
+The orphan Indian girl generally kept aloof from the rest, and
+seemed so lonely and companionless, that she soon attracted my
+attention and sympathy, and a hearty feeling of good-will sprang
+up between us. Her features were small and regular, her face oval,
+and her large, dark, loving eyes were full of tenderness and
+sensibility, but as bright and shy as those of the deer. A rich
+vermilion glow burnt upon her olive cheek and lips, and set off the
+dazzling whiteness of her even and pearly teeth. She was small of
+stature, with delicate little hands and feet, and her figure was
+elastic and graceful. She was a beautiful child of nature, and her
+Indian name signified "the voice of angry waters." Poor girl, she
+had been a child of grief and tears from her birth! Her mother was
+a Mohawk, from whom she, in all probability, derived her superior
+personal attractions; for they are very far before the Missasaguas
+in this respect.
+
+My friend and neighbour, Emilia S---, the wife of a naval officer,
+who lived about a mile distant from me, through the bush, had come
+to spend the day with me; and hearing that the Indians were in the
+swamp, and the men away, we determined to take a few trifles to the
+camp, in the way of presents, and spend an hour in chatting with the
+squaws.
+
+What a beautiful moonlight night it was, as light as day!--the great
+forest sleeping tranquilly beneath the cloudless heavens--not a
+sound to disturb the deep repose of nature but the whispering of the
+breeze, which, during the most profound calm, creeps through the
+lofty pine tops. We bounded down the steep bank to the lake shore.
+Life is a blessing, a precious boon indeed, in such an hour, and we
+felt happy in the mere consciousness of existence--the glorious
+privilege of pouring out the silent adoration of the heart to the
+Great Father in his universal temple.
+
+On entering the wigwam, which stood within a few yards of the
+clearing, in the middle of a thick group of cedars, we found Mrs.
+Tom alone with her elvish children, seated before the great fire
+that burned in the centre of the camp; she was busy boiling some
+bark in an iron spider. The little boys, in red flannel shirts which
+were their only covering, were tormenting a puppy, which seemed to
+take their pinching and pummelling in good part, for it neither
+attempted to bark nor to bite, but, like the eels in the story,
+submitted to the infliction because it was used to it. Mrs. Tom
+greeted us with a grin of pleasure, and motioned to us to sit down
+upon a buffalo-skin, which, with a courtesy so natural to the
+Indians, she had placed near her for our accommodation.
+
+"You are all alone," said I, glancing round the camp.
+
+"Ye'es; Indian away hunting--Upper Lakes. Come home with much deer."
+
+"And Susan, where is she?"
+
+"By and by. (Meaning that she was coming.) Gone to fetch water--ice
+thick--chop with axe--take long time."
+
+As she ceased speaking, the old blanket that formed the door of the
+tent was withdrawn, and the girl, bearing two pails of water, stood
+in the open space, in the white moonlight. The glow of the fire
+streamed upon her dark, floating locks, danced in the black,
+glistening eye, and gave a deeper blush to the olive cheek! She
+would have made a beautiful picture; Sir Joshua Reynolds would have
+rejoiced in such a model--so simply graceful and unaffected, the
+very beau ideal of savage life and unadorned nature. A smile of
+recognition passed between us. She put down her burden beside Mrs.
+Tom, and noiselessly glided to her seat.
+
+We had scarcely exchanged a few words with our favourite, when the
+old squaw, placing her hand against her ear, exclaimed, "Whist!
+whist!"
+
+"What is it?" cried Emilia and I, starting to our feet. "Is there
+any danger?"
+
+"A deer--a deer--in bush!" whispered the squaw, seizing a rifle that
+stood in a corner. "I hear sticks crack--a great way off. Stay
+here!"
+
+A great way off the animal must have been, for though Emilia and
+I listened at the open door, an advantage which the squaw did not
+enjoy, we could not hear the least sound: all seemed still as death.
+The squaw whistled to an old hound, and went out.
+
+"Did you hear anything, Susan?"
+
+She smiled, and nodded.
+
+"Listen; the dog has found the track."
+
+The next moment the discharge of a rifle, and the deep baying of the
+dog, woke up the sleeping echoes of the woods; and the girl started
+off to help the old squaw to bring in the game that she had shot.
+
+The Indians are great imitators, and possess a nice tact in adopting
+the customs and manners of those with whom they associate. An Indian
+is Nature's gentleman--never familiar, coarse, or vulgar. If he take
+a meal with you, he waits to see how you make use of the implements
+on the table, and the manner in which you eat, which he imitates
+with a grave decorum, as if he had been accustomed to the same
+usages from childhood. He never attempts to help himself, or demand
+more food, but waits patiently until you perceive what he requires.
+I was perfectly astonished at this innate politeness, for it seems
+natural to all the Indians with whom I have had any dealings.
+
+There was one old Indian, who belonged to a distant settlement, and
+only visited our lakes occasionally on hunting parties. He was a
+strange, eccentric, merry old fellow, with a skin like red mahogany,
+and a wiry, sinewy frame, that looked as if it could bid defiance to
+every change of temperature.
+
+Old Snow-storm, for such was his significant name, was rather too
+fond of the whiskey-bottle, and when he had taken a drop too much,
+he became an unmanageable wild beast. He had a great fancy for my
+husband, and never visited the other Indians without extending the
+same favour to us. Once upon a time, he broke the nipple of his gun;
+and Moodie repaired the injury for him by fixing a new one in its
+place, which little kindness quite won the heart of the old man, and
+he never came to see us without bringing an offering of fish, ducks,
+partridges, or venison, to show his gratitude.
+
+One warm September day, he made his appearance bare-headed, as
+usual, and carrying in his hand a great checked bundle.
+
+"Fond of grapes?" said he, putting the said bundle into my hands.
+"Fine grapes--brought them from island, for my friend's squaw and
+papouse."
+
+Glad of the donation, which I considered quite a prize, I hastened
+into the kitchen to untie the grapes and put them into a dish. But
+imagine my disappointment, when I found them wrapped up in a soiled
+shirt, only recently taken from the back of the owner. I called
+Moodie, and begged him to return Snow-storm his garment, and to
+thank him for the grapes.
+
+The mischievous creature was highly diverted with the circumstance,
+and laughed immoderately.
+
+"Snow-storm," said he, "Mrs. Moodie and the children are obliged to
+you for your kindness in bringing them the grapes; but how came you
+to tie them up in a dirty shirt?"
+
+"Dirty!" cried the old man, astonished that we should object to the
+fruit on that score. "It ought to be clean; it has been washed often
+enough. Owgh! You see, Moodie," he continued, "I have no hat--never
+wear hat--want no shade to my eyes--love the sun--see all around
+me--up and down--much better widout hat. Could not put grapes in
+hat--blanket-coat too large, crush fruit, juice run out. I had
+noting but my shirt, so I takes off shirt, and brings grape safe
+over the water on my back. Papouse no care for dirty shirt; their
+lee-tel bellies have no eyes."
+
+In spite of this eloquent harangue, I could not bring myself to use
+the grapes, ripe and tempting as they looked, or give them to the
+children. Mr. W--- and his wife happening to step in at that moment,
+fell into such an ecstasy at the sight of the grapes, that, as they
+were perfectly unacquainted with the circumstance of the shirt, I
+very generously gratified their wishes by presenting them with the
+contents of the large dish; and they never ate a bit less sweet for
+the novel mode in which they were conveyed to me!
+
+The Indians, under their quiet exterior, possess a deal of humour.
+They have significant names for everything, and a nickname for every
+one, and some of the latter are laughably appropriate. A fat,
+pompous, ostentatious settler in our neighbourhood they called
+Muckakee, "the bull frog." Another, rather a fine young man, but
+with a very red face, they named Segoskee, "the rising sun." Mr.
+Wood, who had a farm above ours, was a remarkably slender young man,
+and to him they gave the appellation of Metiz, "thin stick." A
+woman, that occasionally worked for me, had a disagreeable squint;
+she was known in Indian by the name of Sachabo, "cross eye." A
+gentleman with a very large nose was Choojas, "big, or ugly nose."
+My little Addie, who was a fair, lovely creature, they viewed with
+great approbation, and called Anoonk, "a star;" while the rosy Katie
+was Nogesigook, "the northern lights." As to me, I was Nonocosiqui,
+a "humming-bird;" a ridiculous name for a tall woman, but it had
+reference to the delight I took in painting birds. My friend,
+Emilia, was "blue cloud;" my little Donald, "frozen face;" young
+C---, "the red-headed woodpecker," from the colour of his hair; my
+brother, Chippewa, and "the bald-headed eagle." He was an especial
+favourite among them.
+
+The Indians are often made a prey of and cheated by the unprincipled
+settlers, who think it no crime to overreach a red-skin. One
+anecdote will fully illustrate this fact. A young squaw, who was
+near becoming a mother, stopped at a Smith-town settler's house to
+rest herself. The woman of the house, who was Irish, was peeling for
+dinner some large white turnips, which her husband had grown in
+their garden. The Indian had never seen a turnip before, and the
+appearance of the firm, white, juicy root gave her such a keen
+craving to taste it that she very earnestly begged for a small piece
+to eat. She had purchased at Peterborough a large stone-china bowl,
+of a very handsome pattern (or, perhaps, got it at the store in
+exchange for BASKET), the worth of which might be half-a-dollar.
+If the poor squaw longed for the turnip, the value of which could
+scarcely reach a copper, the covetous European had fixed as longing
+a glance upon the china bowl, and she was determined to gratify her
+avaricious desire and obtain it on the most easy terms. She told the
+squaw, with some disdain, that her man did not grow turnips to give
+away to "Injuns," but she would sell her one. The squaw offered her
+four coppers, all the change she had about her. This the woman
+refused with contempt. She then proffered a basket; but that was
+not sufficient; nothing would satisfy her but the bowl. The Indian
+demurred; but opposition had only increased her craving for the
+turnip in a tenfold degree; and, after a short mental struggle,
+in which the animal propensity overcame the warnings of prudence,
+the squaw gave up the bowl, and received in return one turnip!
+The daughter of this woman told me this anecdote of her mother as
+a very clever thing. What ideas some people have of moral justice!
+
+I have said before that the Indian never forgets a kindness. We
+had a thousand proofs of this, when overtaken by misfortune, and
+withering beneath the iron grasp of poverty, we could scarcely
+obtain bread for ourselves and our little ones; then it was that
+the truth of the eastern proverb was brought home to our hearts,
+and the goodness of God fully manifested towards us, "Cast thy
+bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days."
+During better times we had treated these poor savages with
+kindness and liberality, and when dearer friends looked coldly upon
+us they never forsook us. For many a good meal I have been indebted
+to them, when I had nothing to give in return, when the pantry was
+empty, and "the hearthstone growing cold," as they term the want of
+provisions to cook at it. And their delicacy in conferring these
+favours was not the least admirable part of their conduct. John
+Nogan, who was much attached to us, would bring a fine bunch of
+ducks, and drop them at my feet "for the papouse," or leave a large
+muskinonge on the sill of the door, or place a quarter of venison
+just within it, and slip away without saying a word, thinking that
+receiving a present from a poor Indian might hurt our feelings, and
+he would spare us the mortification of returning thanks.
+
+Often have I grieved that people with such generous impulses should
+be degraded and corrupted by civilised men; that a mysterious
+destiny involves and hangs over them, pressing them back into the
+wilderness, and slowly and surely sweeping them from the earth.
+
+Their ideas of Christianity appeared to me vague and unsatisfactory.
+They will tell you that Christ died for men, and that He is the
+Saviour of the World, but they do not seem to comprehend the
+spiritual character of Christianity, nor the full extent of the
+requirements and application of the law of Christian love. These
+imperfect views may not be entertained by all Christian Indians, but
+they were very common amongst those with whom I conversed. Their
+ignorance upon theological, as well as upon other subjects, is, of
+course, extreme. One Indian asked me very innocently if I came from
+the land where Christ was born, and if I had ever seen Jesus. They
+always mention the name of the Persons in the Trinity with great
+reverence.
+
+They are a highly imaginative people. The practical meaning of their
+names, and their intense admiration for the beauties of Nature, are
+proof of this. Nothing escapes their observing eyes. There is not a
+flower that blooms in the wilderness, a bird that cuts the air with
+its wings, a beast that roams the wood, a fish that stems the water,
+or the most minute insect that sports in the sunbeams, but it has an
+Indian name to illustrate its peculiar habits and qualities. Some of
+their words convey the direct meaning of the thing implied--thus,
+che-charm, "to sneeze," is the very sound of that act; too-me-duh,
+"to churn," gives the noise made by the dashing of the cream from
+side to side; and many others.
+
+They believe in supernatural appearances--in spirits of the earth,
+the air, the waters. The latter they consider evil, and propitiate
+before undertaking a long voyage, by throwing small portions of
+bread, meat, tobacco, and gunpowder into the water.
+
+When an Indian loses one of his children, he must keep a strict fast
+for three days, abstaining from food of any kind. A hunter, of the
+name of Young, told me a curious story of their rigid observance of
+this strange rite.
+
+"They had a chief," he said, "a few years ago, whom they called
+'Handsome Jack'--whether in derision, I cannot tell, for he was one
+of the ugliest Indians I ever saw. The scarlet fever got into the
+camp--a terrible disease in this country, and doubly terrible to
+those poor creatures who don't know how to treat it. His eldest
+daughter died. The chief had fasted two days when I met him in the
+bush. I did not know what had happened, but I opened my wallet, for
+I was on a hunting expedition, and offered him some bread and dried
+venison. He looked at me reproachfully.
+
+"'Do white men eat bread the first night their papouse is laid in
+the earth?'
+
+"I then knew the cause of his depression, and left him."
+
+On the night of the second day of his fast another child died of
+the fever. He had now to accomplish three more days without tasting
+food. It was too much even for an Indian. On the evening of the
+fourth, he was so pressed by ravenous hunger, that he stole into
+the woods, caught a bull-frog, and devoured it alive. He imagined
+himself alone; but one of his people, suspecting his intention,
+had followed him, unperceived, to the bush. The act he had just
+committed was a hideous crime in their eyes, and in a few minutes
+the camp was in an uproar. The chief fled for protection to Young's
+house. When the hunter demanded the cause of his alarm, he gave for
+answer, "There are plenty of flies at my house. To avoid their
+stings I came to you."
+
+It required all the eloquence of Mr. Young, who enjoyed much
+popularity among them, to reconcile the rebellious tribe to their
+chief.
+
+They are very skilful in their treatment of wounds, and many
+diseases. Their knowledge of the medicinal qualities of their plants
+and herbs is very great. They make excellent poultices from the bark
+of the bass and the slippery elm. They use several native plants in
+their dyeing of baskets and porcupine quills. The inner bark of the
+swamp-alder, simply boiled in water, makes a beautiful red. From the
+root of the black briony they obtain a fine salve for sores, and
+extract a rich yellow dye. The inner bark of the root of the sumach,
+roasted, and reduced to powder, is a good remedy for the ague; a
+teaspoonful given between the hot and cold fit. They scrape the fine
+white powder from the large fungus that grows upon the bark of the
+pine into whiskey, and take it for violent pains in the stomach.
+The taste of this powder strongly reminded me of quinine.
+
+I have read much of the excellence of Indian cookery, but I never
+could bring myself to taste anything prepared in their dirty
+wigwams. I remember being highly amused in watching the preparation
+of a mess, which might have been called the Indian hotch-potch. It
+consisted of a strange mixture of fish, flesh, and fowl, all boiled
+together in the same vessel. Ducks, partridges, muskinonge, venison,
+and muskrats, formed a part of this delectable compound. These were
+literally smothered in onions, potatoes, and turnips, which they had
+procured from me. They very hospitably offered me a dishful of the
+odious mixture, which the odour of the muskrats rendered everything
+but savoury; but I declined, simply stating that I was not hungry.
+My little boy tasted it, but quickly left the camp to conceal the
+effect it produced upon him.
+
+Their method of broiling fish, however, is excellent. They take
+a fish, just fresh out of the water, cut out the entrails, and,
+without removing the scales, wash it clean, dry it in a cloth, or
+in grass, and cover it all over with clear hot ashes. When the
+flesh will part from the bone, they draw it out of the ashes, strip
+off the skin, and it is fit for the table of the most fastidious
+epicure.
+
+The deplorable want of chastity that exists among the Indian
+women of this tribe seems to have been more the result of their
+intercourse with the settlers in the country than from any previous
+disposition to this vice. The jealousy of their husbands has often
+been exercised in a terrible manner against the offending squaws;
+but this has not happened of late years. The men wink at these
+derelictions in their wives, and share with them the price of
+their shame.
+
+The mixture of European blood adds greatly to the physical beauty
+of the half-race, but produces a sad falling-off from the original
+integrity of the Indian character. The half-caste is generally a
+lying, vicious rogue, possessing the worst qualities of both parents
+in an eminent degree. We have many of these half-Indians in the
+penitentiary, for crimes of the blackest dye.
+
+The skill of the Indian in procuring his game, either by land or
+water, has been too well described by better writers than I could
+ever hope to be to need any illustration from my pen, and I will
+close this long chapter with a droll anecdote which is told of a
+gentleman in this neighbourhood.
+
+The early loss of his hair obliged Mr. --- to procure the substitute
+of a wig. This was such a good imitation of nature, that none but
+his intimate friends and neighbours were aware of the fact.
+
+It happened that he had had some quarrel with an Indian, which had
+to be settled in one of the petty courts. The case was decided in
+favour of Mr. ---, which so aggrieved the savage, who considered
+himself the injured party, that he sprang upon him with a furious
+yell, tomahawk in hand, with the intention of depriving him of his
+scalp. He twisted his hand in the looks which adorned the cranium of
+his adversary, when--horror of horrors!--the treacherous wig came
+off in his hand, "Owgh! owgh!" exclaimed the affrighted savage,
+flinging it from him, and rushing from the court as if he had been
+bitten by a rattlesnake. His sudden exit was followed by peals of
+laughter from the crowd, while Mr. --- coolly picked up his wig,
+and drily remarked that it had saved his head.
+
+
+THE INDIAN FISHERMAN'S LIGHT
+
+  The air is still, the night is dark,
+    No ripple breaks the dusky tide;
+  From isle to isle the fisher's bark
+    Like fairy meteor seems to glide;
+  Now lost in shade--now flashing bright
+    On sleeping wave and forest tree;
+  We hail with joy the ruddy light,
+  Which far into the darksome night
+    Shines red and cheerily!
+
+  With spear high poised, and steady hand,
+    The centre of that fiery ray,
+  Behold the Indian fisher stand
+    Prepared to strike the finny prey;
+  Hurrah! the shaft has sped below--
+    Transfix'd the shining prize I see;
+  On swiftly darts the birch canoe;
+  Yon black rock shrouding from my view
+    Its red light gleaming cheerily!
+
+  Around yon bluff, whose pine crest hides
+    The noisy rapids from our sight,
+  Another bark--another glides--
+    Red meteors of the murky night.
+  The bosom of the silent stream
+    With mimic stars is dotted free;
+  The waves reflect the double gleam,
+  The tall woods lighten in the beam,
+    Through darkness shining cheerily!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+BURNING THE FALLOW
+
+
+
+  There is a hollow roaring in the air--
+  The hideous hissing of ten thousand flames,
+  That from the centre of yon sable cloud
+  Leap madly up, like serpents in the dark,
+  Shaking their arrowy tongues at Nature's heart.
+
+
+It is not my intention to give a regular history of our residence
+in the bush, but merely to present to my readers such events as
+may serve to illustrate a life in the woods.
+
+The winter and spring of 1834 had passed away. The latter was
+uncommonly cold and backward; so much so that we had a very heavy
+fall of snow upon the 14th and 15th of May, and several gentlemen
+drove down to Cobourg in a sleigh, the snow lying upon the ground
+to the depth of several inches.
+
+A late, cold spring in Canada is generally succeeded by a burning
+hot summer; and the summer of '34 was the hottest I ever remember.
+No rain fell upon the earth for many weeks, till nature drooped and
+withered beneath one bright blaze of sunlight; and the ague and
+fever in the woods, and the cholera in the large towns and cities,
+spread death and sickness through the country.
+
+Moodie had made during the winter a large clearing of twenty acres
+around the house. The progress of the workmen had been watched by me
+with the keenest interest. Every tree that reached the ground opened
+a wider gap in the dark wood, giving us a broader ray of light and
+a clearer glimpse of the blue sky. But when the dark cedar-swamp
+fronting the house fell beneath the strokes of the axe, and we got
+a first view of the lake, my joy was complete; a new and beautiful
+object was now constantly before me, which gave me the greatest
+pleasure. By night and day, in sunshine or in storm, water is
+always the most sublime feature in a landscape, and no view can be
+truly grand in which it is wanting. From a child, it always had the
+most powerful effect upon my mind, from the great ocean rolling
+in majesty, to the tinkling forest rill, hidden by the flowers
+and rushes along its banks. Half the solitude of my forest home
+vanished when the lake unveiled its bright face to the blue heavens,
+and I saw sun and moon, and stars and waving trees reflected there.
+I would sit for hours at the window as the shades of evening
+deepened round me, watching the massy foliage of the forests
+pictured in the waters, till fancy transported me back to England,
+and the songs of birds and the lowing of cattle were sounding in my
+ears. It was long, very long, before I could discipline my mind to
+learn and practice all the menial employments which are necessary
+in a good settler's wife.
+
+The total absence of trees about the doors in all new settlements
+had always puzzled me, in a country where the intense heat of summer
+seems to demand all the shade that can be procured. My husband had
+left several beautiful rock-elms (the most picturesque tree in the
+country) near our dwelling, but alas! the first high gale prostrated
+all my fine trees, and left our log cottage entirely exposed to the
+fierce rays of the sun.
+
+The confusion of an uncleared fallow spread around us on every side.
+Huge trunks of trees and piles of brush gave a littered and
+uncomfortable appearance to the locality, and as the weather had
+been very dry for some weeks, I heard my husband daily talking with
+his choppers as to the expediency of firing the fallow. They still
+urged him to wait a little longer, until he could get a good breeze
+to carry the fire well through the brush.
+
+Business called him suddenly to Toronto, but he left a strict
+charge with old Thomas and his sons, who were engaged in the job,
+by no means to attempt to burn it off until he returned, as he
+wished to be upon the premises himself, in case of any danger. He
+had previously burnt all the heaps immediately about the doors.
+
+While he was absent, old Thomas and his second son fell sick with
+the ague, and went home to their own township, leaving John, a
+surly, obstinate young man, in charge of the shanty, where they
+slept, and kept their tools and provisions.
+
+Monaghan I had sent to fetch up my three cows, as the children were
+languishing for milk, and Mary and I remained alone in the house
+with the little ones.
+
+The day was sultry, and towards noon a strong wind sprang up that
+roared in the pine tops like the dashing of distant billows, but
+without in the least degree abating the heat. The children were
+lying listlessly upon the floor for coolness, and the girl and I
+were finishing sun-bonnets, when Mary suddenly exclaimed, "Bless us,
+mistress, what a smoke!" I ran immediately to the door, but was not
+able to distinguish ten yards before me. The swamp immediately below
+us was on fire, and the heavy wind was driving a dense black cloud
+of smoke directly towards us.
+
+"What can this mean?" I cried, "Who can have set fire to the fallow?"
+
+As I ceased speaking, John Thomas stood pale and trembling before
+me. "John, what is the meaning of this fire?"
+
+"Oh, ma'am, I hope you will forgive me; it was I set fire to it, and
+I would give all I have in the world if I had not done it."
+
+"What is the danger?"
+
+"Oh, I'm terribly afear'd that we shall all be burnt up," said the
+fellow, beginning to whimper.
+
+"Why did you run such a risk, and your master from home, and no one
+on the place to render the least assistance?"
+
+"I did it for the best," blubbered the lad. "What shall we do?"
+
+"Why, we must get out of it as fast as we can, and leave the house
+to its fate."
+
+"We can't get out," said the man, in a low, hollow tone, which
+seemed the concentration of fear; "I would have got out of it
+if I could; but just step to the back door, ma'am, and see."
+
+I had not felt the least alarm up to this minute; I had never seen
+a fallow burnt, but I had heard of it as a thing of such common
+occurrence that I had never connected with it any idea of danger.
+Judge then, my surprise, my horror, when, on going to the back door,
+I saw that the fellow, to make sure of his work, had fired the field
+in fifty different places. Behind, before, on every side, we were
+surrounded by a wall of fire, burning furiously within a hundred
+yards of us, and cutting off all possibility of retreat; for could
+we have found an opening through the burning heaps, we could not
+have seen our way through the dense canopy of smoke; and, buried
+as we were in the heart of the forest, no one could discover our
+situation till we were beyond the reach of help.
+
+I closed the door, and went back to the parlour. Fear was knocking
+loudly at my heart, for our utter helplessness annihilated all hope
+of being able to effect our escape--I felt stupefied. The girl sat
+upon the floor by the children, who, unconscious of the peril that
+hung over them, had both fallen asleep. She was silently weeping;
+while the fool who had caused the mischief was crying aloud.
+
+A strange calm succeeded my first alarm; tears and lamentations were
+useless; a horrible death was impending over us, and yet I could not
+believe that we were to die. I sat down upon the step of the door,
+and watched the awful scene in silence. The fire was raging in the
+cedar-swamp immediately below the ridge on which the house stood,
+and it presented a spectacle truly appalling. From out the dense
+folds of a canopy of black smoke, the blackest I ever saw, leaped
+up continually red forks of lurid flame as high as the tree tops,
+igniting the branches of a group of tall pines that had been left
+standing for saw-logs.
+
+A deep gloom blotted out the heavens from our sight. The air
+was filled with fiery particles, which floated even to the
+door-step--while the crackling and roaring of the flames might
+have been heard at a great distance. Could we have reached the
+lake shore, where several canoes were moored at the landing,
+by launching out into the water we should have been in perfect
+safety; but, to attain this object, it was necessary to pass
+through this mimic hell; and not a bird could have flown over it
+with unscorched wings. There was no hope in that quarter, for,
+could we have escaped the flames, we should have been blinded and
+choked by the thick, black, resinous smoke.
+
+The fierce wind drove the flames at the sides and back of the house
+up the clearing; and our passage to the road, or to the forest, on
+the right and left, was entirely obstructed by a sea of flames. Our
+only ark of safety was the house, so long as it remained untouched
+by the consuming element. I turned to young Thomas, and asked him,
+how long he thought that would be.
+
+"When the fire clears this little ridge in front, ma'am. The Lord
+have mercy upon us, then, or we must all go!"
+
+"Cannot you, John, try and make your escape, and see what can be
+done for us and the poor children?"
+
+My eye fell upon the sleeping angels, locked peacefully in each
+other's arms, and my tears flowed for the first time.
+
+Mary, the servant-girl, looked piteously up in my face. The good,
+faithful creature had not uttered one word of complaint, but now
+she faltered forth--
+
+"The dear, precious lambs!--Oh! such a death!"
+
+I threw myself down upon the floor beside them, and pressed them
+alternately to my heart, while inwardly I thanked God that they were
+asleep, unconscious of danger, and unable by their childish cries to
+distract our attention from adopting any plan which might offer to
+effect their escape.
+
+The heat soon became suffocating. We were parched with thirst, and
+there was not a drop of water in the house, and none to be procured
+nearer than the lake. I turned once more to the door, hoping that a
+passage might have been burnt through to the water. I saw nothing
+but a dense cloud of fire and smoke--could hear nothing but the
+crackling and roaring of the flames, which were gaining so fast
+upon us that I felt their scorching breath in my face.
+
+"Ah," thought I--and it was a most bitter thought--"what will my
+beloved husband say when he returns and finds that his poor Susy and
+his dear girls have perished in this miserable manner? But God can
+save us yet."
+
+The thought had scarcely found a voice in my heart before the wind
+rose to a hurricane, scattering the flames on all sides into a
+tempest of burning billows. I buried my head in my apron, for I
+thought that our time was come, and that all was lost, when a most
+terrific crash of thunder burst over our heads, and, like the
+breaking of a water-spout, down came the rushing torrent of rain
+which had been pent up for so many weeks.
+
+In a few minutes the chip-yard was all afloat, and the fire
+effectually checked. The storm which, unnoticed by us, had been
+gathering all day, and which was the only one of any note we had
+that summer, continued to rage all night, and before morning had
+quite subdued the cruel enemy, whose approach we had viewed with
+such dread.
+
+The imminent danger in which we had been placed struck me more
+forcibly after it was past than at the time, and both the girl
+and myself sank upon our knees, and lifted up our hearts in humble
+thanksgiving to that God who had saved us by an act of His
+Providence from an awful and sudden death. When all hope from
+human assistance was lost, His hand was mercifully stretched forth,
+making His strength more perfectly manifested in our weakness:--
+
+  "He is their stay when earthly help is lost,
+  The light and anchor of the tempest-toss'd."
+
+There was one person unknown to us, who had watched the progress
+of that rash blaze, and had even brought his canoe to the landing,
+in the hope of us getting off. This was an Irish pensioner named
+Dunn, who had cleared a few acres on his government grant, and had
+built a shanty on the opposite shore of the lake.
+
+"Faith, madam! an' I thought the captain was stark, staring mad to
+fire his fallow on such a windy day, and that blowing right from
+the lake to the house. When Old Wittals came in and towld us that
+the masther was not to the fore, but only one lad, an' the wife an'
+the chilther at home,--thinks I, there's no time to be lost, or the
+crathurs will be burnt up intirely. We started instanther, but, by
+Jove! we were too late. The swamp was all in a blaze when we got to
+the landing, and you might as well have thried to get to heaven by
+passing through the other place."
+
+This was the eloquent harangue with which the honest creature
+informed me the next morning of the efforts he had made to save us,
+and the interest he had felt in our critical situation. I felt
+comforted for my past anxiety, by knowing that one human being,
+however humble, had sympathised in our probable fate, while the
+providential manner in which we had been rescued will ever remain
+a theme of wonder and gratitude.
+
+The next evening brought the return of my husband, who listened to
+the tale of our escape with a pale and disturbed countenance; not a
+little thankful to find his wife and children still in the land of
+the living.
+
+For a long time after the burning of that fallow, it haunted me in
+my dreams. I would awake with a start, imagining myself fighting
+with the flames, and endeavouring to carry my little children
+through them to the top of the clearing, when invariably their
+garments and my own took fire just as I was within reach of a
+place of safety.
+
+
+THE FORGOTTEN DREAM
+
+  Ere one ruddy streak of light
+  Glimmer'd o'er the distant height,
+  Kindling with its living beam
+  Frowning wood and cold grey stream,
+  I awoke with sudden start,
+  Clammy brow and beating heart,
+  Trembling limbs, convulsed and chill,
+  Conscious of some mighty ill;
+  Yet unable to recall
+  Sights that did my sense appal;
+  Sounds that thrill'd my sleeping ear
+  With unutterable fear;
+  Forms that to my sleeping eye
+  Presented some strange phantasy--
+  Shadowy, spectral, and sublime,
+  That glance upon the sons of time
+  At moments when the mind, o'erwrought,
+  Yields reason to mysterious thought,
+  And night and solitude in vain
+  Bind the free spirit in their chain.
+  Such the vision wild that press'd
+  On tortur'd brain and heaving chest;
+  But sight and sound alike are gone,
+  I woke, and found myself alone;
+  With choking sob and stifled scream
+  To bless my God 'twas but a dream!
+  To smooth my damp and stiffen'd hair,
+  And murmur out the Saviour's prayer--
+  The first to grateful memory brought,
+  The first a gentle mother taught,
+  When, bending o'er her children's bed,
+  She bade good angels guard my head;
+  Then paused, with tearful eyes, and smiled
+  On the calm slumbers of her child--
+  As God himself had heard her prayer,
+  And holy angels worshipped there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+OUR LOGGING-BEE
+
+
+
+  There was a man in our town,
+  In our town, in our town--
+  There was a man in our town,
+  He made a logging-bee;
+
+      And he bought lots of whiskey,
+      To make the loggers frisky--
+      To make the loggers frisky
+          At his logging-bee.
+
+  The Devil sat on a log heap,
+  A log heap, a log heap--
+  A red hot burning log heap--
+  A-grinning at the bee;
+
+      And there was lots of swearing,
+      Of boasting and of daring,
+      Of fighting and of tearing,
+          At that logging bee.
+
+J.W.D.M.
+
+
+A logging-bee followed the burning of the fallow, as a matter of
+course. In the bush, where hands are few, and labour commands
+an enormous rate of wages, these gatherings are considered
+indispensable, and much has been written in their praise; but to
+me, they present the most disgusting picture of a bush life. They
+are noisy, riotous, drunken meetings, often terminating in violent
+quarrels, sometimes even in bloodshed. Accidents of the most
+serious nature often occur, and very little work is done when we
+consider the number of hands employed, and the great consumption
+of food and liquor.
+
+I am certain, in our case, had we hired with the money expended in
+providing for the bee, two or three industrious, hard-working men,
+we should have got through twice as much work, and have had it done
+well, and have been the gainers in the end.
+
+People in the woods have a craze for giving and going to bees,
+and run to them with as much eagerness as a peasant runs to a
+race-course or a fair; plenty of strong drink and excitement
+making the chief attraction of a bee.
+
+In raising a house or barn, a bee may be looked upon as a necessary
+evil, but these gatherings are generally conducted in a more orderly
+manner than those for logging. Fewer hands are required; and they
+are generally under the control of the carpenter who puts up the
+frame, and if they get drunk during the raising they are liable to
+meet with very serious accidents.
+
+Thirty-two men, gentle and simple, were invited to our bee, and the
+maid and I were engaged for two days preceding the important one,
+in baking and cooking for the entertainment of our guests. When I
+looked at the quantity of food we had prepared, I thought it could
+never be all eaten, even by thirty-two men. It was a burning hot day
+towards the end of July, when our loggers began to come in, and the
+"gee!" and "ha!" to encourage the oxen resounded on every side.
+
+There was my brother S---, with his frank English face, a host in
+himself; Lieutenant --- in his blouse, wide white trousers, and red
+sash, his broad straw hat shading a dark manly face that would have
+been a splendid property for a bandit chief; the four gay, reckless,
+idle sons of ---, famous at any spree, but incapable of the least
+mental or physical exertion, who considered hunting and fishing as
+the sole aim and object of life. These young men rendered very
+little assistance themselves, and their example deterred others
+who were inclined to work.
+
+There were the two R---s, who came to work and to make others work;
+my good brother-in-law, who had volunteered to be the Grog Boss,
+and a host of other settlers, among whom I recognised Moodie's old
+acquaintance, Dan Simpson, with his lank red hair and freckled face;
+the Youngs, the hunters, with their round, black, curly heads and
+rich Irish brogue; poor C--- with his long, spare, consumptive
+figure, and thin sickly face. Poor fellow, he has long since been
+gathered to his rest!
+
+There was the ruffian squatter P---, from Clear Lake,--the dread
+of all honest men; the brutal M---, who treated oxen as if they
+had been logs, by beating them with handspikes; and there was Old
+Wittals, with his low forehead and long nose, a living witness of
+the truth of phrenology, if his large organ of acquisitiveness and
+his want of consciousness could be taken in evidence. Yet in spite
+of his derelictions from honesty, he was a hard-working,
+good-natured man, who, if he cheated you in a bargain, or took away
+some useful article in mistake from your homestead, never wronged
+his employer in his day's work.
+
+He was a curious sample of cunning and simplicity--quite a character
+in his way--and the largest eater I ever chanced to know. From this
+ravenous propensity, for he eat his food like a famished wolf, he
+had obtained his singular name of "Wittals."
+
+During the first year of his settlement in the bush, with a very
+large family to provide for, he had been often in want of food.
+One day he came to my brother, with a very long face.
+
+"Mr. S--- I'm no beggar, but I'd be obliged to you for a loaf of
+bread. I declare to you on my honour that I have not had a bit of
+wittals to dewour for two whole days."
+
+He came to the right person with his petition. Mr. S--- with a
+liberal hand relieved his wants, but he entailed upon him the name
+of "Old Wittals," as part payment.
+
+His daughter, who was a very pretty girl, had stolen a march upon
+him into the wood, with a lad whom he by no means regarded with a
+favourable eye. When she returned, the old man confronted her and
+her lover with this threat, which I suppose he considered "the most
+awful" punishment that he could devise.
+
+"March into the house, Madam 'Ria (Maria); and if ever I catch you
+with that scamp again, I'll tie you up to a stump all day, and give
+you no wittals."
+
+I was greatly amused by overhearing a dialogue between Old Wittals
+and one of his youngest sons, a sharp, Yankeefied-looking boy, who
+had lost one of his eyes, but the remaining orb looked as if it
+could see all ways at once.
+
+"I say, Sol, how came you to tell that tarnation tearing lie to Mr.
+S--- yesterday? Didn't you expect that you'd catch a good wallopping
+for the like of that? Lying may be excusable in a man, but 'tis a
+terrible bad habit for a boy."
+
+"Lor', father, that worn't a lie. I told Mr. S--- our cow worn't in
+his peas. Nor more she wor; she was in his wheat."
+
+"But she was in the peas all night, boy."
+
+"That wor nothing to me; she worn't in just then. Sure I won't get a
+licking for that?"
+
+"No, no, you are a good boy; but mind what I tell you, and don't
+bring me into a scrape with any of your real lies."
+
+Prevarication, the worst of falsehoods, was a virtue in his eyes.
+So much for the old man's morality.
+
+Monaghan was in his glory, prepared to work or fight, whichever
+should come uppermost; and there was old Thomas and his sons, the
+contractors for the clearing, to expedite whose movements the bee
+was called. Old Thomas was a very ambitious man in his way. Though
+he did not know A from B, he took into his head that he had received
+a call from Heaven to convert the heathen in the wilderness; and
+every Sunday he held a meeting in our loggers' shanty, for the
+purpose of awakening sinners, and bringing over "Injun pagans" to
+the true faith. His method of accomplishing this object was very
+ingenious. He got his wife, Peggy--or "my Paggy," as he called
+her--to read aloud to him a text from the Bible, until he knew it
+by heart; and he had, as he said truly, "a good remembrancer," and
+never heard a striking sermon but he retained the most important
+passages, and retailed them secondhand to his bush audience.
+
+I must say that I was not a little surprised at the old man's
+eloquence when I went one Sunday over to the shanty to hear him
+preach. Several wild young fellows had come on purpose to make fun
+of him; but his discourse, which was upon the text "We shall all
+meet before the judgment-seat of Christ," was rather too serious a
+subject to turn into a jest, with even old Thomas for the preacher.
+All went on very well until the old man gave out a hymn, and led
+off in such a loud, discordant voice, that my little Katie, who was
+standing between her father's knees, looked suddenly up, and said,
+"Mamma, what a noise old Thomas makes." This remark led to a much
+greater noise, and the young men, unable to restrain their
+long-suppressed laughter, ran tumultuously from the shanty.
+
+I could have whipped the little elf; but small blame could be
+attached to a child of two years old, who had never heard a
+preacher, especially such a preacher as the old backwoodsman, in
+her life. Poor man! He was perfectly unconscious of the cause of
+the disturbance, and remarked to us, after the service was over,
+
+"Well, ma'am, did we not get on famously? Now, worn't that a
+BOOTIFUL discourse?"
+
+"It was, indeed; much better than I expected."
+
+"Yes, yes; I knew it would please you. It had quite an effect on
+those wild fellows. A few more such sermons will teach them good
+behaviour. Ah, the bush is a bad place for young men. The farther in
+the bush, say I, the farther from God, and the nearer to hell. I
+told that wicked Captain L--- of Dummer so the other Sunday; 'an','
+says he, 'if you don't hold your confounded jaw, you old fool, I'll
+kick you there.' Now ma'am--now, sir, was not that bad manners in a
+gentleman, to use such appropriate epitaphs to a humble servant of
+God, like I?"
+
+And thus the old man ran on for an hour, dilating upon his own
+merits and the sins of his neighbors.
+
+There was John R---, from Smith-town, the most notorious swearer in
+the district; a man who esteemed himself clever, nor did he want
+for natural talent, but he had converted his mouth into such a sink
+of iniquity that it corrupted the whole man, and all the weak and
+thoughtless of his own sex who admitted him into their company. I
+had tried to convince John R--- (for he often frequented the house
+under the pretence of borrowing books) of the great crime that he
+was constantly committing, and of the injurious effect it must
+produce upon his own family, but the mental disease had taken too
+deep a root to be so easily cured. Like a person labouring under
+some foul disease, he contaminated all he touched. Such men seem to
+make an ambitious display of their bad habits in such scenes, and if
+they afford a little help, they are sure to get intoxicated and make
+a row. There was my friend, old Ned Dunn, who had been so anxious to
+get us out of the burning fallow. There was a whole group of Dummer
+Pines: Levi, the little wiry, witty poacher; Cornish Bill, the
+honest-hearted old peasant, with his stalwart figure and uncouth
+dialect; and David, and Nedall good men and true; and Malachi
+Chroak, a queer, withered-up, monkey-man, that seemed like some
+mischievous elf, flitting from heap to heap to make work and fun
+for the rest; and many others were at that bee who have since found
+a rest in the wilderness: Adam T---, H---, J. M---, H. N---.
+
+These, at different times, lost their lives in those bright waters
+in which, on such occasions as these, they used to sport and frolic
+to refresh themselves during the noonday heat. Alas! how many, who
+were then young and in their prime, that river and its lakes have
+swept away!
+
+Our men worked well until dinner-time, when, after washing in the
+lake, they all sat down to the rude board which I had prepared for
+them, loaded with the best fare that could be procured in the bush.
+Pea-soup, legs of pork, venison, eel, and raspberry pies, garnished
+with plenty of potatoes, and whiskey to wash them down, besides a
+large iron kettle of tea. To pour out the latter, and dispense it
+round, devolved upon me. My brother and his friends, who were all
+temperance men, and consequently the best workers in the field, kept
+me and the maid actively employed in replenishing their cups.
+
+The dinner passed off tolerably well; some of the lower order of the
+Irish settlers were pretty far gone, but they committed no outrage
+upon our feelings by either swearing or bad language, a few harmless
+jokes alone circulating among them.
+
+Some one was funning Old Wittalls for having eaten seven large
+cabbages at Mr. T---'s bee, a few days previous. His son, Sol,
+thought himself, as in duty bound, to take up the cudgel for his
+father.
+
+"Now, I guess that's a lie, anyhow. Fayther was sick that day,
+and I tell you he only ate five."
+
+This announcement was followed by such an explosion of mirth that
+the boy looked fiercely round him, as if he could scarcely believe
+the fact that the whole party were laughing at him.
+
+Malachi Chroak, who was good-naturedly drunk, had discovered an old
+pair of cracked bellows in a corner, which he placed under his arm,
+and applying his mouth to the pipe, and working his elbows to and
+fro, pretended that he was playing upon the bagpipes, every now and
+then letting the wind escape in a shrill squeak from this novel
+instrument.
+
+"Arrah, ladies and jintlemen, do jist turn your swate little eyes
+upon me whilst I play for your iddifications the last illigant tune
+which my owld grandmother taught me. Och hone! 'tis a thousand
+pities that such musical owld crathers should be suffered to die, at
+all at all, to be poked away into a dirthy, dark hole, when their
+canthles shud be burnin' a-top of a bushel, givin' light to the
+house. An' then it is she that was the illigant dancer, stepping out
+so lively and frisky, just so."
+
+And here he minced to and fro, affecting the airs of a fine lady.
+The suppositious bagpipe gave an uncertain, ominous howl, and he
+flung it down, and started back with a ludicrous expression of
+alarm.
+
+"Alive, is it ye are? Ye croaking owld divil, is that the tune you
+taught your son?
+
+  "Och! my old granny taught me, but now she is dead,
+  That a dhrop of nate whiskey is good for the head;
+  It would make a man spake when jist ready to dhie,
+  If you doubt it--my boys!--I'd advise you to thry.
+
+  "Och! my owld granny sleeps with her head on a stone,--
+  'Now, Malach, don't throuble the galls when I'm gone!'
+  I thried to obey her; but, och, I am shure,
+  There's no sorrow on earth that the angels can't cure.
+
+  "Och! I took her advice--I'm a bachelor still;
+  And I dance, and I play, with such excellent skill,
+    (Taking up the bellows, and beginning to dance.)
+  That the dear little crathurs are striving in vain
+  Which furst shall my hand or my fortin' obtain."
+
+"Malach!" shouted a laughing group. "How was it that the old lady
+taught you to go a-courting?"
+
+"Arrah, that's a sacret! I don't let out owld granny's sacrets,"
+said Malachi, gracefully waving his head to and fro to the squeaking
+of the bellows; then, suddenly tossing back the long, dangling black
+elf-locks that curled down the sides of his lank, yellow cheeks, and
+winking knowingly with his comical little deep-seated black eyes, he
+burst out again--
+
+  "Wid the blarney I'd win the most dainty proud dame,
+  No gall can resist the soft sound of that same;
+  Wid the blarney, my boys--if you doubt it, go thry--
+  But hand here the bottle, my whistle is dhry."
+
+The men went back to the field, leaving Malachi to amuse those who
+remained in the house; and we certainly did laugh our fill at his
+odd capers and conceits.
+
+Then he would insist upon marrying our maid. There could be no
+refusal--have her he would. The girl, to keep him quiet, laughingly
+promised that she would take him for her husband. This did not
+satisfy him. She must take her oath upon the Bible to that effect.
+Mary pretended that there was no bible in the house, but he found an
+old spelling-book upon a shelf in the kitchen, and upon it he made
+her swear, and called upon me to bear witness to her oath, and that
+she was now his betrothed, and he would go next day with her to the
+"praist." Poor Mary had reason to repent her frolic, for he stuck
+close to her the whole evening, tormenting her to fulfill her
+contract.
+
+After the sun went down, the logging-band came in to supper, which
+was all ready for them. Those who remained sober ate the meal in
+peace, and quietly returned to their own homes; while the vicious
+and the drunken stayed to brawl and fight.
+
+After having placed the supper on the table, I was so tired with the
+noise, and heat, and fatigue of the day, that I went to bed, leaving
+to Mary and my husband the care of the guests.
+
+The little bed-chamber was only separated from the kitchen by a few
+thin boards; and unfortunately for me and the girl, who was soon
+forced to retreat thither, we could hear all the wickedness and
+profanity going on in the next room. My husband, disgusted with the
+scene, soon left it, and retired into the parlour, with the few of
+the loggers who at that hour remained sober. The house rang with the
+sound of unhallowed revelry, profane songs and blasphemous swearing.
+It would have been no hard task to have imagined these miserable,
+degraded beings fiends instead of men. How glad I was when they at
+last broke up; and we were once more left in peace to collect to
+broken glasses and cups, and the scattered fragments of that hateful
+feast.
+
+We were obliged to endure a second and a third repetition of this
+odious scene, before sixteen acres of land were rendered fit for
+the reception of our fall crop of wheat.
+
+My hatred to these tumultuous, disorderly meetings was not in the
+least decreased by my husband being twice seriously hurt while
+attending them. After the second injury he received, he seldom went
+to them himself, but sent his oxen and servant in his place. In these
+odious gatherings, the sober, moral, and industrious man is more
+likely to suffer than the drunken and profane, as during the delirium
+of drink these men expose others to danger as well as themselves.
+
+The conduct of many of the settlers, who considered themselves
+gentlemen, and would have been very much affronted to have been
+called otherwise, was often more reprehensible than that of the poor
+Irish emigrants, to whom they should have set an example of order and
+sobriety. The behaviour of these young men drew upon them the severe
+but just censures of the poorer class, whom they regarded in every
+way as their inferiors.
+
+"That blackguard calls himself a gentleman. In what respect is he
+better than us?" was an observation too frequently made use of at
+these gatherings. To see a bad man in the very worst point of view,
+follow him to a bee: be he profane, licentious, quarrelsome, or a
+rogue, all his native wickedness will be fully developed there.
+
+Just after the last of these logging-bees, we had to part with our
+good servant Mary, and just at a time when it was the heaviest loss
+to me. Her father, who had been a dairyman in the north of Ireland,
+an honest, industrious man, had brought out upwards of one hundred
+pounds to this country. With more wisdom than is generally exercised
+by Irish emigrants, instead of sinking all his means in buying a
+bush farm, he hired a very good farm in Cavan, with cattle, and
+returned to his old avocation. The services of his daughter, who was
+an excellent dairymaid, were required to take the management of the
+cows; and her brother brought a wagon and horses all the way from
+the front to take her home.
+
+This event was perfectly unexpected, and left me without a moment's
+notice to provide myself with another servant, at a time when
+servants were not to be had, and I was perfectly unable to do the
+least thing. My little Addie was sick almost to death with the
+summer complaint, and the eldest still too young to take care of
+herself.
+
+This was but the beginning of trouble.
+
+Ague and lake fever had attacked our new settlement. The men in the
+shanty were all down with it; and my husband was confined to his bed
+on each alternate day, unable to raise hand or foot, and raving in
+the delirium of the fever.
+
+In my sister and brother's families, scarcely a healthy person
+remained to attend upon the sick; and at Herriot's Falls, nine
+persons were stretched upon the floor of one log cabin, unable to
+help themselves or one another. After much difficulty, and only by
+offering enormous wages, I succeeded in procuring a nurse to attend
+upon me during my confinement. The woman had not been a day in the
+house before she was attacked by the same fever. In the midst of
+this confusion, and with my precious little Addie lying insensible
+on a pillow at the foot of my bed--expected at every moment to
+breathe her last--on the night of the 26th of August the boy I had
+so ardently coveted was born. The next day, old Pine carried his
+wife (my nurse) away upon his back, and I was left to struggle
+through, in the best manner I could, with a sick husband, a sick
+child, and a newborn babe.
+
+It was a melancholy season, one of severe mental and bodily
+suffering. Those who have drawn such agreeable pictures of a
+residence in the backwoods never dwell upon the periods of sickness,
+when, far from medical advice, and often, as in my case, deprived of
+the assistance of friends by adverse circumstances, you are left to
+languish, unattended, upon the couch of pain.
+
+The day that my husband was free of the fit, he did what he could
+for me and his poor sick babes, but, ill as he was, he was obliged
+to sow the wheat to enable the man the proceed with the drag, and
+was therefore necessarily absent in the field the greater part of
+the day.
+
+I was very ill, yet for hours at a time I had no friendly voice to
+cheer me, to proffer me a drink of cold water, or to attend to the
+poor babe; and worse, still worse, there was no one to help that
+pale, marble child, who lay so cold and still, with "half-closed
+violet eyes," as if death had already chilled her young heart in
+his iron grasp.
+
+There was not a breath of air in our close, burning bed-closet; and
+the weather was sultry beyond all that I have since experienced.
+How I wished that I could be transported to a hospital at home,
+to enjoy the common care that in such places is bestowed upon the
+sick. Bitter tears flowed continually from my eyes over those young
+children. I had asked of Heaven a son, and there he lay helpless by
+the side of his almost equally helpless mother, who could not lift
+him up in her arms, or still his cries; while the pale, fair angel,
+with her golden curls, who had lately been the admiration of all
+who saw her, no longer recognized my voice, or was conscious of my
+presence. I felt that I could almost resign the long and eagerly
+hoped-for son, to win one more smile from that sweet suffering
+creature. Often did I weep myself to sleep, and wake to weep again
+with renewed anguish.
+
+And my poor little Katie, herself under three years of age, how
+patiently she bore the loss of my care, and every comfort. How
+earnestly the dear thing strove to help me. She would sit on my
+sick-bed, and hold my hand, and ask me to look at her and speak to
+her; would inquire why Addie slept so long, and when she would awake
+again. Those innocent questions went like arrows to my heart.
+
+Lieutenant ---, the husband of my dear Emilia, at length heard of
+my situation. His inestimable wife was from home, nursing her sick
+mother; but he sent his maid-servant up every day for a couple of
+hours, and the kind girl despatched a messenger nine miles through
+the woods to Dummer, to fetch her younger sister, a child of twelve
+years old.
+
+Oh, how grateful I felt for these signal mercies; for my situation
+for nearly a week was one of the most pitiable that could be
+imagined. The sickness was so prevalent that help was not to be
+obtained for money; and without the assistance of that little girl,
+young as she was, it is more than probable that neither myself nor
+my children would ever have risen from that bed of sickness.
+
+The conduct of our man Jacob, during this trying period, was marked
+with the greatest kindness and consideration. On the days that his
+master was confined to his bed with the fever, he used to place a
+vessel of cold water and a cup by his bedside, and put his honest
+English face in at my door to know if he could make a cup of tea, or
+toast a bit of bread for the mistress, before he went into the field.
+
+Katie was indebted to him for all meals. He baked, and cooked, and
+churned, milked the cows, and made up the butter, as well and as
+carefully as the best female servant could have done. As to poor
+John Monanghan, he was down with fever in the shanty, where four
+other men were all ill with the same terrible complaint.
+
+I was obliged to leave my bed and endeavour to attend to the wants
+of my young family long before I was really able. When I made my
+first attempt to reach the parlour I was so weak, that, at every
+step, I felt as if I should pitch forward to the ground, which
+seemed to undulate beneath my feet like the floor of a cabin in a
+storm at sea. My husband continued to suffer for many weeks with the
+ague; and when he was convalescent, all the children, even the poor
+babe, were seized with it, nor did it leave us until late in the
+spring of 1835.
+
+
+THE EMIGRANT'S FAREWELL
+
+  Rise, Mary! meet me on the shore,
+  And tell our tale of sorrow o'er;
+  There must we meet to part no more--
+    Rise, Mary, rise!
+
+  Come, dearest, come! tho' all in vain;
+  Once more beside you summer main
+  We'll plight our hopeless vows again--
+    Unclose thine eyes.
+
+  My bark amidst the surge is toss'd,
+  I go, by evil fortunes cross'd,
+  My earthly hopes for ever lost--
+    Love's dearest prize.
+
+  But when thy hand is clasp'd in mine,
+  I'll laugh at fortune, nor repine;
+  In life, in death, for ever thine--
+    Then check these sighs.
+
+  They move a bosom steel'd to bear
+  Its own unwonted load of care,
+  That will not bend beneath despair--
+    Rise, dearest, rise.
+
+  Life's but a troubled dream at best;
+  These comes a time when grief shall rest,
+  Kind, faithful hearts shall yet be bless'd
+    'Neath brighter skies!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A TRIP TO STONY LAKE
+
+
+
+  Oh Nature! in thy ever-varying face,
+    By rocky shore, or 'neath the forest tree,
+  What love divine, what matchless skill, I trace!
+    My full warm heart responsive thrills to thee.
+  Yea, in my throbbing bosom's inmost core,
+    Thou reign'st supreme; and, in thy sternest mood,
+  Thy votary bends in rapture to adore
+    The Mighty Maker, who pronounced thee good.
+  Thy broad, majestic brow still bears His seal;
+  And when I cease to love, oh, may I cease to feel.
+
+
+My husband had long promised me a trip to Stony Lake, and in the
+summer of 1835, before the harvest commenced, he gave Mr. Y---,
+who kept the mill at the rapids below Clear Lake, notice of our
+intention, and the worthy old man and his family made due
+preparation for our reception. The little girls were to accompany
+us.
+
+We were to start at sunrise, to avoid the heat of the day, to go up
+as far as Mr. Y---'s in our canoe, re-embark with his sons above
+the rapids in birch-bark canoes, go as far up the lake as we could
+accomplish by daylight, and return at night; the weather being very
+warm, and the moon at full. Before six o'clock we were all seated
+in the little craft, which spread her white sail to a foaming
+breeze, and sped merrily over the blue waters. The lake on which
+our clearing stood was about a mile and a half in length, and about
+three quarters of a mile in breadth; a mere pond, when compared with
+the Bay of Quinte, Ontario, and the inland seas of Canada. But it
+was OUR lake, and, consequently, it had ten thousand beauties in
+our eyes, which would scarcely have attracted the observation of a
+stranger.
+
+At the head of the Katchawanook, the lake is divided by a long neck
+of land, that forms a small bay on the right-hand side, and a very
+brisk rapid on the left. The banks are formed of large masses of
+limestone; and the cardinal-flower and the tiger-lily seem to have
+taken an especial fancy to this spot, and to vie with each other
+in the display of their gorgeous colours.
+
+It is an excellent place for fishing; the water is very deep close
+to the rocky pavement that forms the bank, and it has a pebbly
+bottom. Many a magic hour, at rosy dawn, or evening grey, have I
+spent with my husband on this romantic spot; our canoe fastened to
+a bush, and ourselves intent upon ensnaring the black bass, a fish
+of excellent flavour that abounds in this place.
+
+Our paddles soon carried us past the narrows, and through the rapid
+water, the children sitting quietly at the bottom of the boat,
+enchanted with all they heard and saw, begging papa to stop and
+gather water-lilies, or to catch one of the splendid butterflies
+that hovered over us; and often the little Addie darted her white
+hand into the water to grasp at the shadow of the gorgeous insects
+as they skimmed along the waves.
+
+After passing the rapids, the river widened into another small lake,
+perfectly round in form, and having in its centre a tiny green
+island, in the midst of which stood, like a shattered monument of
+bygone storms, one blasted, black ash-tree.
+
+The Indians call this lake Bessikakoon, but I do not know the exact
+meaning of the word. Some say that it means "the Indian's grave,"
+others "the lake of the one island." It is certain that an Indian
+girl is buried beneath that blighted tree; but I never could
+learn the particulars of her story, and perhaps there was no tale
+connected with it. She might have fallen a victim to disease during
+the wanderings of her tribe, and been buried on that spot; or she
+might have been drowned, which would account for her having been
+buried away from the rest of her people.
+
+This little lake lies in the heart of the wilderness. There is but
+one clearing upon its shores, and that had been made by lumberers
+many years before; the place abounded with red cedar. A second
+growth of young timber had grown up in this spot, which was covered
+also with raspberry-bushes--several hundred acres being entirely
+overgrown with this delicious berry.
+
+It was here annually that we used to come in large picnic parties,
+to collect this valuable fruit for our winter preserves, in defiance
+of black-flies, mosquitoes, snakes, and even bears, all which have
+been encountered by berry-pickers upon this spot, as busy and as
+active as themselves, gathering an ample repast from Nature's
+bounteous lap.
+
+And, oh! what beautiful wild shrubs and flowers grew up in that
+neglected spot! Some of the happiest hours I spent in the bush
+are connected with reminiscences of "Irving's shanty," for so the
+raspberry-grounds were called. The clearing could not be seen from
+the shore. You had to scramble through a cedar-swamp to reach the
+sloping ground which produced the berries.
+
+The mill at the Clear Lake rapids was about three miles distant
+from our own clearing; and after stemming another rapid, and passing
+between two beautiful wooded islands, the canoe rounded a point, and
+the rude structure was before us.
+
+A wilder and more romantic spot than that which the old hunter
+had chosen for his homestead in the wilderness could scarcely be
+imagined. The waters of Clear Lake here empty themselves through a
+narrow, deep, rocky channel, not exceeding a quarter of a mile in
+length, and tumble over a limestone ridge of ten or twelve feet in
+height, which extends from one bank of the river to the other. The
+shores on either side are very steep, and the large oak-trees which
+have anchored their roots in every crevice of the rock, throw their
+fantastic arms far over the foaming waterfall, the deep green of
+their massy foliage forming a beautiful contrast with the white,
+flashing waters that foam over the shoot at least fifty feet below
+the brow of the limestone rock. By a flight of steps cut in the
+banks we ascended to the platform above the river on which Mr.
+Y---'s house stood.
+
+It was a large, rough-looking, log building, surrounded by barns and
+sheds of the same primitive material. The porch before the door was
+covered with hops, and the room of general resort, into which it
+immediately opened, was of large dimensions, the huge fire-place
+forming the most striking feature. On the hearth-stone, hot as was
+the weather, blazed a great fire, encumbered with all sorts of
+culinary apparatus, which, I am inclined to think, had been called
+into requisition for our sole benefit and accommodation.
+
+The good folks had breakfasted long before we started from home,
+but they would not hear of our proceeding to Stony Lake until after
+we had dined. It was only eight o'clock a.m., and we had still four
+hours to dinner, which gave us ample leisure to listen to the old
+man's stories, ramble round the premises, and observe all the
+striking features of the place.
+
+Mr. Y--- was a Catholic, and the son of a respectable farmer from
+the south of Ireland. Some few years before, he had emigrated with
+a large family of seven sons and two daughters, and being fond of
+field sports, and greatly taken with the beauty of the locality in
+which he had pitched his tent in the wilderness, he determined to
+raise a mill upon the dam which Nature had provided to his hands,
+and wait patiently until the increasing immigration should settle
+the townships of Smith and Douro, render the property valuable,
+and bring plenty of grist to the mill.
+
+He was not far wrong in his calculations; and though, for the first
+few years, he subsisted entirely by hunting, fishing, and raising
+what potatoes and wheat he required for his own family, on the most
+fertile spots he could find on his barren lot, very little corn
+passed through the mill.
+
+At the time we visited his place, he was driving a thriving trade,
+and all the wheat that was grown in the neighbourhood was brought
+by water to be ground at Y---'s mill.
+
+He had lost his wife a few years after coming to the country; but
+his two daughters, Betty and Norah, were excellent housewives, and
+amply supplied her loss. From these amiable women we received a most
+kind and hearty welcome, and every comfort and luxury within their
+reach.
+
+They appeared a most happy and contented family. The sons--a fine,
+hardy, independent set of fellows--were regarded by the old man with
+pride and affection. Many were his anecdotes of their prowess in
+hunting and fishing.
+
+His method of giving them an aversion to strong drink while very
+young amused me greatly, but it is not every child that could have
+stood the test of his experiment.
+
+"When they were little chaps, from five to six years of age, I made
+them very drunk," he said; "so drunk that it brought on severe
+headache and sickness, and this so disgusted them with liquor,
+that they never could abide the sight of it again. I have only one
+drunkard among the seven; and he was such a weak, puling crathur,
+that I dared not try the same game with him, lest it should kill
+him. 'Tis his nature, I suppose, and he can't help it; but the truth
+is, that to make up for the sobriety of all the rest, he is killing
+himself with drink."
+
+Norah gave us an account of her catching a deer that had got into
+the enclosure the day before.
+
+"I went out," she said, "early in the morning, to milk the cows,
+and I saw a fine young buck struggling to get through a pale of the
+fence, in which having entangled his head and horns, I knew, by the
+desperate efforts he was making to push aside the rails, that if I
+was not quick in getting hold of him, he would soon be gone."
+
+"And did you dare to touch him?"
+
+"If I had had Mat's gun I would have shot him, but he would have
+made his escape long before I could run to the house for that, so I
+went boldly up to him and got him by the hind legs; and though he
+kicked and struggled dreadfully, I held on till Mat heard me call,
+and ran to my help, and cut his throat with his hunting-knife. So
+you see," she continued, with a good-natured laugh, "I can beat our
+hunters hollow--they hunt the deer, but I can catch a buck with my
+hands."
+
+While we were chatting away, great were the preparations making by
+Miss Betty and a very handsome American woman, who had recently come
+thither as a help. One little barefooted garsoon was shelling peas
+in an Indian basket, another was stringing currants into a yellow
+pie-dish, and a third was sent to the rapids with his rod and line,
+to procure a dish of fresh fish to add to the long list of bush
+dainties that were preparing for our dinner.
+
+It was in vain that I begged our kind entertainers not to put
+themselves to the least trouble on our account, telling them that
+we were now used to the woods, and contented with anything; they
+were determined to exhaust all their stores to furnish forth the
+entertainment. Nor can it be wondered at, that, with so many
+dishes to cook, and pies and custards to bake, instead of dining
+at twelve, it was past two o'clock before we were conducted to
+the dinner-table. I was vexed and disappointed at the delay, as
+I wanted to see all I could of the spot we were about to visit
+before night and darkness compelled us to return.
+
+The feast was spread in a large outhouse, the table being formed
+of two broad deal boards laid together, and supported by rude
+carpenter's stools. A white linen cloth, a relic of better days,
+concealed these arrangements. The board was covered with an
+indescribable variety of roast and boiled, of fish, flesh, and
+fowl. My readers should see a table laid out in a wealthy Canadian
+farmer's house before they can have any idea of the profusion
+displayed in the entertainment of two visitors and their young
+children.
+
+Besides venison, pork, chickens, ducks, and fish of several kinds,
+cooked in a variety of ways, there was a number of pumpkin,
+raspberry, cherry, and currant pies, with fresh butter and green
+cheese (as the new cream-cheese is called), molasses, preserves, and
+pickled cucumbers, besides tea and coffee--the latter, be it known,
+I had watched the American woman boiling in the frying-pan. It was a
+black-looking compound, and I did not attempt to discuss its merits.
+The vessel in which it had been prepared had prejudiced me, and
+rendered me very sceptical on that score.
+
+We were all very hungry, having tasted nothing since five o'clock in
+the morning, and contrived, out of the variety of good things before
+us, to make an excellent dinner.
+
+I was glad, however, when we rose to prosecute our intended trip up
+the lake. The old man, whose heart was now thoroughly warmed with
+whiskey, declared that he meant to make one of the party, and Betty,
+too, was to accompany us; her sister Norah kindly staying behind to
+take care of the children.
+
+We followed a path along the top of the high ridge of limestone
+rock, until we had passed the falls and the rapids above, when we
+found Pat and Mat Y--- waiting for us on the shore below, in two
+beautiful new birch-bark canoes, which they had purchased the day
+before from the Indians.
+
+Miss Betty, Mat, and myself, were safely stowed into one, while the
+old miller, and his son Pat, and my husband, embarked in the other,
+and our steersmen pushed off into the middle of the deep and silent
+stream; the shadow of the tall woods, towering so many feet above
+us, casting an inky hue upon the waters.
+
+The scene was very imposing, and after paddling for a few minutes in
+shade and silence, we suddenly emerged into light and sunshine, and
+Clear Lake, which gets its name from the unrivalled brightness of
+its waters, spread out its azure mirror before us. The Indians
+regard this sheet of water with peculiar reverence. It abounds in
+the finest sorts of fish, the salmon-trout, the delicious white
+fish, maskinonge, and black and white bass. There is no island in
+this lake, no rice beds, nor stick nor stone to break its tranquil
+beauty, and, at the time we visited it, there was but one clearing
+upon its shores.
+
+The log hut of the squatter P---, commanding a beautiful prospect
+up and down the lake, stood upon a bold slope fronting the water;
+all the rest was unbroken forest.
+
+We had proceeded about a mile on our pleasant voyage, when our
+attention was attracted by a singular natural phenomenon, which
+Mat Y--- called the battery.
+
+On the right-hand side of the shore rose a steep, perpendicular wall
+of limestone, that had the appearance of having been laid by the
+hand of man, so smooth and even was its surface. After attaining a
+height of about fifty feet, a natural platform of eight or ten yards
+broke the perpendicular line of the rock, when another wall, like
+the first, rose to a considerable height, terminating in a second
+and third platform of the same description.
+
+Fire, at some distant period, had run over these singularly
+beautiful terraces, and a second growth of poplars and
+balm-of-gileads, relieved, by their tender green and light, airy
+foilage, the sombre indigo tint of the heavy pines that nodded like
+the plumes of a funeral-hearse over the fair young dwellers on the
+rock.
+
+The water is forty feet deep at the base of this precipice, which
+is washed by the waves. After we had passed the battery, Mat Y---
+turned to me and said, "That is a famous place for bears; many a
+bear have I shot among those rocks."
+
+This led to a long discussion on the wild beasts of the country.
+
+"I do not think that there is much danger to be apprehended from
+them," said he; "but I once had an ugly adventure with a wolf two
+winters ago, on this lake."
+
+I was all curiosity to hear the story, which sounded doubly
+interesting told on the very spot, and while gliding over those
+lovely waters.
+
+"We were lumbering at the head of Stony Lake, about eight miles from
+here, my four brothers, myself, and several other hands. The winter
+was long and severe; although it was the first week in March, there
+was not the least appearance of a thaw, and the ice on these lakes
+was as firm as ever. I had been sent home to fetch a yoke of oxen
+to draw the saw-logs down to the water, our chopping being all
+completed, and the logs ready for rafting.
+
+"I did not think it necessary to encumber myself with my rifle, and
+was, therefore, provided with no weapon of defence but the long
+gad I used to urge on the cattle. It was about four o'clock in the
+afternoon when I rounded Sandy Point, that long point which is
+about a mile a-head of us on the left shore, when I first discovered
+that I was followed, but at a great distance, by a large wolf. At
+first, I thought little of the circumstance, beyond a passing wish
+that I had brought my gun. I knew that he would not attack me before
+dark, and it was still two long hours to sundown; so I whistled, and
+urged on my oxen, and soon forgot the wolf--when, on stopping to
+repair a little damage to the peg of the yoke, I was surprised to
+find him close at my heels. I turned, and ran towards him, shouting
+as loud as I could, when he slunk back, but showed no inclination
+to make off. Knowing that he must have companions near, by his
+boldness, I shouted as loud as I could, hoping that my cries might
+be heard by my brothers, who would imagine that the oxen had got
+into the ice, and would come to my assistance. I was now winding
+my way through the islands in Stony Lake; the sun was setting red
+before me, and I had still three miles of my journey to accomplish.
+The wolf had become so impudent that I kept him off by pelting him
+with snowballs; and once he came so near that I struck him with the
+gad. I now began to be seriously alarmed, and from time to time,
+shouted with all my strength; and you may imagine my joy when these
+cries were answered by the report of a gun. My brothers had heard
+me, and the discharge of a gun, for a moment, seemed to daunt the
+wolf. He uttered a long howl, which was answered by the cries of a
+large pack of the dirty brutes from the wood. It was only just light
+enough to distinguish objects, and I had to stop and face my enemy,
+to keep him at bay.
+
+"I saw the skeleton forms of half-a-dozen more of them slinking
+among the bushes that skirted a low island; and tired and cold, I
+gave myself and the oxen up for lost, when I felt the ice tremble
+on which I stood, and heard men running at a little distance. 'Fire
+your guns!' I cried out, as loud as I could. My order was obeyed,
+and such a yelling and howling immediately filled the whole forest
+as would have chilled your very heart. The thievish varmints
+instantly fled away into the bush.
+
+"I never felt the least fear of wolves until that night; but when
+they meet in large bands, like cowardly dogs, they trust to their
+numbers, and grow fierce. If you meet with one wolf, you may be
+certain that the whole pack are at no great distance."
+
+We were fast approaching Sandy Point, a long white ridge of sand,
+running half across the lake, and though only covered with scattered
+groups of scrubby trees and brush, it effectually screened Stony
+Lake from our view. There were so many beautiful flowers peeping
+through the dwarf, green bushes, that, wishing to inspect them
+nearer, Mat kindly ran the canoe ashore, and told me that he would
+show me a pretty spot, where an Indian, who had been drowned during
+a storm off that point, was buried. I immediately recalled the story
+of Susan Moore's father, but Mat thought that he was interred upon
+one of the islands farther up.
+
+"It is strange," he said, "that they are such bad swimmers. The
+Indian, though unrivalled by us whites in the use of the paddle, is
+an animal that does not take readily to the water, and those among
+them who can swim seldom use it as a recreation."
+
+Pushing our way through the bushes, we came to a small opening in
+the underwood, so thickly grown over with wild Canadian roses in
+full blossom, that the air was impregnated with a delightful odour.
+In the centre of this bed of sweets rose the humble mound that
+protected the bones of the red man from the ravenous jaws of the
+wolf and the wild cat. It was completely covered with stones, and
+from among the crevices had sprung a tuft of blue harebells, waving
+as wild and free as if they grew among the bonny red heather on the
+glorious hills of the North, or shook their tiny bells to the breeze
+on the broom-encircled commons of England.
+
+The harebell had always from a child been with me a favourite
+flower; and the first sight of it in Canada, growing upon that
+lonely grave, so flooded my soul with remembrances of the past,
+that, in spite of myself, the tears poured freely from my eyes.
+There are moments when it is impossible to repress those outgushings
+of the heart--
+
+  "Those flood-gates of the soul that sever,
+  In passion's tide to part for ever."
+
+If Mat and his sister wondered at my tears, they must have suspected
+the cause, for they walked to a little distance, and left me to the
+indulgence of my feelings. I gathered those flowers, and placed them
+in my bosom, and kept them for many a day; they had become holy,
+when connected with sacred home recollections, and the never-dying
+affections of the heart which the sight of them recalled.
+
+A shout from our companions in the other canoe made us retrace our
+steps to the shore. They had already rounded the point, and were
+wondering at our absence.
+
+Oh, what a magnificent scene of wild and lonely grandeur burst upon
+us as we swept round the little peninsula, and the whole majesty of
+Stony Lake broke upon us at once; another Lake of the Thousand
+Isles, in miniature, and in the heart of the wilderness! Imagine a
+large sheet of water, some fifteen miles in breadth and twenty-five
+in length, taken up by islands of every size and shape, from the
+lofty naked rock of red granite to the rounded hill, covered with
+oak-trees to its summit; while others were level with the waters,
+and of a rich emerald green, only fringed with a growth of aquatic
+shrubs and flowers. Never did my eyes rest on a more lovely or
+beautiful scene. Not a vestige of man, or of his works, was there.
+The setting sun that cast such a gorgeous flood of light upon this
+exquisite panorama, bringing out some of these lofty islands in
+strong relief, and casting others into intense shade, shed no cheery
+beam upon church spire or cottage pane. We beheld the landscape,
+savage and grand in its primeval beauty.
+
+As we floated among the channels between these rocky picturesque
+isles, I asked Mat how many of them there were.
+
+"I never could succeed," he said, "in counting them all. One Sunday
+Pat and I spent a whole day in going from one to the other, to try
+and make out how many there were, but we could only count up to one
+hundred and forty before we gave up the task in despair. There are
+a great many of them; more than any one would think--and, what is
+very singular, the channel between them is very deep, sometimes
+above forty feet, which accounts for the few rapids to be found in
+this lake. It is a glorious place for hunting; and the waters,
+undisturbed by steam-boats, abound in all sorts of fish.
+
+"Most of these islands are covered with huckleberries; while
+grapes, high and low-bush cranberries, blackberries, wild cherries,
+gooseberries, and several sorts of wild currants grow here in
+profusion. There is one island among these groups (but I never could
+light upon the identical one) where the Indians yearly gather their
+wampum-grass. They come here to collect the best birch-bark for
+their canoes, and to gather wild onions. In short, from the game,
+fish, and fruit which they collect among the islands of this lake,
+they chiefly depend for their subsistence. They are very jealous of
+the settlers in the country coming to hunt and fish here, and tell
+many stories of wild beasts and rattlesnakes that abound along its
+shores, but I, who have frequented the lake for years, was never
+disturbed by anything, beyond the adventure with the wolf, which
+I have already told you. The banks of this lake are all steep and
+rocky, and the land along the shore is barren, and totally unfit
+for cultivation.
+
+"Had we time to run up a few miles further, I could have showed you
+some places well worth a journey to look at; but the sun is already
+down, and it will be dark before we get back to the mill."
+
+The other canoe now floated alongside, and Pat agreed with his
+brother that it was high time to return. With reluctance I turned
+from this strangely fascinating scene. As we passed under one bold
+rocky island, Mat said, laughingly, "That is Mount Rascal."
+
+"How did it obtain that name?"
+
+"Oh, we were out here berrying, with our good priest, Mr. B---.
+This island promised so fair, that we landed upon it, and, after
+searching for an hour, we returned to the boat without a single
+berry, upon which Mr. B--- named it 'Mount Rascal.'"
+
+The island was so beautiful, it did not deserve the name, and I
+christened it "Oak Hill," from the abundance of oak-trees which
+clothed its steep sides. The wood of this oak is so heavy and hard
+that it will not float in the water, and it is in great request for
+the runners of lumber-sleighs, which have to pass over very bad
+roads.
+
+The breeze, which had rendered our sail up the lakes so expeditious
+and refreshing, had stiffened into a pretty high wind, which was
+dead against us all the way down. Betty now knelt in the bow and
+assisted her brother, squaw fashion, in paddling the canoe; but, in
+spite of all their united exertions, it was past ten o'clock before
+we reached the mill. The good Norah was waiting tea for us. She had
+given the children their supper four hours ago, and the little
+creatures, tired with using their feet all day, were sound asleep
+upon her bed.
+
+After supper, several Irish songs were sung, while Pat played upon
+the fiddle, and Betty and Mat enlivened the company with an Irish
+jig.
+
+It was midnight when the children were placed on my cloak at the
+bottom of the canoe, and we bade adieu to this hospitable family.
+The wind being dead against us, we were obliged to dispense with the
+sail, and take to our paddles. The moonlight was as bright as day,
+the air warm and balmy; and the aromatic, resinous smell exuded by
+the heat from the balm-of-gilead and the pine-trees in the forest,
+added greatly to our sense of enjoyment as we floated past scenes so
+wild and lonely--isles that assumed a mysterious look and character
+in that witching hour. In moments like these, I ceased to regret my
+separation from my native land; and, filled with the love of Nature,
+my heart forgot for the time the love of home. The very spirit of
+peace seemed to brood over the waters, which were broken into a
+thousand ripples of light by every breeze that stirred the rice
+blossoms, or whispered through the shivering aspen-trees. The
+far-off roar of the rapids, softened by distance, and the long,
+mournful cry of the night-owl, alone broke the silence of the night.
+Amid these lonely wilds the soul draws nearer to God, and is filled
+to overflowing by the overwhelming sense of His presence.
+
+It was two o'clock in the morning when we fastened the canoe to the
+landing, and Moodie carried up the children to the house. I found
+the girl still up with my boy, who had been very restless during
+our absence. My heart reproached me, as I caught him to my breast,
+for leaving him so long; in a few minutes he was consoled for past
+sorrows, and sleeping sweetly in my arms.
+
+
+A CANADIAN SONG
+
+  Come, launch the light canoe;
+    The breeze is fresh and strong;
+  The summer skies are blue,
+    And 'tis joy to float along;
+      Away o'er the waters,
+      The bright-glancing waters,
+      The many-voiced waters,
+    As they dance in light and song.
+
+  When the great Creator spoke,
+    On the long unmeasured night
+  The living day-spring broke,
+    And the waters own'd His might;
+      The voice of many waters,
+      Of glad, rejoicing waters,
+      Of living, leaping waters,
+    First hailed the dawn of light.
+
+  Where foaming billows glide
+    To earth's remotest bound;
+  The rushing ocean tide
+    Rolls on the solemn sound;
+      God's voice is in the waters;
+      The deep, mysterious waters,
+      The sleepless, dashing waters,
+    Still breathe its tones around.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE "OULD DHRAGOON"
+
+
+
+[I am indebted to my husband for this sketch.]
+
+  Behold that man, with lanky locks,
+  Which hang in strange confusion o'er his brow;
+  And nicely scan his garments, rent and patch'd,
+  In colours varied, like a pictured map;
+  And watch his restless glance--now grave, now gay--
+  As saddening thought, or merry humour's flash
+  Sweeps o'er the deep-mark'd lines which care hath left;
+  As when the world is steep'd in blackest night,
+  The forked lightning flashes through the sky,
+  And all around leaps into life and light,
+  To sink again in darkness blacker still.
+  Yes! look upon that face lugubrious, long,
+  As thoughtfully he stands with folded arms
+  Amid his realm of charr'd and spectral stumps,
+  Which once were trees, but now, with sprawling roots,
+  Cling to the rocks which peep above the soil.
+  Ay! look again,
+  And say if you discern the faintest trace
+  Of warrior bold;--the gait erect and proud,
+  The steady glance that speaks the fearless soul,
+  Watchful and prompt to do what man can do
+  When duty calls. All wreck'd and reckless now;--
+  But let the trumpet's soul-inspiring sound
+  Wake up the brattling echoes of the woods,
+  Then watch his kindling eye--his eagle glance--
+  While thoughts of glorious fields, and battles won,
+  And visions bright of joyous, hopeful youth
+  Sweep o'er his soul. A soldier now once more--
+  Touch'd by the magic sound, he rears his head,
+  Responsive to the well-known martial note,
+  And stands again a hero 'mid his rags.
+
+
+It is delightful to observe a feeling of contentment under adverse
+circumstances. We may smile at the rude and clumsy attempts of the
+remote and isolated backwoodsman to attain something like comfort,
+but happy he who, with the buoyant spirits of the light-hearted
+Irishman, contrives to make himself happy even when all others would
+be miserable.
+
+A certain degree of dissatisfaction with our present circumstances
+is necessary to stimulate us to exertion, and thus to enable us to
+secure future comfort; but where the delusive prospect of future
+happiness is too remote for any reasonable hope of ultimate
+attainment, then surely it is true wisdom to make the most of the
+present, and to cultivate a spirit of happy contentment with the lot
+assigned to us by Providence.
+
+"Ould Simpson," or the "Ould Dhragoon," as he was generally called,
+was a good sample of this happy character; and I shall proceed to
+give the reader a sketch of his history, and a description of his
+establishment. He was one of that unfortunate class of discharged
+soldiers who are tempted to sell their pensions often far below
+their true value, for the sake of getting a lot of land in some
+remote settlement, where it is only rendered valuable by the labour
+of the settler, and where they will have the unenviable privilege of
+expending the last remains of their strength in clearing a patch of
+land for the benefit of some grasping storekeeper who has given them
+credit while engaged in the work.
+
+The old dragoon had fixed his abode on the verge of an extensive
+beaver-meadow, which was considered a sort of natural curiosity in
+the neighbourhood; and where he managed, by cutting the rank grass
+in the summer time, to support several cows, which afforded the
+chief subsistence of his family. He had also managed, with the
+assistance of his devoted partner, Judy, to clear a few acres of
+poor rocky land on the sloping margin of the level meadow, which
+he planted year after year with potatoes. Scattered over this
+small clearing, here and there might be seen the but-end of some
+half-burnt hemlock tree, which had escaped the general combustion
+of the log heaps, and now formed a striking contrast to the white
+limestone rocks which showed their rounded surfaces above the meagre
+soil.
+
+The "ould dhragoon" seemed, moreover, to have some taste for the
+picturesque, and by way of ornament, had left standing sundry tall
+pines and hemlocks neatly girdled to destroy their foliage, the
+shade of which would have been detrimental to the "blessed praties"
+which he designed to grow in his clearing, but which, in the
+meantime, like martyrs at the stake, stretched their naked branches
+imploringly towards the smiling heavens. As he was a kind of hermit,
+from choice, and far removed from other settlers, whose assistance
+is so necessary in new settlements, old Simpson was compelled to
+resort to the most extraordinary contrivances while clearing his
+land. Thus, after felling the trees, instead of chopping them into
+lengths, for the purpose of facilitating the operation of piling
+them preparatory to burning, which would have cost him too much
+labour, he resorted to the practice of "niggering," as it is called;
+which is simply laying light pieces of round timber across the
+trunks of the trees, and setting fire to them at the point of
+contact, by which means the trees are slowly burned through.
+
+It was while busily engaged in this interesting operation that I
+first became acquainted with the subject of this sketch.
+
+Some twenty or thirty little fires were burning briskly in different
+parts of the blackened field, and the old fellow was watching the
+slow progress of his silent "niggers," and replacing them from time
+to time as they smouldered away. After threading my way among the
+uncouth logs, blazing and smoking in all directions, I encountered
+the old man, attired in an old hood, or bonnet, of his wife Judy,
+with his patched canvas trousers rolled up to his knees; one foot
+bare, and the other furnished with an old boot, which from its
+appearance had once belonged to some more aristocratic foot. His
+person was long, straight, and sinewy, and there was a light
+springiness and elasticity in his step which would have suited a
+younger man, as he skipped along with a long handspike over his
+shoulder. He was singing a stave from the "Enniskillen Dragoon"
+when I came up with him.
+
+  "With his silver-mounted pistols, and his long carbine,
+  Long life to the brave Inniskillen dragoon."
+
+His face would have been one of the most lugubrious imaginable, with
+his long, tangled hair hanging confusedly over it, in a manner which
+has been happily compared to a "bewitched haystack," had it not been
+for a certain humorous twitch or convulsive movement, which affected
+one side of his countenance, whenever any droll idea passed
+through his mind. It was with a twitch of this kind, and a certain
+indescribable twinkle of his somewhat melancholy eye, as he seemed
+intuitively to form a hasty conception of the oddity of his
+appearance to a stranger unused to the bush, that he welcomed me
+to his clearing. He instantly threw down his handspike, and leaving
+his "niggers" to finish their work at their leisure, insisted on our
+going to his house to get something to drink.
+
+On the way, I explained to him the object of my visit, which was
+to mark out, or "blaze," the sidelines of a lot of land I had
+received as part of a military grant, immediately adjoining the
+beaver-meadow, and I asked him to accompany me, as he was well
+acquainted with the different lots.
+
+"Och! by all manner of manes, and welcome; the dhevil a foot of the
+way but I know as well as my own clearing; but come into the house,
+and get a dhrink of milk, an' a bite of bread an' butther, for
+sorrow a dhrop of the whiskey has crossed my teeth for the last
+month; an' it's but poor intertainment for man or baste I can offer
+you, but shure you're heartily welcome."
+
+The precincts of the homestead were divided and subdivided into an
+infinity of enclosures, of all shapes and sizes. The outer enclosure
+was a bush fence, formed of trees felled on each other in a row, and
+the gaps filled up with brushwood. There was a large gate, swung
+with wooden hinges, and a wooden latch to fasten it; the smaller
+enclosures were made with round poles, tied together with bark.
+The house was of the rudest description of "shanty," with hollowed
+basswood logs, fitting into each other somewhat in the manner of
+tiles for a roof, instead of shingles. No iron was to be seen, in
+the absence of which there was plenty of leathern hinges, wooden
+latches for locks, and bark-strings instead of nails. There was
+a large fireplace at one end of the shanty, with a chimney,
+constructed of split laths, plastered with a mixture of clay and
+cowdung. As for windows, these were luxuries which could well be
+dispensed with; the open door was an excellent substitute for them
+in the daytime, and at night none were required. When I ventured
+to object to this arrangement, that he would have to keep the door
+shut in the winter time, the old man replied, in the style so
+characteristic of his country, "Shure it will be time enough to
+think of that when the could weather sets in." Everything about
+the house wore a Robinson Crusoe aspect, and though there was not
+any appearance of original plan or foresight, there was no lack
+of ingenious contrivance to meet every want as it arose.
+
+Judy dropped us a low curtsey as we entered, which was followed by
+a similar compliment from a stout girl of twelve, and two or three
+more of the children, who all seemed to share the pleasure of their
+parents in receiving strangers in their unpretending tenement. Many
+were the apologies that poor Judy offered for the homely cheer she
+furnished us, and great was her delight at the notice we took of the
+"childher." She set little Biddy, who was the pride of her heart, to
+reading the Bible; and she took down a curious machine from a shelf,
+which she had "conthrived out of her own head," as she said, for
+teaching the children to read. This was a flat box, or frame, filled
+with sand, which saved paper, pens, and ink. Poor Judy had evidently
+seen better days, but, with a humble and contented spirit, she
+blessed God for the food and scanty raiment their labour afforded
+them. Her only sorrow was the want of "idication" for the children.
+
+She would have told us a long story about her trials and sufferings,
+before they had attained their present comparative comfort and
+independence, but, as we had a tedious scramble before us, through
+cedar-swamps, beaver-meadows, and piny ridges, the "ould dhragoon"
+cut her short, and we straightway started on our toilsome journey.
+
+Simpson, in spite of a certain dash of melancholy in his
+composition, was one of those happy fellows of the "light heart
+and thin pair of breeches" school, who, when they meet with
+difficulty or misfortune, never stop to measure its dimensions,
+but hold in their breath, and run lightly over, as in crossing
+a bog, where to stand still is to sink.
+
+Off, then, we went, with the "ould dhragoon" skipping and bounding
+on before us, over fallen trees and mossy rocks; now ducking under
+the low, tangled branches of the white cedar, then carefully
+piloting us along rotten logs, covered with green moss, to save us
+from the discomfort of wet feet. All this time he still kept one of
+his feet safely ensconced in the boot, while the other seemed to
+luxuriate in the water, as if there was something amphibious in
+his nature.
+
+We soon reached the beaver-meadow, which extended two or three
+miles; sometimes contracting into a narrow gorge, between the wooded
+heights, then spreading out again into an ample field of verdure,
+and presenting everywhere the same unvarying level surface,
+surrounded with rising grounds, covered with the dense unbroken
+forest, as if its surface had formerly been covered by the waters of
+a lake; which in all probability has been the case at some not very
+remote period. In many places the meadow was so wet that it required
+a very large share of faith to support us in passing over its
+surface; but our friend, the dragoon, soon brought us safe through
+all dangers to a deep ditch, which he had dug to carry off the
+superfluous water from the part of the meadow which he owned. When
+we had obtained firm footing on the opposite side, we sat down to
+rest ourselves before commencing the operation of "blazing," or
+marking the trees with our axes, along the side-line of my lot. Here
+the mystery of the boot was explained. Simpson very coolly took it
+off from the hitherto favoured foot, and drew it on the other.
+
+He was not a bit ashamed of his poverty, and candidly owned that
+this was the only boot he possessed, and he was desirous of giving
+each of his feet fair play.
+
+Nearly the whole day was occupied in completing our job, in which
+the "dhragoon" assisted us, with the most hearty good-will,
+enlivening us with his inexhaustible fund of good-humour and
+drollery. It was nearly dark when we got back to his "shanty," where
+the kind-hearted Judy was preparing a huge pot of potatoes and other
+"combustibles," as Simpson called the other eatables, for our
+entertainment.
+
+Previous to starting on our surveying expedition, we had observed
+Judy very earnestly giving some important instructions to one of her
+little boys, on whom she seemed to be most seriously impressing the
+necessity of using the utmost diligence. The happy contentment which
+now beamed in poor Judy's still comely countenance bespoke the
+success of the messenger. She could not "call up spirits from the
+vasty deep" of the cellar, but she had procured some whiskey from
+her next-door neighbour--some five or six miles off, and there it
+stood somewhat ostentatiously on the table in a "greybeard," with a
+"corn cob," or ear of Indian corn, stripped of its grain, for a
+cork, smiling most benevolently on the family circle, and looking
+a hundred welcomes to the strangers.
+
+An indescribably enlivening influence seemed to exude from every
+pore of that homely earthen vessel, diffusing mirth and good-humour
+in all directions. The old man jumped and danced about on the rough
+floor of the "shanty"; and the children sat giggling and nudging
+each other in a corner, casting a timid look, from time to time, at
+their mother, for fear she might check them for being "over bould."
+
+"Is it crazy ye are intirely, ye ould omadhawn!" said Judy, whose
+notions of propriety were somewhat shocked with the undignified
+levity of her partner; "the likes of you I never seed; ye are too
+foolidge intirely. Have done now wid your diviltries, and set the
+stools for the gintlemens, while I get the supper for yes."
+
+Our plentiful though homely meal was soon discussed, for hunger,
+like a good conscience, can laugh at luxury; and the "greybeard"
+made its appearance, with the usual accompaniments of hot water
+and maple sugar, which Judy had scraped from the cake, and placed
+in a saucer on the table before us.
+
+The "ould dhragoon," despising his wife's admonitions, gave way
+freely to his feelings, and knew no bounds to his hilarity. He
+laughed and joked, and sang snatches of old songs picked up in
+the course of his service at home and abroad. At length Judy,
+who looked on him as a "raal janius," begged him to "sing the
+gintlemens the song he made when he first came to the counthry."
+Of course we ardently seconded the motion, and nothing loth, the
+old man, throwing himself back on his stool, and stretching out
+his long neck, poured forth the following ditty, with which I
+shall conclude my hasty sketch of the "ould dhragoon":--
+
+
+  Och! it's here I'm intirely continted,
+    In the wild woods of swate 'Mericay;
+  God's blessing on him that invinted
+    Big ships for our crossing the say!
+
+  Here praties grow bigger nor turnips;
+    And though cruel hard is our work,
+  In ould Ireland we'd nothing but praties,
+    But here we have praties and pork.
+
+  I live on the banks of a meadow,
+    Now see that my maning you take;
+  It bates all the bogs of ould Ireland--
+    Six months in the year it's a lake.
+
+  Bad luck to the beavers that dammed it!
+    I wish them all kilt for their pains;
+  For shure though the craters are clever,
+    Tis sartin they've drown'd my domains.
+
+  I've built a log hut of the timber
+    That grows on my charmin' estate;
+  And an illigant root-house erected,
+    Just facing the front of my gate.
+
+  And I've made me an illigant pig-sty,
+    Well litter'd wid straw and wid hay;
+  And it's there, free from noise of the chilther,
+    I sleep in the heat of the day.
+
+  It's there I'm intirely at aise, sir,
+    And enjoy all the comforts of home;
+  I stretch out my legs as I plase, sir,
+    And dhrame of the pleasures to come.
+
+  Shure, it's pleasant to hear the frogs croakin',
+    When the sun's going down in the sky,
+  And my Judy sits quietly smokin'
+    While the praties are boil'd till they're dhry.
+
+  Och! thin, if you love indepindence,
+    And have money your passage to pay,
+  You must quit the ould counthry intirely,
+    And start in the middle of May.
+
+J.W.D.M.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+DISAPPOINTED HOPES
+
+
+
+  Stern Disappointment, in thy iron grasp
+  The soul lies stricken. So the timid deer,
+  Who feels the foul fangs of the felon wolf
+  Clench'd in his throat, grown desperate for life,
+  Turns on his foes, and battles with the fate
+  That hems him in--and only yields in death.
+
+
+The summer of '35 was very wet; a circumstance so unusual in Canada
+that I have seen no season like it during my sojourn in the country.
+Our wheat crop promised to be both excellent and abundant; and the
+clearing and seeding sixteen acres, one way or another, had cost us
+more than fifty pounds, still, we hoped to realise something
+handsome by the sale of the produce; and, as far as appearances
+went, all looked fair. The rain commenced about a week before the
+crop was fit for the sickle, and from that time until nearly the end
+of September was a mere succession of thunder showers; days of
+intense heat, succeeded by floods of rain. Our fine crop shared the
+fate of all other fine crops in the country; it was totally spoiled;
+the wheat grew in the sheaf, and we could scarcely save enough to
+supply us with bad, sticky bread; the rest was exchanged at the
+distillery for whiskey, which was the only produce which could be
+obtained for it. The storekeepers would not look at it, or give
+either money or goods for such a damaged article.
+
+My husband and I had worked hard in the field; it was the first time
+I had ever tried my hand at field-labour, but our ready money was
+exhausted, and the steam-boat stock had not paid us one farthing; we
+could not hire, and there was no help for it. I had a hard struggle
+with my pride before I would consent to render the least assistance
+on the farm, but reflection convinced me that I was wrong--that
+Providence had placed me in a situation where I was called upon to
+work--that it was not only my duty to obey that call, but to exert
+myself to the utmost to assist my husband, and help to maintain my
+family.
+
+Ah, glorious poverty! thou art a hard taskmaster, but in thy
+soul-ennobling school, I have received more godlike lessons, have
+learned more sublime truths, than ever I acquired in the smooth
+highways of the world!
+
+The independent in soul can rise above the seeming disgrace of
+poverty, and hold fast their integrity, in defiance of the world and
+its selfish and unwise maxims. To them, no labour is too great, no
+trial too severe; they will unflinchingly exert every faculty of
+mind and body, before they will submit to become a burden to others.
+
+The misfortunes that now crowded upon us were the result of no
+misconduct or extravagance on our part, but arose out of
+circumstances which we could not avert nor control. Finding too late
+the error into which we had fallen, in suffering ourselves to be
+cajoled and plundered out of our property by interested speculators,
+we braced our minds to bear the worst, and determined to meet our
+difficulties calmly and firmly, nor suffer our spirits to sink under
+calamities which energy and industry might eventually repair. Having
+once come to this resolution, we cheerfully shared together the
+labours of the field. One in heart and purpose, we dared remain true
+to ourselves, true to our high destiny as immortal creatures, in our
+conflict with temporal and physical wants.
+
+We found that manual toil, however distasteful to those unaccustomed
+to it, was not after all such a dreadful hardship; that the
+wilderness was not without its rose, the hard face of poverty
+without its smile. If we occasionally suffered severe pain, we as
+often experienced great pleasure, and I have contemplated a
+well-hoed ridge of potatoes on that bush farm, with as much delight
+as in years long past I had experienced in examining a fine painting
+in some well-appointed drawing-room.
+
+I can now look back with calm thankfulness on that long period of
+trial and exertion--with thankfulness that the dark clouds that hung
+over us, threatening to blot us from existence, when they did burst
+upon us, were full of blessings. When our situation appeared
+perfectly desperate, then were we on the threshold of a new state
+of things, which was born out of that very distress.
+
+In order to more fully illustrate the necessity of a perfect and
+child-like reliance upon the mercies of God--who, I most firmly
+believe, never deserts those who have placed their trust in Him--I
+will give a brief sketch of our lives during the years 1836 and
+1837.
+
+Still confidently expecting to realise an income, however small,
+from the steam-boat stock, we had involved ourselves considerably in
+debt, in order to pay our servants and obtain the common necessaries
+of life; and we owed a large sum to two Englishmen in Dummer, for
+clearing ten more acres upon the farm. Our utter inability to meet
+these demands weighed very heavily upon my husband's mind. All
+superfluities in the way of groceries were now given up, and we
+were compelled to rest satisfied upon the produce of the farm. Milk,
+bread, and potatoes during the summer became our chief, and often
+for months, our only fare. As to tea and sugar, they were luxuries
+we could not think of, although I missed the tea very much; we rang
+the changes upon peppermint and sage, taking the one herb at our
+breakfast, the other at our tea, until I found an excellent
+substitute for both in the root of the dandelion.
+
+The first year we came to this country, I met with an account of
+dandelion coffee, published in the New York Albion, given by a Dr.
+Harrison, of Edinburgh, who earnestly recommended it as an article
+of general use.
+
+"It possesses," he says, "all the fine flavour and exhilarating
+properties of coffee, without any of its deleterious effects. The
+plant being of a soporific nature, the coffee made from it when
+drank at night produces a tendency to sleep, instead of exciting
+wakefulness, and may be safely used as a cheap and wholesome
+substitute for the Arabian berry, being equal in substance and
+flavour to the best Mocha coffee."
+
+I was much struck with this paragraph at the time, and for several
+years felt a great inclination to try the Doctor's coffee; but
+something or other always came in the way, and it was put off till
+another opportunity. During the fall of '35, I was assisting my
+husband in taking up a crop of potatoes in the field, and observing
+a vast number of fine dandelion roots among the potatoes, it brought
+the dandelion coffee back to my memory, and I determined to try some
+for our supper. Without saying anything to my husband, I threw aside
+some of the roots, and when we left work, collecting a sufficient
+quantity for the experiment, I carefully washed the roots quite
+clean, without depriving them of the fine brown skin which covers
+them, and which contains the aromatic flavour, which so nearly
+resembles coffee that it is difficult to distinguish it from it
+while roasting.
+
+I cut my roots into small pieces, the size of a kidney-bean, and
+roasted them on an iron baking-pan in the stove-oven, until they
+were as brown and crisp as coffee. I then ground and transferred
+a small cupful of the powder to the coffee-pot, pouring upon it
+scalding water, and boiling it for a few minutes briskly over the
+fire. The result was beyond my expectations. The coffee proved
+excellent--far superior to the common coffee we procured at the
+stores.
+
+To persons residing in the bush, and to whom tea and coffee are
+very expensive articles of luxury, the knowledge of this valuable
+property of a plant scattered so abundantly through their fields,
+would prove highly beneficial. For years we used no other article;
+and my Indian friends who frequented the house gladly adopted the
+root, and made me show them the whole process of manufacturing it
+into coffee.
+
+Experience taught me that the root of the dandelion is not so good
+when applied to this purpose in the spring as it is in the fall.
+I tried it in the spring, but the juice of the plant, having
+contributed to the production of leaves and flowers, was weak, and
+destitute of the fine bitter flavour so peculiar to coffee. The
+time of gathering the potato crop is the best suited for collecting
+and drying the roots of the dandelion; and as they always abound in
+the same hills, both may be accomplished at the same time. Those
+who want to keep a quantity for winter use may wash and cut up the
+roots, and dry them on boards in the sun. They will keep for years,
+and can be roasted when required.
+
+Few of our colonists are acquainted with the many uses to which this
+neglected but most valuable plant may be applied. I will point out a
+few which have come under my own observation, convinced as I am that
+the time will come when this hardy weed, with its golden flowers and
+curious seed-vessels, which form a constant plaything to the little
+children rolling about and luxuriating among the grass, in the sunny
+month of May, will be transplanted into our gardens, and tended with
+due care.
+
+The dandelion planted in trenches, and blanched to a beautiful
+cream-colour with straw, makes an excellent salad, quite equal
+to endive, and is more hardy and requires less care.
+
+In many parts of the United States, particularly in new districts
+where vegetables are scarce, it is used early in the spring, and
+boiled with pork as a substitute for cabbage. During our residence
+in the bush we found it, in the early part of May, a great addition
+to the dinner-table. In the township of Dummer, the settlers boil
+the tops, and add hops to the liquor, which they ferment, and from
+which they obtain excellent beer. I have never tasted this simple
+beverage, but I have been told by those who use it that it is equal
+to the table-beer used at home.
+
+Necessity has truly been termed the mother of invention, for I
+contrived to manufacture a variety of dishes almost out of nothing,
+while living in her school. When entirely destitute of animal food,
+the different variety of squirrels supplied us with pies, stews, and
+roasts. Our barn stood at the top of the hill near the bush, and in
+a trap set for such "small deer," we often caught from ten to twelve
+a day.
+
+The flesh of the black squirrel is equal to that of the rabbit, and
+the red, and even the little chipmunk, is palatable when nicely
+cooked. But from the lake, during the summer, we derived the larger
+portion of our food. The children called this piece of water
+"Mamma's pantry"; and many a good meal has the munificent Father
+given to his poor dependent children from its well-stored depths.
+Moodie and I used to rise at daybreak, and fish for an hour after
+sunrise, when we returned, he to the field, and I to dress the
+little ones, clean up the house, assist with the milk, and prepare
+the breakfast.
+
+Oh, how I enjoyed these excursions on the lake; the very idea of our
+dinner depending upon our success added double zest to our sport!
+
+One morning we started as usual before sunrise; a thick mist still
+hung like a fine veil upon the water when we pushed off, and
+anchored at our accustomed place. Just as the sun rose, and the haze
+parted and drew up like a golden sheet of transparent gauze, through
+which the dark woods loomed out like giants, a noble buck dashed
+into the water, followed by four Indian hounds.
+
+We then discovered a canoe, full of Indians, just below the rapids,
+and another not many yards from us, that had been concealed by the
+fog. It was a noble sight, that gallant deer exerting all his
+energy, and stemming the water with such matchless grace, his
+branching horns held proudly aloft, his broad nostrils distended,
+and his fine eye fixed intently upon the opposite shore. Several
+rifle-balls whizzed past him, the dogs followed hard upon his track,
+but my very heart leaped for joy when, in spite of all his foes, his
+glossy hoofs spurned the opposite bank and he plunged headlong into
+the forest.
+
+My beloved partner was most skilful in trolling for bass and
+maskinonge. His line he generally fastened to the paddle, and the
+motion of the oar gave a life-like vibration to the queer-looking
+mice and dragon-flies I used to manufacture from squirrel fur, or
+scarlet and white cloth, to tempt the finny wanderers of the wave.
+
+When too busy himself to fish for our meals, little Katie and I
+ventured out alone in the canoe, which we anchored in any promising
+fishing spot, by fastening a harrow tooth to a piece of rope, and
+letting it drop from the side of little vessel. By the time she was
+five years old, my little mermaid could both steer and paddle the
+light vessel, and catch small fish, which were useful for soup.
+
+During the winter of '36, we experienced many privations. The
+ruffian squatter P---, from Clear Lake, drove from the barn a fine
+young bull we were rearing, and for several weeks all trace of the
+animal was lost. We had almost forgotten the existence of poor
+Whiskey, when a neighbor called and told Moodie that his yearling
+was at P---'s, and that he would advise him to get it back as soon
+as possible.
+
+Moodie had to take some wheat to Y---'s mill, and as the squatter
+lived only a mile further, he called at his house; and there, sure
+enough, he found the lost animal. With the greatest difficulty he
+succeeded in regaining his property, but not without many threats of
+vengeance from the parties who had stolen it. To these he paid no
+regard; but a few days after, six fat hogs, on which we depended for
+all our winter store of animal food, were driven into the lake, and
+destroyed.
+
+The death of these animals deprived us of three barrels of pork, and
+half-starved us through the winter. That winter of '36, how heavily
+it wore away! The grown flour, frosted potatoes, and scant quantity
+of animal food rendered us all weak, and the children suffered much
+from the ague.
+
+One day, just before the snow fell, Moodie had gone to Peterborough
+for letters; our servant was sick in bed with the ague, and I was
+nursing my little boy, Dunbar, who was shaking with the cold fit of
+his miserable fever, when Jacob put his honest, round, rosy face in
+at the door.
+
+"Give me the master's gun, ma'am; there's a big buck feeding on the
+rice-bed near the island."
+
+I took down the gun, saying, "Jacob, you have no chance; there is
+but one charge of buck-shot in the house."
+
+"One chance is better nor none," said Jacob, as he commenced loading
+the gun. "Who knows what may happen to oie? Mayhap oie may chance to
+kill 'un; and you and the measter and the wee bairns may have zummut
+zavory for zupper yet."
+
+Away walked Jacob with Moodie's "Manton" over his shoulder. A few
+minutes after, I heard the report of the gun, but never expected to
+see anything of the game; when Jacob suddenly bounced into the room,
+half-wild with delight.
+
+"Thae beast iz dead az a door-nail. Zure, how the measter will
+laugh when he zees the fine buck that oie a'zhot."
+
+"And have you really shot him?"
+
+"Come and zee! 'Tis worth your while to walk down to the landing
+to look at 'un."
+
+Jacob got a rope, and I followed him to the landing, where, sure
+enough, lay a fine buck, fastened in tow of the canoe. Jacob soon
+secured him by the hind legs to the rope he had brought; and, with
+our united efforts, we at last succeeded in dragging our prize home.
+All the time he was engaged in taking off the skin, Jacob was
+anticipating the feast that we were to have; and the good fellow
+chuckled with delight when he hung the carcass quite close to the
+kitchen door, that his "measter" might run against it when he came
+home at night. This event actually took place. When Moodie opened
+the door, he struck his head against the dead deer.
+
+"What have you got here?"
+
+"A fine buck, zur," said Jacob, bringing forward the light, and
+holding it up in such a manner that all the merits of the prize
+could be seen at a glance.
+
+"A fine one, indeed! How did we come by it?"
+
+"It was zhot by oie," said Jacob, rubbing his hands in a sort
+of ecstacy. "Thae beast iz the first oie ever zhot in my life.
+He! he! he!"
+
+"You shot that fine deer, Jacob?--and there was only one charge
+in the gun! Well done; you must have taken good aim."
+
+"Why, zur, oie took no aim at all. Oie just pointed the gun at
+the deer, and zhut my oeys an let fly at 'un. 'Twas Providence
+kill'd 'un, not oie."
+
+"I believe you," said Moodie; "Providence has hitherto watched over
+us and kept us from actual starvation."
+
+The flesh of the deer, and the good broth that I was able to obtain
+from it, greatly assisted in restoring our sick to health; but long
+before that severe winter terminated we were again out of food. Mrs.
+--- had given to Katie, in the fall, a very pretty little pig, which
+she had named Spot. The animal was a great favorite with Jacob and
+the children, and he always received his food from their hands at
+the door, and followed them all over the place like a dog. We had a
+noble hound called Hector, between whom and the pet pig there
+existed the most tender friendship. Spot always shared with Hector
+the hollow log which served him for a kennel, and we often laughed
+to see Hector lead Spot round the clearing by his ear. After bearing
+the want of animal food until our souls sickened at the bad potatoes
+and grown flour bread, we began--that is the elders of the
+family--to cast very hungry eyes upon Spot; but no one liked to
+propose having him killed. At last Jacob spoke his mind upon the
+subject.
+
+"Oi've heard, zur, that the Jews never eat pork; but we Christians
+dooz, and are right glad ov the chance. Now, zur, oi've been
+thinking that 'tis no manner ov use our keeping that beast Spot.
+If he wor a zow, now, there might be zome zenze in the thing; and
+we all feel weak for a morzel of meat. S'poze I kill him? He won't
+make a bad piece of pork."
+
+Moodie seconded the move; and, in spite of the tears and prayers of
+Katie, her uncouth pet was sacrificed to the general wants of the
+family; but there were two members of the house who disdained to
+eat a morsel of the victim; poor Katie and the dog Hector. At the
+self-denial of the first I did not at all wonder, for she was a
+child full of sensibility and warm affections, but the attachment of
+the brute creature to his old playmate filled us all with surprise.
+Jacob first drew our attention to the strange fact.
+
+"That dog," he said, as we were passing through the kitchen while
+he was at dinner, "do teach uz Christians a lesson how to treat our
+friends. Why, zur, he'll not eat a morzel of Spot. Oie have tried
+and tempted him in all manner ov ways, and he only do zneer and turn
+up his nose when oie hould him a bit to taste." He offered the
+animal a rib of the fresh pork as he finished speaking, and the dog
+turned away with an expression of aversion, and on a repetition of
+the act, walked from the table.
+
+Human affection could scarcely have surpassed the love felt by this
+poor animal for his playfellow. His attachment to Spot, that could
+overcome the pangs of hunger--for, like the rest of us, he was
+half-starved--must have been strong indeed.
+
+Jacob's attachment to us, in its simplicity and fidelity, greatly
+resembled that of the dog; and sometimes, like the dog, he would
+push himself in where he was not wanted, and gratuitously give his
+advice, and make remarks which were not required.
+
+Mr. K---, from Cork, was asking Moodie many questions about the
+partidges of the country; and, among other things, he wanted to know
+by what token you were able to discover their favourite haunts.
+Before Moodie could answer this last query a voice responded,
+through a large crack in the boarded wall which separated us from
+the kitchen, "They always bides where they's drum." This
+announcement was received with a burst of laughter that greatly
+disconcerted the natural philosopher in the kitchen.
+
+On the 21st of May of this year, my second son, Donald, was born.
+The poor fellow came in hard times. The cows had not calved, and our
+bill of fare, now minus the deer and Spot, only consisted of bad
+potatoes and still worse bread. I was rendered so weak by want of
+proper nourishment that my dear husband, for my sake, overcame his
+aversion to borrowing, and procured a quarter of mutton from a
+friend. This, with kindly presents from neighbours--often as badly
+off as ourselves--a loin of a young bear, and a basket, containing a
+loaf of bread, some tea, some fresh butter, and oatmeal, went far to
+save my life.
+
+Shortly after my recovery, Jacob--the faithful, good Jacob--was
+obliged to leave us, for we could no longer afford to pay wages.
+What was owing to him had to be settled by sacrificing our best cow,
+and a great many valuable articles of clothing from my husband's
+wardrobe. Nothing is more distressing than being obliged to part
+with articles of dress which you know that you cannot replace.
+Almost all my clothes had been appropriated to the payment of wages,
+or to obtain garments for the children, excepting my wedding dress,
+and the beautiful baby-linen which had been made by the hands of
+dear and affectionate friends for my first-born. These were now
+exchanged for coarse, warm flannels, to shield her from the cold.
+
+Moodie and Jacob had chopped eight acres during the winter, but
+these had to be burnt off and logged-up before we could put in a
+crop of wheat for the ensuing fall. Had we been able to retain
+this industrious, kindly English lad, this would have been soon
+accomplished; but his wages, at the rate of thirty pounds per annum,
+were now utterly beyond our means.
+
+Jacob had formed an attachment to my pretty maid, Mary Pine, and
+before going to the Southern States, to join an uncle who resided
+in Louisville, an opulent tradesman, who had promised to teach him
+his business, Jacob thought it as well to declare himself. The
+declaration took place on a log of wood near the back-door, and from
+my chamber window I could both hear and see the parties, without
+being myself observed. Mary was seated very demurely at one end of
+the log, twisting the strings of her checked apron, and the loving
+Jacob was busily whittling the other extremity of their rustic seat.
+There was a long silence. Mary stole a look at Jacob, and he heaved
+a tremendous sigh, something between a yawn and a groan. "Meary,"
+he said, "I must go."
+
+"I knew that afore," returned the girl.
+
+"I had zummat to zay to you, Meary. Do you think you will miss oie?"
+(looking very affectionately, and twitching nearer.)
+
+"What put that into your head, Jacob?" This was said very demurely.
+
+"Oie thowt, may be, Meary, that your feelings might be zummat loike
+my own. I feel zore about the heart, Meary, and it's all com' of
+parting with you. Don't you feel queerish, too?"
+
+"Can't say that I do, Jacob. I shall soon see you again."
+(pulling violently at her apron-string.)
+
+"Meary, oi'm afear'd you don't feel like oie."
+
+"P'r'aps not--women can't feel like men. I'm sorry that you are
+going, Jacob, for you have been very kind and obliging, and I wish
+you well."
+
+"Meary," cried Jacob, growing desperate at her coyness, and getting
+quite close up to her, "will you marry oie? Say yeez or noa?"
+
+This was coming close to the point. Mary drew farther from him, and
+turned her head away.
+
+"Meary," said Jacob, seizing upon the hand that held the
+apron-string. "Do you think you can better yoursel'? If not--why,
+oie'm your man. Now, do just turn about your head and answer oie."
+
+The girl turned round, and gave him a quick, shy glance, then burst
+out into a simpering laugh.
+
+"Meary, will you take oie?" (jogging her elbow.)
+
+"I will," cried the girl, jumping up from the log, and running into
+the house.
+
+"Well, that bargain's made," said the lover, rubbing his hands;
+"and now oie'll go and bid measter and missus good-buoy."
+
+The poor fellow's eyes were full of tears, for the children, who
+loved him very much, clung, crying, about his knees. "God bless
+yees all," sobbed the kind-hearted creature. "Doan't forget Jacob,
+for he'll neaver forget you. Good-buoy!"
+
+Then turning to Mary, he threw his arms round her neck, and bestowed
+upon her fair cheek the most audible kiss I ever heard.
+
+"And doan't you forget me, Meary. In two years oie will be back to
+marry you; and may be oie may come back a rich man."
+
+Mary, who was an exceedingly pretty girl, shed some tears at the
+parting; but in a few days she was as gay as ever, and listening
+with great attention to the praises bestowed upon her beauty by an
+old bachelor, who was her senior by five-and-twenty years. But then
+he had a good farm, a saddle mare, and plenty of stock, and was
+reputed to have saved money. The saddle mare seemed to have great
+weight in old Ralph T---h's wooing, and I used laughingly to remind
+Mary of her absent lover, and beg her not to marry Ralph T---h's
+mare.
+
+
+THE CANADIAN HUNTER'S SONG
+
+  The northern lights are flashing,
+    On the rapids' restless flow;
+  And o'er the wild waves dashing,
+    Swift darts the light canoe.
+      The merry hunters come.
+        "What cheer?--what cheer?"--
+        "We've slain the deer!"
+      "Hurrah!--You're welcome home!"
+
+  The blithesome horn is sounding,
+    And the woodman's loud halloo;
+  And joyous steps are bounding
+    To meet the birch canoe.
+      "Hurrah!--The hunters come."
+        And the woods ring out
+        To their merry shout
+      As they drag the dun deer home!
+
+  The hearth is brightly burning,
+    The rustic board is spread;
+  To greet the sire returning
+    The children leave their bed.
+      With laugh and shout they come--
+        That merry band--
+        To grasp his hand,
+      And bid him welcome home!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE LITTLE STUMPY MAN
+
+
+
+  There was a little man--
+  I'll sketch him if I can,
+  For he clung to mine and me
+  Like the old man of the sea;
+  And in spite of taunt and scoff
+  We could not pitch him off,
+  For the cross-grained, waspish elf
+  Cared for no one but himself.
+
+
+Before I dismiss for ever the troubles and sorrows of 1836, I
+would fain introduce to the notice of my readers some of the odd
+characters with whom we became acquainted during that period. The
+first that starts vividly to my recollection is the picture of a
+short, stumpy, thickset man--a British sailor, too--who came to stay
+one night under our roof, and took quiet possession of his quarters
+for nine months, and whom we are obliged to tolerate from the simple
+fact that we could not get rid of him.
+
+During the fall, Moodie had met this individual (whom I will call
+Mr. Malcolm) in the mail-coach, going up to Toronto. Amused with his
+eccentric and blunt manners, and finding him a shrewd, clever fellow
+in conversation, Moodie told him that if ever he came into his part
+of the world he should be glad to renew their acquaintance. And so
+they parted, with mutual good-will, as men often part who have
+travelled a long journey in good fellowship together, without
+thinking it probable they should ever meet again.
+
+The sugar season had just commenced with the spring thaw; Jacob had
+tapped a few trees in order to obtain sap to make molasses for the
+children, when his plans were frustrated by the illness of my
+husband, who was again attacked with the ague. Towards the close of
+a wet, sloppy day, while Jacob was in the wood, chopping, and our
+servant gone to my sister, who was ill, to help to wash, as I was
+busy baking bread for tea, my attention was aroused by a violent
+knocking at the door, and the furious barking of our dog, Hector. I
+ran to open it, when I found Hector's teeth clenched in the trousers
+of a little, dark, thickset man, who said in a gruff voice--
+
+"Call off your dog. What the devil do you keep such an infernal
+brute about the house for? Is it to bite people who come to see you?"
+
+Hector was the best-behaved, best-tempered animal in the world; he
+might have been called a gentlemanly dog. So little was there of the
+unmannerly puppy in his behaviour, that I was perfectly astonished
+at his ungracious conduct. I caught him by the collar, and not
+without some difficulty, succeeded in dragging him off.
+
+"Is Captain Moodie within?" said the stranger.
+
+"He is, sir. But he is ill in bed--too ill to be seen."
+
+"Tell him a friend" (he laid a strong stress upon the last word),
+"a particular friend must speak to him."
+
+I now turned my eyes to the face of the speaker with some curiosity.
+I had taken him for a mechanic, from his dirty, slovenly appearance;
+and his physiognomy was so unpleasant that I did not credit his
+assertion that he was a friend of my husband, for I was certain
+that no man who possessed such a forbidding aspect could be regarded
+by Moodie as a friend. I was about to deliver his message, but the
+moment I let go Hector's collar, the dog was at him again.
+
+"Don't strike him with your stick," I cried, throwing my arms over
+the faithful creature. "He is a powerful animal, and if you provoke
+him, he will kill you."
+
+I at last succeeded in coaxing Hector into the girl's room, where I
+shut him up, while the stranger came into the kitchen, and walked to
+the fire to dry his wet clothes.
+
+I immediately went into the parlour, where Moodie was lying upon a
+bed near the stove, to deliver the stranger's message; but before I
+could say a word, he dashed in after me, and going up to the bed,
+held out his broad, coarse hand, with "How are you, Mr. Moodie? You
+see I have accepted your kind invitation sooner than either you or
+I expected. If you will give me house-room for the night, I shall
+be obliged to you."
+
+This was said in a low, mysterious voice; and Moodie, who was still
+struggling with the hot fit of his disorder, and whose senses were
+not a little confused, stared at him with a look of vague
+bewilderment. The countenance of the stranger grew dark.
+
+"You cannot have forgotten me--my name is Malcolm."
+
+"Yes, sir; I remember you now," said the invalid holding out his
+burning, feverish hand. "To my home, such as it is, you are
+welcome."
+
+I stood by in wondering astonishment, looking from one to the other,
+as I had no recollection of ever hearing my husband mention the name
+of the stranger; but as he had invited him to share our hospitality,
+I did my best to make him welcome though in what manner he was to
+be accommodated puzzled me not a little. I placed the arm-chair by
+the fire, and told him that I would prepare tea for him as soon as
+I could.
+
+"It may be as well to tell you, Mrs. Moodie," said he sulkily, for
+he was evidently displeased by my husband's want of recognition on
+his first entrance, "that I have had no dinner."
+
+I signed to myself, for I well knew that our larder boasted of
+no dainties; and from the animal expression of our guest's face,
+I rightly judged that he was fond of good living.
+
+By the time I had fried a rasher of salt pork, and made a pot of
+dandelion coffee, the bread I had been preparing was baked; but
+grown flour will not make light bread, and it was unusually heavy.
+For the first time I felt heartily ashamed of our humble fare. I was
+sure that he for whom it was provided was not one to pass it over in
+benevolent silence. "He might be a gentleman," I thought, "but he
+does not look like one;" and a confused idea of who he was, and
+where Moodie had met him, began to float through my mind. I did not
+like the appearance of the man, but I consoled myself that he was
+only to stay for one night, and I could give up my bed for that one
+night, and sleep on a bed on the floor by my sick husband. When I
+re-entered the parlour to cover the table, I found Moodie fallen
+asleep, and Mr. Malcolm reading. As I placed the tea-things on the
+table, he raised his head, and regarded me with a gloomy stare. He
+was a strange-looking creature; his features were tolerably regular,
+his complexion dark, with a good colour, his very broad and round
+head was covered with a perfect mass of close, black, curling hair,
+which, in growth, texture, and hue, resembled the wiry, curly hide
+of a water-dog. His eyes and mouth were both well-shaped, but gave,
+by their sinister expression, an odious and doubtful meaning to the
+whole of his physiognomy. The eyes were cold, insolent, and cruel,
+and as green as the eyes of a cat. The mouth bespoke a sullen,
+determined, and sneering disposition, as if it belonged to one
+brutally obstinate, one who could not by any gentle means be
+persuaded from his purpose. Such a man in a passion would have
+been a terrible wild beast; but the current of his feelings seemed
+to flow in a deep, sluggish channel, rather than in a violent or
+impetuous one; and, like William Penn, when he reconnoitred his
+unwelcome visitors through the keyhole of the door, I looked at my
+strange guest, and liked him not. Perhaps my distant and constrained
+manner made him painfully aware of the fact, for I am certain that,
+from the first hour of our acquaintance, a deep-rooted antipathy
+existed between us, which time seemed rather to strengthen than
+diminish.
+
+He ate of his meal sparingly, and with evident disgust, the only
+remarks which dropped from him were--
+
+"You make bad bread in the bush. Strange, that you can't keep your
+potatoes from the frost! I should have thought that you could have
+had things more comfortable in the woods."
+
+"We have been very unfortunate," I said, "since we came to the
+woods. I am sorry that you should be obliged to share the poverty
+of the land. It would have given me much pleasure could I have set
+before you a more comfortable meal."
+
+"Oh, don't mention it. So that I get good pork and potatoes I shall
+be contented."
+
+What did these words imply?--an extension of his visit? I hoped
+that I was mistaken; but before I could lose any time in conjecture
+my husband awoke. The fit had left him, and he rose and dressed
+himself, and was soon chatting cheerfully with his guest.
+
+Mr. Malcolm now informed him that he was hiding from the sheriff of
+the N--- district's officers, and that it would be conferring upon
+him a great favour if he would allow him to remain at his house for
+a few weeks.
+
+"To tell you the truth, Malcolm," said Moodie, "we are so badly off
+that we can scarcely find food for ourselves and the children. It is
+out of our power to make you comfortable, or to keep an additional
+hand, without he is willing to render some little help on the farm.
+If you can do this, I will endeavour to get a few necessaries on
+credit, to make your stay more agreeable."
+
+To this proposition Malcolm readily assented, not only because it
+released him from all sense of obligation, but because it gave him
+a privilege to grumble.
+
+Finding that his stay might extend to an indefinite period, I got
+Jacob to construct a rude bedstead out of two large chests that had
+transported some of our goods across the Atlantic, and which he
+put in a corner of the parlour. This I provided with a small
+hair-mattress, and furnished with what bedding I could spare.
+
+For the first fornight of his sojourn, our guest did nothing but lie
+upon that bed, and read, and smoke, and drink whiskey-and-water from
+morning until night. By degrees he let out part of his history; but
+there was a mystery about him which he took good care never to clear
+up. He was the son of an officer in the navy, who had not only
+attained a very high rank in the service, but, for his gallant
+conduct, had been made a Knight-Companion of the Bath.
+
+He had himself served his time as a midshipman on board his father's
+flag-ship, but had left the navy and accepted a commission in the
+Buenos-Ayrean service during the political struggles in that
+province; he had commanded a sort of privateer under the government,
+to whom, by his own account, he had rendered many very signal
+services. Why he left South America and came to Canada he kept a
+profound secret. He had indulged in very vicious and dissipated
+courses since he came to the province, and by his own account had
+spent upwards of four thousand pounds, in a manner not over
+creditable to himself. Finding that his friends would answer his
+bills no longer, he took possession of a grant of land obtained
+through his father's interest, up in Harvey, a barren township on
+the shores of Stony Lake; and, after putting up his shanty, and
+expending all his remaining means, he found that he did not possess
+one acre out of the whole four hundred that would yield a crop of
+potatoes. He was now considerably in debt, and the lands, such as
+they were, had been seized, with all his effects, by the sheriff,
+and a warrant was out for his own apprehension, which he contrived
+to elude during his sojourn with us. Money he had none; and, beyond
+the dirty fearnought blue seaman's jacket which he wore, a pair of
+trousers of the coarse cloth of the country, an old black vest that
+had seen better days, and two blue-checked shirts, clothes he had
+none. He shaved but once a week, never combed his hair, and never
+washed himself. A dirtier or more slovenly creature never before
+was dignified by the title of a gentleman. He was, however, a man
+of good education, of excellent abilities, and possessed a bitter,
+sarcastic knowledge of the world; but he was selfish and
+unprincipled in the highest degree.
+
+His shrewd observations and great conversational powers had first
+attracted my husband's attention, and, as men seldom show their bad
+qualities on a journey, he thought him a blunt, good fellow, who had
+travelled a great deal, and could render himself a very agreeable
+companion by a graphic relation of his adventures. He could be all
+this, when he chose to relax from his sullen, morose mood; and, much
+as I disliked him, I have listened with interest for hours to his
+droll descriptions of South American life and manners.
+
+Naturally indolent, and a constitutional grumbler, it was with the
+greatest difficulty that Moodie could get him to do anything beyond
+bringing a few pails of water from the swamp for the use of the
+house, and he often passed me carrying water up from the lake
+without offering to relieve me of the burden. Mary, the betrothed
+of Jacob, called him a perfect "beast"; but he, returning good for
+evil, considered HER a very pretty girl, and paid her so many
+uncouth attentions that he roused the jealousy of honest Jake, who
+vowed that he would give him a good "loomping" if he only dared
+to lay a finger upon his sweetheart. With Jacob to back her, Mary
+treated the "zea-bear," as Jacob termed him, with vast disdain, and
+was so saucy to him that, forgetting his admiration, he declared he
+would like to serve her as the Indians had done a scolding woman in
+South America. They attacked her house during the absence of her
+husband, cut out her tongue, and nailed it to the door, by way of
+knocker; and he thought that all women who could not keep a civil
+tongue in their head should be served in the same manner.
+
+"And what should be done to men who swear and use ondacent
+language?" quoth Mary, indignantly. "Their tongues should be slit,
+and given to the dogs. Faugh! You are such a nasty fellow that I
+don't think Hector would eat your tongue."
+
+"I'll kill that beast," muttered Malcolm, as he walked away.
+
+I remonstrated with him on the impropriety of bandying words with
+our servants. "You see," I said, "the disrespect with which they
+treat you; and if they presume upon your familiarity, to speak to
+our guest in this contemptuous manner, they will soon extend the
+same conduct to us."
+
+"But, Mrs. Moodie, you should reprove them."
+
+"I cannot, sir, while you continue, by taking liberties with the
+girl, and swearing at the man, to provoke them to retaliation."
+
+"Swearing! What harm is there in swearing? A sailor cannot live
+without oaths."
+
+"But a gentleman might, Mr. Malcolm. I should be sorry to consider
+you in any other light."
+
+"Ah, you are such a prude--so methodistical--you make no allowance
+for circumstances! Surely, in the woods we may dispense with the
+hypocritical, conventional forms of society, and speak and act as
+we please."
+
+"So you seem to think; but you see the result."
+
+"I have never been used to the society of ladies, and I cannot
+fashion my words to please them; and I won't, that's more!" he
+muttered to himself as he strode off to Moodie in the field. I
+wished from my very heart that he was once more on the deck of
+his piratical South American craft.
+
+One night he insisted on going out in the canoe to spear maskinonge
+with Moodie. The evening turned out very chill and foggy, and,
+before twelve, they returned, with only one fish, and half frozen
+with cold. Malcolm had got twinges of rheumatism, and he fussed, and
+sulked, and swore, and quarrelled with everybody and everything,
+until Moodie, who was highly amused by his petulance, advised him
+to go to his bed, and pray for the happy restoration of his temper.
+
+"Temper!" he cried, "I don't believe there's a good-tempered person
+in the world. It's all hypocrisy! I never had a good-temper! My
+mother was an ill-tempered woman, and ruled my father, who was a
+confoundedly severe, domineering man. I was born in an ill-temper.
+I was an ill-tempered child; I grew up an ill-tempered man. I feel
+worse than ill-tempered now, and when I die it will be in an
+ill-temper."
+
+"Well," quoth I, "Moodie has made you a tumbler of hot punch, which
+may help to drive out the cold and the ill-temper, and cure the
+rheumatism."
+
+"Ay; your husband's a good fellow, and worth two of you, Mrs.
+Moodie. He makes some allowance for the weakness of human nature,
+and can excuse even my ill-temper."
+
+I did not choose to bandy words with him, and the next day the
+unfortunate creature was shaking with the ague. A more intractable,
+outrageous, IM-patient I never had the ill-fortune to nurse.
+During the cold fit, he did nothing but swear at the cold, and
+wished himself roasting; and during the fever, he swore at the heat,
+and wished that he was sitting, in no other garment than his shirt,
+on the north side of an iceberg. And when the fit at last left him,
+he got up, and ate such quantities of fat pork, and drank so much
+whiskey-punch, that you would have imagined he had just arrived
+from a long journey, and had not tasted food for a couple of days.
+
+He would not believe that fishing in the cold night-air upon the water
+had made him ill, but raved that it was all my fault for having laid
+my baby down on his bed while it was shaking with the ague.
+
+Yet, if there were the least tenderness mixed up in his iron nature,
+it was the affection he displayed for that young child. Dunbar was
+just twenty months old, with bright, dark eyes, dimpled cheeks, and
+soft, flowing, golden hair, which fell round his infant face in rich
+curls. The merry, confiding little creature formed such a contrast
+to his own surly, unyielding temper, that, perhaps, that very
+circumstance made the bond of union between them. When in the house,
+the little boy was seldom out of his arms, and whatever were
+Malcolm's faults, he had none in the eyes of the child, who used to
+cling around his neck, and kiss his rough, unshaven cheeks with the
+greatest fondness.
+
+"If I could afford it, Moodie," he said one day to my husband,
+"I should like to marry. I want some one upon whom I could vent
+my affections." And wanting that some one in the form of woman,
+he contented himself with venting them upon the child.
+
+As the spring advanced, and after Jacob left us, he seemed ashamed
+of sitting in the house doing nothing, and therefore undertook to
+make us a garden, or "to make garden," as the Canadians term
+preparing a few vegetables for the season. I procured the necessary
+seeds, and watched with no small surprise the industry with which
+our strange visitor commenced operations. He repaired the broken
+fence, dug the ground with the greatest care, and laid it out with a
+skill and neatness of which I had believed him perfectly incapable.
+In less than three weeks, the whole plot presented a very pleasing
+prospect, and he was really elated by his success.
+
+"At any rate," he said, "we shall no longer be starved on bad flour
+and potatoes. We shall have peas, and beans, and beets, and carrots,
+and cabbage in abundance; besides the plot I have reserved for
+cucumbers and melons."
+
+"Ah," thought I; "does he, indeed, mean to stay with us until the
+melons are ripe?" and my heart died within me, for he not only was a
+great additional expense, but he gave a great deal of additional
+trouble, and entirely robbed us of all privacy, as our very parlour
+was converted into a bed-room for his accommodation; besides that, a
+man of his singularly dirty habits made a very disagreeable inmate.
+
+The only redeeming point in his character, in my eyes, was his
+love for Dunbar. I could not entirely hate a man who was so fondly
+attached to my child. To the two little girls he was very cross,
+and often chased them from him with blows.
+
+He had, too, an odious way of finding fault with everything. I never
+could cook to please him; and he tried in the most malicious way to
+induce Moodie to join in his complaints. All his schemes to make
+strife between us, however, failed, and were generally visited
+upon himself. In no way did he ever seek to render me the least
+assistance. Shortly after Jacob left us, Mary Pine was offered
+higher wages by a family at Peterborough, and for some time I was
+left with four little children, and without a servant. Moodie always
+milked the cows, because I never could overcome my fear of cattle;
+and though I had occasionally milked when there was no one else in
+the way, it was in fear and trembling.
+
+Moodie had to go down to Peterborough; but before he went, he begged
+Malcolm to bring me what water and wood I required, and to stand by
+the cattle while I milked the cows, and he would himself be home
+before night.
+
+He started at six in the morning, and I got the pail to go and milk.
+Malcolm was lying upon his bed, reading.
+
+"Mr. Malcolm, will you be so kind as to go with me to the fields for
+a few minutes while I milk?"
+
+"Yes!" (then, with a sulky frown), "but I want to finish what I am
+reading."
+
+"I will not detain you long."
+
+"Oh, no! I suppose about an hour. You are a shocking bad milker."
+
+"True; I never went near a cow until I came to this country;
+and I have never been able to overcome my fear of them."
+
+"More shame for you! A farmer's wife, and afraid of a cow!
+Why, these little children would laugh at you."
+
+I did not reply, nor would I ask him again. I walked slowly to
+the field, and my indignation made me forget my fear. I had just
+finished milking, and with a brimming pail was preparing to climb
+the fence and return to the house, when a very wild ox we had came
+running with headlong speed from the wood. All my fears were alive
+again in a moment. I snatched up the pail, and, instead of climbing
+the fence and getting to the house, I ran with all the speed I could
+command down the steep hill towards the lake shore; my feet caught
+in a root of the many stumps in the path, and I fell to the ground,
+my pail rolling many yards a-head of me. Every drop of my milk was
+spilt upon the grass. The ox passed on. I gathered myself up and
+returned home. Malcolm was very fond of new milk, and he came to
+meet me at the door.
+
+"Hi! hi!--Where's the milk?"
+
+"No milk for the poor children to-day," said I, showing him the
+inside of the pail, with a sorrowful shake of the head, for it was
+no small loss to them and me.
+
+"How the devil's that? So you were afraid to milk the cows. Come
+away, and I will keep off the buggaboos."
+
+"I did milk them--no thanks to your kindness, Mr. Malcolm--but--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"The ox frightened me, and I fell and spilt all the milk."
+
+"Whew! Now don't go and tell your husband that it was all my fault;
+if you had had a little patience, I would have come when you asked
+me, but I don't choose to be dictated to, and I won't be made a
+slave by you or any one else."
+
+"Then why do you stay, sir, where you consider yourself so treated?"
+said I. "We are all obliged to work to obtain bread; we give you the
+best share--surely the return we ask for it is but small."
+
+"You make me feel my obligations to you when you ask me to do
+anything; if you left it to my better feelings we should get on
+better."
+
+"Perhaps you are right. I will never ask you to do anything for me
+in future."
+
+"Oh, now, that's all mock-humility. In spite of the tears in your
+eyes, you are as angry with me as ever; but don't go to make
+mischief between me and Moodie. If you'll say nothing about my
+refusing to go with you, I'll milk the cows for you myself
+to-night."
+
+"And can you milk?" said I, with some curiosity.
+
+"Milk! Yes; and if I were not so confoundedly low-spirited
+and--lazy, I could do a thousand other things too. But now,
+don't say a word about it to Moodie."
+
+I made no promise; but my respect for him was not increased by
+his cowardly fear of reproof from Moodie, who treated him with
+a kindness and consideration which he did not deserve.
+
+The afternoon turned out very wet, and I was sorry that I should be
+troubled with his company all day in the house. I was making a shirt
+for Moodie from some cotton that had been sent me from home, and he
+placed himself by the side of the stove, just opposite, and
+continued to regard me for a long time with his usual sullen stare.
+I really felt half afraid of him.
+
+"Don't you think me mad!" said he. "I have a brother deranged;
+he got a stroke of the sun in India, and lost his senses in
+consequence; but sometimes I think it runs in the family."
+
+What answer could I give to this speech, but mere evasive
+common-place!
+
+"You won't say what you really think," he continued; "I know you
+hate me, and that makes me dislike you. Now what would you say if I
+told you I had committed a murder, and that it was the recollection
+of that circumstance that made me at times so restless and unhappy?"
+
+I looked up in his face, not knowing what to believe.
+
+"'Tis fact," said he, nodding his head; and I hoped that he would
+not go mad, like his brother, and kill me.
+
+"Come, I'll tell you all about it; I know the world would laugh
+at me for calling such an act MURDER; and yet I have been such a
+miserable man ever since, that I FEEL it was.
+
+"There was a noted leader among the rebel Buenos-Ayreans, whom the
+government wanted much to get hold of. He was a fine, dashing,
+handsome fellow; I had often seen him, but we never came to close
+quarters. One night, I was lying wrapped up in my poncho at the
+bottom of my boat, which was rocking in the surf, waiting for two of
+my men, who were gone on shore. There came to the shore, this man
+and one of his people, and they stood so near the boat, that I could
+distinctly hear their conversation. I suppose it was the devil who
+tempted me to put a bullet through the man's heart. He was an enemy
+to the flag under which I fought, but he was no enemy to me--I had
+no right to become his executioner; but still the desire to kill
+him, for the mere devilry of the thing, came so strongly upon me
+that I no longer tried to resist it. I rose slowly upon my knees;
+the moon was shining very bright at the time, both he and his
+companion were too earnestly engaged to see me, and I deliberately
+shot him through the body. He fell with a heavy groan back into the
+water; but I caught the last look he threw upon the moonlight skies
+before his eyes glazed in death. Oh, that look!--so full of despair,
+of unutterable anguish; it haunts me yet--it will haunt me for ever.
+I would not have cared if I had killed him in strife--but in cold
+blood, and he so unsuspicious of his doom! Yes, it was murder; I
+know by this constant tugging at my heart that it was murder. What
+do you say to it?"
+
+"I should think as you do, Mr. Malcolm. It is a terrible thing to
+take away the life of a fellow-creature without the least
+provocation."
+
+"Ah! I know you would blame me; but he was an enemy after all;
+I had a right to kill him; I was hired by the government under
+whom I served to kill him; and who shall condemn me?"
+
+"No one more than your own heart."
+
+"It is not the heart, but the brain, that must decide in questions
+of right and wrong," said he. "I acted from impulse, and shot that
+man; had I reasoned upon it for five minutes, the man would be
+living now. But what's done cannot be undone. Did I ever show you
+the work I wrote upon South America?"
+
+"Are you an author," said I, incredulously.
+
+"To be sure I am. Murray offered me 100 pounds for my manuscript,
+but I would not take it. Shall I read to you some passages from it?"
+
+I am sorry to say that his behaviour in the morning was uppermost
+in my thoughts, and I had no repugnance in refusing.
+
+"No, don't trouble yourself. I have the dinner to cook, and the
+children to attend to, which will cause a constant interruption;
+you had better defer it to some other time."
+
+"I shan't ask you to listen to me again," said he, with a look of
+offended vanity; but he went to his trunk, and brought out a large
+MS., written on foolscap, which he commenced reading to himself with
+an air of great self-importance, glancing from time to time at me,
+and smiling disdainfully. Oh, how glad I was when the door opened,
+and the return of Moodie broke up this painful tete-a-tete.
+
+From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. The very next day,
+Mr. Malcolm made his appearance before me, wrapped in a great-coat
+belonging to my husband, which literally came down to his heels.
+At this strange apparition, I fell a-laughing.
+
+"For God's sake, Mrs. Moodie, lend me a pair of inexpressibles.
+I have met with an accident in crossing the fence, and mine are
+torn to shreds--gone to the devil entirely."
+
+"Well, don't swear. I'll see what can be done for you."
+
+I brought him a new pair of fine, drab-colored kersey-mere trousers
+that had never been worn. Although he was eloquent in his thanks, I
+had no idea that he meant to keep them for his sole individual use
+from that day thenceforth. But after all, what was the man to do? He
+had no trousers, and no money, and he could not take to the woods.
+Certainly his loss was not our gain. It was the old proverb
+reversed.
+
+The season for putting in the potatoes had now arrived. Malcolm
+volunteered to cut the sets, which was easy work that could be done
+in the house, and over which he could lounge and smoke; but Moodie
+told him that he must take his share in the field, that I had
+already sets enough saved to plant half-an-acre, and would have more
+prepared by the time they were required. With many growls and
+shrugs, he felt obliged to comply; and he performed his part pretty
+well, the execrations bestowed upon the mosquitoes and black-flies
+forming a sort of safety-valve to let off the concentrated venom of
+his temper. When he came in to dinner, he held out his hands to me.
+
+"Look at these hands."
+
+"They are blistered with the hoe."
+
+"Look at my face."
+
+"You are terribly disfigured by the black-flies. But Moodie suffers
+just as much, and says nothing."
+
+"Bah!--The only consolation one feels for such annoyances is to
+complain. Oh, the woods!--the cursed woods!--how I wish I were out
+of them." The day was very warm, but in the afternoon I was
+surprised by a visit from an old maiden lady, a friend of mine from
+C---. She had walked up with a Mr. Crowe, from Peterborough, a
+young, brisk-looking farmer, in breeches and top-boots, just out
+from the old country, who, naturally enough, thought he would like
+to roost among the woods.
+
+He was a little, lively, good-natured manny, with a real Anglo-Saxon
+face,--rosy, high cheek-boned, with full lips, and a turned-up nose;
+and, like most little men, was a great talker, and very full of
+himself. He had belonged to the secondary class of farmers, and was
+very vulgar, both in person and manners. I had just prepared tea for
+my visitors, when Malcolm and Moodie returned from the field. There
+was no affectation about the former. He was manly in his person,
+and blunt even to rudeness, and I saw by the quizzical look which
+he cast upon the spruce little Crowe that he was quietly quizzing
+him from head to heel. A neighbour had sent me a present of maple
+molasses, and Mr. Crowe was so fearful of spilling some of the rich
+syrup upon his drab shorts that he spread a large pocket-hankerchief
+over his knees, and tucked another under his chin. I felt very much
+inclined to laugh, but restrained the inclination as well as I
+could--and if the little creature would have sat still, I could have
+quelled my rebellious propensity altogether; but up he would jump at
+every word I said to him, and make me a low, jerking bow, often with
+his mouth quite full, and the treacherous molasses running over his
+chin.
+
+Malcolm sat directly opposite to me and my volatile next-door
+neighbour. He saw the intense difficulty I had to keep my gravity,
+and was determined to make me laugh out. So, coming slyly behind
+my chair, he whispered in my ear, with the gravity of a judge,
+"Mrs. Moodie, that must have been the very chap who first jumped
+Jim Crowe."
+
+This appeal obliged me to run from the table. Moodie was astonished
+at my rudeness; and Malcolm, as he resumed his seat, made the matter
+worse by saying, "I wonder what is the matter with Mrs. Moodie; she
+is certainly very hysterical this afternoon."
+
+The potatoes were planted, and the season of strawberries,
+green-peas, and young potatoes come, but still Malcolm remained our
+constant guest. He had grown so indolent, and gave himself so many
+airs, that Moodie was heartily sick of his company, and gave him
+many gentle hints to change his quarters; but our guest was
+determined to take no hint. For some reason best known to himself,
+perhaps out of sheer contradiction, which formed one great element
+in his character, he seemed obstinately bent upon remaining where
+he was.
+
+Moodie was busy under-bushing for a fall fallow. Malcolm spent much
+of his time in the garden, or lounging about the house. I had baked
+an eel-pie for dinner, which if prepared well is by no means an
+unsavoury dish. Malcolm had cleaned some green-peas and washed the
+first young potatoes we had drawn that season, with his own hands,
+and he was reckoning upon the feast he should have on the potatoes
+with childish glee. The dinner at length was put upon the table.
+The vegetables were remarkably fine, and the pie looked very nice.
+
+Moodie helped Malcolm, as he always did, very largely, and the other
+covered his plate with a portion of peas and potatoes, when, lo and
+behold! my gentleman began making a very wry face at the pie.
+
+"What an infernal dish!" he cried, pushing away his plate with an
+air of great disgust. "These eels taste as if they had been stewed
+in oil. Moodie, you should teach your wife to be a better cook."
+
+The hot blood burnt upon Moodie's cheek. I saw indignation blazing
+in his eye.
+
+"If you don't like what is prepared for you, sir, you may leave the
+table, and my house, if you please. I will put up with your
+ungentlemanly and ungrateful conduct to Mrs. Moodie no longer."
+
+Out stalked the offending party. I thought, to be sure, we had got
+rid of him; and though he deserved what was said to him, I was sorry
+for him. Moodie took his dinner, quietly remarking, "I wonder he
+could find it in his heart to leave those fine peas and potatoes."
+
+He then went back to his work in the bush, and I cleared away the
+dishes, and churned, for I wanted butter for tea.
+
+About four o'clock Mr. Malcolm entered the room. "Mrs. Moodie,"
+said he, in a more cheerful voice than usual, "where's the boss?"
+
+"In the wood, under-bushing." I felt dreadfully afraid that there
+would be blows between them.
+
+"I hope, Mr. Malcolm, that you are not going to him with any
+intention of a fresh quarrel."
+
+"Don't you think I have been punished enough by losing my dinner?"
+said he, with a grin. "I don't think we shall murder one another."
+He shouldered his axe, and went whistling away.
+
+After striving for a long while to stifle my foolish fears, I took
+the baby in my arms, and little Dunbar by the hand, and ran up to
+the bush where Moodie was at work.
+
+At first I only saw my husband, but the strokes of an axe at a
+little distance soon guided my eyes to the spot where Malcolm was
+working away, as if for dear life. Moodie smiled, and looked at
+me significantly.
+
+"How could the fellow stomach what I said to him? Either great
+necessity or great meanness must be the cause of his knocking under.
+I don't know whether most to pity or despise him."
+
+"Put up with it, dearest, for this once. He is not happy, and must
+be greatly distressed."
+
+Malcolm kept aloof, ever and anon casting a furtive glance towards
+us; at last little Dunbar ran to him, and held up his arms to be
+kissed. The strange man snatched him to his bosom, and covered him
+with caresses. It might be love to the child that had quelled his
+sullen spirit, or he might really have cherished an affection for us
+deeper than his ugly temper would allow him to show. At all events,
+he joined us at tea as if nothing had happened, and we might truly
+say that he had obtained a new lease of his long visit.
+
+But what could not be effected by words or hints of ours was brought
+about a few days after by the silly observation of a child. He asked
+Katie to give him a kiss, and he would give her some raspberries he
+had gathered in the bush.
+
+"I don't want them. Go away; I don't like you, you little stumpy man!"
+
+His rage knew no bounds. He pushed the child from him, and vowed
+that he would leave the house that moment--that she could not have
+thought of such an expression herself; she must have been taught it
+by us. This was an entire misconception on his part; but he would
+not be convinced that he was wrong. Off he went, and Moodie called
+after him, "Malcolm, as I am sending to Peterborough to-morrow, the
+man shall take in your trunk." He was too angry even to turn and bid
+us good-bye; but we had not seen the last of him yet.
+
+Two months after, we were taking tea with a neighbour, who lived a
+mile below us on the small lake. Who should walk in but Mr. Malcolm?
+He greeted us with great warmth for him, and when we rose to take
+leave, he rose and walked home by our side. "Surely the little
+stumpy man is not returning to his old quarters?" I am still a babe
+in the affairs of men. Human nature has more strange varieties than
+any one menagerie can contain, and Malcolm was one of the oddest of
+her odd species.
+
+That night he slept in his old bed below the parlour window, and for
+three months afterwards he stuck to us like a beaver.
+
+He seemed to have grown more kindly, or we had got more used to his
+eccentricities, and let him have his own way; certainly he behaved
+himself much better.
+
+He neither scolded the children nor interfered with the maid, nor
+quarrelled with me. He had greatly discontinued his bad habit of
+swearing, and he talked of himself and his future prospects with
+more hope and self-respect. His father had promised to send him a
+fresh supply of money, and he proposed to buy of Moodie the clergy
+reserve, and that they should farm the two places on shares. This
+offer was received with great joy, as an unlooked-for means of
+paying our debts, and extricating ourselves from present and
+overwhelming difficulties, and we looked upon the little stumpy
+man in the light of a benefactor.
+
+So matters continued until Christmas Eve, when our visitor proposed
+walking into Peterborough, in order to give the children a treat of
+raisins to make a Christmas pudding.
+
+"We will be quite merry to-morrow," he said. "I hope we shall eat
+many Christmas dinners together, and continue good friends."
+
+He started, after breakfast, with the promise of coming back at
+night; but night came, the Christmas passed away, months and years
+fled away, but we never saw the little stumpy man again!
+
+He went away that day with a stranger in a waggon from Peterborough,
+and never afterwards was seen in that part of Canada. We afterwards
+learned that he went to Texas, and it is thought that he was killed
+at St. Antonio; but this is mere conjecture. Whether dead or living,
+I feel convinced that--
+
+"We ne'er shall look upon his like again."
+
+
+OH, THE DAYS WHEN I WAS YOUNG!
+
+  Oh, the days when I was young,
+    A playful little boy,
+  When my piping treble rung
+    To the notes of early joy.
+  Oh, the sunny days of spring,
+    When I sat beside the shore,
+  And heard the small birds sing;--
+    Shall I never hear them more?
+
+  And the daisies scatter'd round,
+    Half hid amid the grass,
+  Lay like gems upon the ground,
+    Too gay for me to pass.
+  How sweet the milkmaid sung,
+    As she sat beside her cow,
+  How clear her wild notes rung;--
+    There's no music like it now.
+
+  As I watch'd the ship's white sail
+    'Mid the sunbeams on the sea,
+  Spreading canvas to the gale--
+    How I long'd with her to be.
+  I thought not of the storm,
+    Nor the wild cries on her deck,
+  When writhed her graceful form
+    'Mid the hurricane and wreck.
+
+  And I launch'd my little ship,
+    With her sails and hold beneath;
+  Deep laden on each trip,
+    With berries from the heath.
+  Ah, little did I know,
+    When I long'd to be a man,
+  Of the gloomy cares and woe,
+    That meet in life's brief span.
+
+  Oh, the happy nights I lay
+    With my brothers in their beds,
+  Where we soundly slept till day
+    Shone brightly o'er our heads.
+  And the blessed dreams that came
+    To fill my heart with joy.
+  Oh, that I now could dream,
+    As I dreamt, a little boy.
+
+  The sun shone brighter then,
+    And the moon more soft and clear,
+  For the wiles of crafty men
+    I had not learn'd to fear;
+  But all seemed fair and gay
+    As the fleecy clouds above;
+  I spent my hours in play,
+    And my heart was full of love.
+
+  I loved the heath-clad hill,
+    And I loved the silent vale,
+  With its dark and purling rill
+    That murmur'd in the gale.
+  Of sighs I'd none to share,
+    They were stored for riper years,
+  When I drain'd the dregs of care
+    With many bitter tears.
+
+  My simple daily fare,
+    In my little tiny mug,
+  How fain was I to share
+    With Cato on the rug.
+  Yes, he gave his honest paw,
+    And he lick'd my happy face,
+  He was true to Nature's law,
+    And I thought it no disgrace.
+
+  There's a voice so soft and clear,
+    And a step so gay and light,
+  That charms my listening ear
+    In the visions of the night.
+  And my father bids me haste,
+    In the deep, fond tones of love,
+  And leave this dreary waste,
+    For brighter realms above.
+
+  Now I am old and grey,
+    My bones are rack'd with pain,
+  And time speeds fast away--
+    But why should I complain?
+  There are joys in life's young morn
+    That dwell not with the old.
+  Like the flowers the wind hath torn,
+    From the strem, all bleak and cold.
+
+  The weary heart may mourn
+    O'er the wither'd hopes of youth,
+  But the flowers so rudely shorn
+    Still leave the seeds of truth.
+  And there's hope for hoary men
+    When they're laid beneath the sod;
+  For we'll all be young again
+    When we meet around our God.
+
+J.W.D.M.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE FIRE
+
+
+
+  Now, Fortune, do thy worst! For many years,
+  Thou, with relentless and unsparing hand,
+  Hast sternly pour'd on our devoted heads
+  The poison'd phials of thy fiercest wrath.
+
+
+The early part of the winter of 1837, a year never to be forgotten
+in the annals of Canadian history, was very severe. During the
+month of February, the thermometer often ranged from eighteen to
+twenty-seven degrees below zero. Speaking of the coldness of one
+particular day, a genuine brother Jonathan remarked, with charming
+simplicity, that it was thirty degrees below zero that morning, and
+it would have been much colder if the thermometer had been longer.
+
+The morning of the seventh was so intensely cold that everything
+liquid froze in the house. The wood that had been drawn for the
+fire was green, and it ignited too slowly to satisfy the shivering
+impatience of women and children; I vented mine in audibly grumbling
+over the wretched fire, at which I in vain endeavoured to thaw
+frozen bread, and to dress crying children.
+
+It so happened that an old friend, the maiden lady before alluded
+to, had been staying with us for a few days. She had left us for
+a visit to my sister, and as some relatives of hers were about to
+return to Britain by the way of New York, and had offered to convey
+letters to friends at home, I had been busy all the day before
+preparing a packet for England.
+
+It was my intention to walk to my sister's with this packet,
+directly the important affair of breakfast had been discussed;
+but the extreme cold of the morning had occasioned such delay
+that it was late before the breakfast-things were cleared away.
+
+After dressing, I found the air so keen that I could not venture
+out without some risk to my nose, and my husband kindly volunteered
+to go in my stead.
+
+I had hired a young Irish girl the day before. Her friends were only
+just located in our vicinity, and she had never seen a stove until
+she came to our house. After Moodie left, I suffered the fire to die
+away in the Franklin stove in the parlour, and went into the kitchen
+to prepare bread for the oven.
+
+The girl, who was a good-natured creature, had heard me complain
+bitterly of the cold, and the impossibility of getting the green
+wood to burn, and she thought that she would see if she could not
+make a good fire for me and the children, against my work was done.
+Without saying one word about her intention, she slipped out through
+a door that opened from the parlour into the garden, ran round to
+the wood-yard, filled her lap with cedar chips, and, not knowing
+the nature of the stove, filled it entirely with the light wood.
+
+Before I had the least idea of my danger, I was aroused from the
+completion of my task by the crackling and roaring of a large fire,
+and a suffocating smell of burning soot. I looked up at the kitchen
+cooking-stove. All was right there. I knew I had left no fire in the
+parlour stove; but not being able to account for the smoke and the
+smell of buring, I opened the door, and to my dismay found the stove
+red hot, from the front plate to the topmost pipe that let out the
+smoke through the roof.
+
+My first impulse was to plunge a blanket, snatched from the
+servant's bed, which stood in the kitchen, into cold water. This I
+thrust into the stove, and upon it threw cold water, until all was
+cool below. I then ran up to the loft, and by exhausting all the
+water in the house, even to that contained in the boilers upon the
+fire, contrived to cool down the pipes which passed through the
+loft. I then sent the girl out of doors to look at the roof, which,
+as a very deep fall of snow had taken place the day before, I hoped
+would be completely covered, and safe from all danger of fire.
+
+She quickly returned, stamping and tearing her hair, and making a
+variety of uncouth outcries, from which I gathered that the roof
+was in flames.
+
+This was terrible news, with my husband absent, no man in the house,
+and a mile and a quarter from any other habitation. I ran out to
+ascertain the extent of the misfortune, and found a large fire
+burning in the roof between the two stove pipes. The heat of the
+fires had melted off all the snow, and a spark from the burning pipe
+had already ignited the shingles. A ladder, which for several months
+had stood against the house, had been moved two days before to the
+barn, which was at the top of the hill, near the road; there was no
+reaching the fire through that source. I got out the dining-table,
+and tried to throw water upon the roof by standing on a chair placed
+upon it, but I only expended the little water that remained in the
+boiler, without reaching the fire. The girl still continued weeping
+and lamenting.
+
+"You must go for help," I said. "Run as fast as you can to my
+sister's, and fetch your master."
+
+"And lave you, ma'arm, and the childher alone wid the burnin'
+house?"
+
+"Yes, yes! Don't stay one moment."
+
+"I have no shoes, ma'arm, and the snow is so deep."
+
+"Put on your master's boots; make haste, or we shall be lost before
+help comes."
+
+The girl put on the boots and started, shrieking "Fire!" the whole
+way. This was utterly useless, and only impeded her progress by
+exhausting her strength. After she had vanished from the head of
+the clearing into the wood, and I was left quite alone, with the
+house burning over my head, I paused one moment to reflect what
+had best be done.
+
+The house was built of cedar logs; in all probability it would be
+consumed before any help could arrive. There was a brisk breeze
+blowing up from the frozen lake, and the thermometer stood at
+eighteen degrees below zero. We were placed between the two extremes
+of heat and cold, and there was as much danger to be apprehended
+from the one as the other. In the bewilderment of the moment, the
+direful extent of the calamity never struck me; we wanted but this
+to put the finishing stroke to our misfortunes, to be thrown naked,
+houseless, and penniless, upon the world. "What shall I save first?"
+was the thought just then uppermost in my mind. Bedding and clothing
+appeared the most essentially necessary, and without another
+moment's pause, I set to work with a right good will to drag all
+that I could from my burning home.
+
+While little Agnes, Dunbar, and baby Donald filled the air with
+their cries, Katie, as if fully conscious of the importance of
+exertion, assisted me in carrying out sheets and blankets, and
+dragging trunks and boxes some way up the hill, to be out of the
+way of the burning brands when the roof should fall in.
+
+How many anxious looks I gave to the head of the clearing as the
+fire increased, and the large pieces of burning pine began to fall
+through the boarded ceiling, about the lower rooms where we were at
+work. The children I had kept under a large dresser in the kitchen,
+but it now appeared absolutely necessary to remove them to a place
+of safety. To expose the young, tender things to the direful cold
+was almost as bad as leaving them to the mercy of the fire. At last
+I hit upon a plan to keep them from freezing. I emptied all the
+clothes out of a large, deep chest of drawers, and dragged the empty
+drawers up the hill; these I lined with blankets, and placed a child
+in each drawer, covering it well over with the bedding, giving to
+little Agnes the charge of the baby to hold between her knees, and
+keep well covered until help should arrive. Ah, how long it seemed
+coming!
+
+The roof was now burning like a brush-heap, and, unconsciously, the
+child and I were working under a shelf, upon which were deposited
+several pounds of gunpowder which had been procured for blasting a
+well, as all our water had to be brought up hill from the lake. This
+gunpowder was in a stone jar, secured by a paper stopper; the shelf
+upon which it stood was on fire, but it was utterly forgotten by me
+at the time; and even afterwards, when my husband was working on the
+burning loft over it.
+
+I found that I should not be able to take many more trips for goods.
+As I passed out of the parlour for the last time, Katie looked up at
+her father's flute, which was suspended upon two brackets, and
+said--
+
+"Oh, dear mamma! do save papa's flute; he will be so sorry to
+lose it."
+
+God bless the dear child for the thought! the flute was saved; and,
+as I succeeded in dragging out a heavy chest of cloths, and looked
+up once more despairingly to the road, I saw a man running at full
+speed. It was my husband. Help was at hand, and my heart uttered a
+deep thanksgiving as another and another figure came upon the scene.
+
+I had not felt the intense cold, although without cap, or bonnet,
+or shawl; with my hands bare and exposed to the bitter, biting air.
+The intense excitement, the anxiety to save all I could, had so
+totally diverted my thoughts from myself, that I had felt nothing
+of the danger to which I had been exposed; but now that help was
+near, my knees trembled under me, I felt giddy and faint, and dark
+shadows seemed dancing before my eyes.
+
+The moment my husband and brother-in-law entered the house, the
+latter exclaimed,
+
+"Moodie, the house is gone; save what you can of your winter stores
+and furniture."
+
+Moodie thought differently. Prompt and energetic in danger, and
+possessing admirable presence of mind and coolness when others yield
+to agitation and despair, he sprang upon the burning loft and called
+for water. Alas, there was none!
+
+"Snow, snow; hand me up pailsful of snow!"
+
+Oh! it was bitter work filling those pails with frozen snow; but
+Mr. T--- and I worked at it as fast as we were able.
+
+The violence of the fire was greatly checked by covering the boards
+of the loft with this snow. More help had now arrived. Young B---
+and S--- had brought the ladder down with them from the barn, and
+were already cutting away the burning roof, and flinging the flaming
+brands into the deep snow.
+
+"Mrs. Moodie, have you any pickled meat?"
+
+"We have just killed one of our cows, and salted it for winter
+stores."
+
+"Well, then, fling the beef into the snow, and let us have the
+brine."
+
+This was an admirable plan. Wherever the brine wetted the shingles,
+the fire turned from it, and concentrated into one spot.
+
+But I had not time to watch the brave workers on the roof. I was
+fast yielding to the effects of over-excitement and fatigue, when my
+brother's team dashed down the clearing, bringing my excellent old
+friend, Miss B---, and the servant-girl.
+
+My brother sprang out, carried me back into the house, and wrapped
+me up in one of the large blankets scattered about. In a few minutes
+I was seated with the dear children in the sleigh, and on the way to
+a place of warmth and safety.
+
+Katie alone suffered from the intense cold. The dear little
+creature's feet were severely frozen, but were fortunately restored
+by her uncle discovering the fact before she approached the fire,
+and rubbing them well with snow.
+
+In the meanwhile, the friends we had left so actively employed at
+the house succeeded in getting the fire under before it had
+destroyed the walls. The only accident that occurred was to a poor
+dog, that Moodie had called Snarleyowe. He was struck by a burning
+brand thrown from the house, and crept under the barn and died.
+
+Beyond the damage done to the building, the loss of our potatoes and
+two sacks of flour, we had escaped in a manner almost miraculous.
+This fact shows how much can be done by persons working in union,
+without bustle and confusion, or running in each other's way. Here
+were six men, who, without the aid of water, succeeded in saving a
+building, which, at first sight, almost all of them had deemed past
+hope. In after years, when entirely burnt out in a disastrous fire
+that consumed almost all we were worth in the world, some four
+hundred persons were present, with a fire-engine to second their
+endeavours, yet all was lost. Every person seemed in the way; and
+though the fire was discovered immediately after it took place,
+nothing was done beyond saving some of the furniture.
+
+Our party was too large to be billetted upon one family. Mrs. T---
+took compassion upon Moodie, myself, and the baby, while their uncle
+received the three children to his hospitable home.
+
+It was some weeks before Moodie succeeded in repairing the roof,
+the intense cold preventing any one from working in such an exposed
+situation.
+
+The news of our fire travelled far and wide. I was reported to have
+done prodigies, and to have saved the greater part of our household
+goods before help arrived. Reduced to plain prose, these prodigies
+shrink into the simple, and by no means marvellous fact, that
+during the excitement I dragged out chests which, under ordinary
+circumstances, I could not have moved; and that I was unconscious,
+both of the cold and the danger to which I was exposed while working
+under a burning roof, which, had it fallen, would have buried both
+the children and myself under its ruins.
+
+These circumstances appeared far more alarming, as all real danger
+does, after they were past. The fright and over-exertion gave my
+health a shock from which I did not recover for several months, and
+made me so fearful of fire, that from that hour it haunts me like a
+nightmare. Let the night be ever so serene, all stoves must be shut
+up, and the hot embers covered with ashes, before I dare retire to
+rest; and the sight of a burning edifice, so common a spectacle in
+large towns in this country, makes me really ill. This feeling was
+greatly increased after a second fire, when, for some torturing
+minutes, a lovely boy, since drowned, was supposed to have
+perished in the burning house.
+
+Our present fire led to a new train of circumstances, for it was
+the means of introducing to Moodie a young Irish gentleman, who was
+staying at my brother's house. John E--- was one of the best and
+gentlest of human beings. His father, a captain in the army, had
+died while his family were quite young, and had left his widow with
+scarcely any means beyond the pension she received at her husband's
+death, to bring up and educate a family of five children. A
+handsome, showy woman, Mrs. E--- soon married again; and the poor
+lads were thrown upon the world. The eldest, who had been educated
+for the Church, first came to Canada in the hope of getting some
+professorship in the college, or of opening a classical school.
+He was a handsome, gentlemanly, well-educated young man, but
+constitutionally indolent--a natural defect which seemed common to
+all the males of the family, and which was sufficiently indicated
+by their soft, silky, fair hair and milky complexions. R--- had
+the good sense to perceive that Canada was not the country for him.
+He spent a week under our roof, and we were much pleased with his
+elegant tastes and pursuits; but my husband strongly advised him to
+try and get a situation as a tutor in some family at home. This he
+afterwards obtained. He became tutor and travelling companion to
+the young Lord M---, and has since got an excellent living.
+
+John, who had followed his brother to Canada without the means of
+transporting himself back again, was forced to remain, and was
+working with Mr. S--- for his board. He proposed to Moodie working
+his farm upon shares; and as we were unable to hire a man, Moodie
+gladly closed with his offer; and, during the time he remained with
+us, we had every reason to be pleased with the arrangement.
+
+It was always a humiliating feeling to our proud minds, that
+hirelings should witness our dreadful struggle with poverty, and the
+strange shifts we were forced to make in order to obtain even food.
+But John E--- had known and experienced all that we had suffered,
+in his own person, and was willing to share our home with all its
+privations. Warm-hearted, sincere, and truly affectionate--a
+gentleman in word, thought, and deed--we found his society and
+cheerful help a great comfort. Our odd meals became a subject of
+merriment, and the peppermint and sage tea drank with a better
+flavour when we had one who sympathised in all our trials, and
+shared all our toils, to partake of it with us.
+
+The whole family soon became attached to our young friend; and
+after the work of the day was over, greatly we enjoyed an hour's
+fishing on the lake. John E--- said that we had no right to murmur,
+as long as we had health, a happy home, and plenty of fresh fish,
+milk, and potatoes. Early in May, we received an old Irishwoman
+into our service, who for four years proved a most faithful and
+industrious creature. And what with John E--- to assist my husband
+on the farm, and old Jenny to help me to nurse the children, and
+manage the house, our affairs, if they were no better in a
+pecuniary point of view, at least presented a more pleasing aspect
+at home. We were always cheerful, and sometimes contented and even
+happy.
+
+How great was the contrast between the character of our new inmate
+and that of Mr. Malcolm! The sufferings of the past year had been
+greatly increased by the intolerable nuisance of his company, while
+many additional debts had been contracted in order to obtain
+luxuries for him which we never dreamed of purchasing for ourselves.
+Instead of increasing my domestic toils, John did all in his power
+to lessen them; and it always grieved him to see me iron a shirt, or
+wash the least article of clothing for him. "You have too much to do
+already; I cannot bear to give you the least additional work," he
+would say. And he generally expressed the greatest satisfaction at
+my method of managing the house, and preparing our simple fare. The
+little ones he treated with the most affectionate kindness, and
+gathered the whole flock about his knees the moment he came in to
+his meals.
+
+On a wet day, when no work could be done abroad, Moodie took up his
+flute, or read aloud to us, while John and I sat down to work. The
+young emigrant, early cast upon the world and his own resources, was
+an excellent hand at the needle. He would make or mend a shirt with
+the greatest precision and neatness, and cut out and manufacture his
+canvas trousers and loose summer-coats with as much adroitness as
+the most experienced tailor; darn his socks, and mend his boots and
+shoes, and often volunteered to assist me in knitting the coarse
+yarn of the country into socks for the children, while he made them
+moccasins from the dressed deer-skins that we obtained from the
+Indians.
+
+Scrupulously neat and clean in his person, the only thing which
+seemed to ruffle his calm temper was the dirty work of logging;
+he hated to come in from the field with his person and clothes
+begrimed with charcoal and smoke. Old Jenny used to laugh at him
+for not being able to eat his meals without first washing his
+hands and face.
+
+"Och! my dear heart, yer too particular intirely; we've no time
+in the woods to be clane." She would say to him, in answer to his
+request for soap and a towel, "An' is it soap yer a-wantin'? I
+tell yer that that same is not to the fore; bating the throuble
+of makin', it's little soap that the misthress can get to wash
+the clothes for us and the childher, widout yer wastin' it in makin'
+yer purty skin as white as a leddy's. Do, darlint, go down to the
+lake and wash there; that basin is big enough, any how." And John
+would laugh, and go down to the lake to wash, in order to appease
+the wrath of the old woman. John had a great dislike to cats, and
+even regarded with an evil eye our old pet cat, Peppermint, who had
+taken a great fancy to share his bed and board.
+
+"If I tolerate our own cat," he would say, "I will not put up with
+such a nuisance as your friend Emilia sends us in the shape of her
+ugly Tom. Why, where in the world do you think I found that beast
+sleeping last night?"
+
+I expressed my ignorance.
+
+"In our potato-pot. Now, you will agree with me that potatoes
+dressed with cat's hair is not a very nice dish. The next time
+I catch Master Tom in the potato-pot, I will kill him."
+
+"John, you are not in earnest. Mrs. --- would never forgive any
+injury done to Tom, who is a great favourite."
+
+"Let her keep him at home, then. Think of the brute coming a mile
+through the woods to steal from us all he can find, and then
+sleeping off the effects of his depredations in the potato-pot."
+
+I could not help laughing, but I begged John by no means to annoy
+Emilia by hurting her cat.
+
+The next day, while sitting in the parlour at work, I heard a
+dreadful squall, and rushed to the rescue. John was standing, with a
+flushed cheek, grasping a large stick in his hand, and Tom was lying
+dead at his feet.
+
+"Oh, the poor cat!"
+
+"Yes, I have killed him; but I am sorry for it now. What will
+Mrs. --- say?"
+
+"She must not know it. I have told you the story of the pig that
+Jacob killed. You had better bury it with the pig."
+
+John was really sorry for having yielded, in a fit of passion, to do
+so cruel a thing; yet a few days after he got into a fresh scrape
+with Mrs. ---'s animals.
+
+The hens were laying, up at the barn. John was very fond of fresh
+eggs, but some strange dog came daily and sucked the eggs. John had
+vowed to kill the first dog he found in the act. Mr. --- had a very
+fine bull-dog, which he valued very highly; but with Emilia, Chowder
+was an especial favourite. Bitterly had she bemoaned the fate of
+Tom, and many were the inquiries she made of us as to his sudden
+disappearance.
+
+One afternoon John ran into the room. "My dear Mrs. Moodie, what is
+Mrs. ---'s dog like?"
+
+"A large bull-dog, brindled black and white."
+
+"Then, by Jove, I've shot him!"
+
+"John, John! you mean me to quarrel in earnest with my friend.
+How could you do it?"
+
+"Why, how the deuce should I know her dog from another? I caught the
+big thief in the very act of devouring the eggs from under your
+sitting hen, and I shot him dead without another thought. But I will
+bury him, and she will never find it out a bit more than she did who
+killed the cat."
+
+Some time after this, Emilia returned from a visit at P---. The
+first thing she told me was the loss of the dog. She was so vexed at
+it, she had had him advertised, offering a reward for his recovery.
+
+I, of course, was called upon to sympathise with her, which I did
+with a very bad grace. "I did not like the beast," I said; "he was
+cross and fierce, and I was afraid to go up to her house while he
+was there."
+
+"Yes; but to lose him so. It is so provoking; and him such a
+valuable animal. I could not tell how deeply she felt the loss.
+She would give four dollars to find out who had stolen him."
+
+How near she came to making the grand discovery the sequel will
+show.
+
+Instead of burying him with the murdered pig and cat, John had
+scratched a shallow grave in the garden, and concealed the dead
+brute.
+
+After tea, Emilia requested to look at the garden; and I, perfectly
+unconscious that it contained the remains of the murdered Chowder,
+led the way. Mrs. --- whilst gathering a handful of fine green-peas,
+suddenly stooped, and looking earnestly at the ground, called to me--
+
+"Come here, Susanna, and tell me what has been buried here. It looks
+like the tail of a dog."
+
+She might have added, "of my dog." Murder, it seems, will out.
+By some strange chance, the grave that covered the mortal remains
+of Chowder had been disturbed, and the black tail of the dog was
+sticking out.
+
+"What can it be?" said I, with an air of perfect innocence. "Shall I
+call Jenny, and dig it up?"
+
+"Oh, no, my dear; it has a shocking smell, but it does look very
+much like Chowder's tail."
+
+"Impossible! How could it come among my peas?"
+
+"True. Besides, I saw Chowder, with my own eyes, yesterday,
+following a team; and George C--- hopes to recover him for me."
+
+"Indeed! I am glad to hear it. How these mosquitoes sting. Shall we
+go back to the house?"
+
+While we returned to the house, John, who had overheard the whole
+conversation, hastily disinterred the body of Chowder, and placed
+him in the same mysterious grave with Tom and the pig.
+
+Moodie and his friend finished logging-up the eight acres which the
+former had cleared the previous winter; besides putting in a crop of
+peas and potatoes, and an acre of Indian corn, reserving the fallow
+for fall wheat, while we had the promise of a splendid crop of hay
+off the sixteen acres that had been cleared in 1834. We were all in
+high spirits and everything promised fair, until a very trifling
+circumstance again occasioned us much anxiety and trouble, and was
+the cause of our losing most of our crop.
+
+Moodie was asked to attend a bee, which was called to construct a
+corduroy-bridge over a very bad piece of road. He and J. E--- were
+obliged to go that morning with wheat to the mill, but Moodie lent
+his yoke of oxen for the work.
+
+The driver selected for them at the bee was the brutal M---y, a man
+noted for his ill-treatment of cattle, especially if the animals did
+not belong to him. He gave one of the oxen such a severe blow over
+the loins with a handspike that the creature came home perfectly
+disabled, just as we wanted his services in the hay-field and
+harvest.
+
+Moodie had no money to purchase, or even to hire a mate for the
+other ox; but he and John hoped that by careful attendance upon the
+injured animal he might be restored to health in a few days. They
+conveyed him to a deserted clearing, a short distance from the farm,
+where he would be safe from injury from the rest of the cattle; and
+early every morning we went in the canoe to carry poor Duke a warm
+mash, and to watch the progress of his recovery.
+
+Ah, ye who revel in this world's wealth, how little can you realise
+the importance which we, in our poverty, attached to the life of
+this valuable animal! Yes, it even became the subject of prayer, for
+the bread for ourselves and our little ones depended greatly upon
+his recovery. We were doomed to disappointment. After nursing him
+with the greatest attention and care for some weeks, the animal grew
+daily worse, and suffered such intense agony, as he lay groaning
+upon the ground, unable to rise, that John shot him to put him out
+of pain.
+
+Here, then, were we left without oxen to draw in our hay, or secure
+our other crops. A neighbour, who had an odd ox, kindly lent us the
+use of him, when he was not employed on his own farm; and John and
+Moodie gave their own work for the occasional loan of a yoke of
+oxen for a day. But with all these drawbacks, and in spite of the
+assistance of old Jenny and myself in the field, a great deal of the
+produce was damaged before it could be secured. The whole summer we
+had to labour under this disadvantage. Our neighbours were all too
+busy to give us any help, and their own teams were employed in
+saving their crops. Fortunately, the few acres of wheat we had to
+reap were close to the barn, and we carried the sheaves thither by
+hand; old Jenny proving an invaluable help, both in the harvest and
+hay-field.
+
+Still, with all these misfortunes, Providence watched over us in a
+signal manner. We were never left entirely without food. Like the
+widow's cruise of oil, our means, though small, were never suffered
+to cease entirely. We had been for some days without meat, when
+Moodie came running in for his gun. A great she-bear was in the
+wheat-field at the edge of the wood, very busily employed in helping
+to harvest the crop. There was but one bullet, and a charge or two
+of buckshot, in the house; but Moodie started to the wood with the
+single bullet in his gun, followed by a little terrier dog that
+belonged to John E---. Old Jenny was busy at the wash-tub, but the
+moment she saw her master running up the clearing, and knew the
+cause, she left her work, and snatching up the carving-knife, ran
+after him, that in case the bear should have the best of the fight,
+she would be there to help "the masther." Finding her shoes
+incommode her, she flung them off, in order to run faster. A few
+minutes after, came the report of the gun, and I heard Moodie halloo
+to E---, who was cutting stakes for a fence in the wood. I hardly
+thought it possible that he could have killed the bear, but I ran to
+the door to listen. The children were all excitement, which the
+sight of the black monster, borne down the clearing upon two poles,
+increased to the wildest demonstrations of joy. Moodie and John were
+carrying the prize, and old Jenny, brandishing her carving-knife,
+followed in the rear.
+
+The rest of the evening was spent in skinning, and cutting up,
+and salting the ugly creature, whose flesh filled a barrel with
+excellent meat, in flavour resembling beef, while the short grain
+and juicy nature of the flesh gave to it the tenderness of mutton.
+This was quite a Godsend, and lasted us until we were able to kill
+two large, fat hogs, in the fall.
+
+A few nights after, Moodie and I encountered the mate of Mrs. Bruin,
+while returning from a visit to Emilia, in the very depth of the
+wood.
+
+We had been invited to meet our friend's father and mother, who had
+come up on a short visit to the woods; and the evening passed away
+so pleasantly that it was near midnight before the little party of
+friends separated. The moon was down. The wood, through which we had
+to return, was very dark; the ground being low and swampy, and the
+trees thick and tall. There was, in particular, one very ugly spot,
+where a small creek crossed the road. This creek could only be
+passed by foot-passengers scrambling over a fallen tree, which,
+in a dark night, was not very easy to find.
+
+I begged a torch of Mr. ---; but no torch could be found. Emilia
+laughed at my fears; still, knowing what a coward I was in the bush
+of a night, she found up about an inch of candle, which was all that
+remained from the evening's entertainment. This she put into an old
+lanthorn.
+
+"It will not last you long; but it will carry you over the creek."
+
+This was something gained, and off we set.
+
+It was so dark in the bush, that our dim candle looked like a
+solitary red spark in the intense surrounding darkness, and
+scarcely served to show us the path.
+
+We went chatting along, talking over the news of the evening,
+Hector running on before us, when I saw a pair of eyes glare upon
+us from the edge of the swamp, with the green, bright light emitted
+by the eyes of a cat.
+
+"Did you see those terrible eyes, Moodie?" and I clung, trembling,
+to his arm.
+
+"What eyes?" said he, feigning ignorance. "It's too dark to see
+anything. The light is nearly gone, and, if you don't quicken your
+pace, and cross the tree before it goes out, you will, perhaps,
+get your feet wet by falling into the creek."
+
+"Good Heavens! I saw them again; and do just look at the dog."
+
+Hector stopped suddenly, and, stretching himself along the ground,
+his nose resting between his forepaws, began to whine and tremble.
+Presently he ran back to us, and crept under our feet. The cracking
+of branches, and the heavy tread of some large animal, sounded close
+beside us.
+
+Moodie turned the open lanthorn in the direction from whence the
+sounds came, and shouted as loud as he could, at the same time
+endeavouring to urge forward the fear-stricken dog, whose cowardice
+was only equalled by my own.
+
+Just at that critical moment the wick of the candle flickered a
+moment in the socket, and expired. We were left, in perfect
+darkness, alone with the bear--for such we supposed the animal
+to be.
+
+My heart beat audibly; a cold perspiration was streaming down my
+face, but I neither shrieked nor attempted to run. I don't know how
+Moodie got me over the creek. One of my feet slipped into the water,
+but, expecting, as I did every moment, to be devoured by master
+Bruin, that was a thing of no consequence. My husband was laughing
+at my fears, and every now and then he turned towards our companion,
+who continued following us at no great distance, and gave him an
+encouraging shout. Glad enough was I when I saw the gleam of the
+light from our little cabin window shine out among the trees; and,
+the moment I got within the clearing I ran, without stopping until
+I was safely within the house. John was sitting up for us, nursing
+Donald. He listened with great interest to our adventure with the
+bear, and thought that Bruin was very good to let us escape without
+one affectionate hug.
+
+"Perhaps it would have been otherwise had he known, Moodie, that you
+had not only killed his good lady, but were dining sumptuously off
+her carcass every day."
+
+The bear was determined to have something in return for the loss of
+his wife. Several nights after this, our slumbers were disturbed,
+about midnight, by an awful yell, and old Jenny shook violently at
+our chamber door.
+
+"Masther, masther, dear! Get up wid you this moment, or the bear
+will desthroy the cattle intirely."
+
+Half asleep, Moodie sprang from his bed, seized his gun, and ran
+out. I threw my large cloak round me, struck a light, and followed
+him to the door. The moment the latter was unclosed, some calves
+that we were rearing rushed into the kitchen, closely followed
+by the larger beasts, who came bellowing headlong down the hill,
+pursued by the bear.
+
+It was a laughable scene, as shown by that paltry tallow-candle.
+Moodie, in his night-shirt, taking aim at something in the darkness,
+surrounded by the terrified animals; old Jenny, with a large knife
+in her hand, holding on to the white skirts of her master's garment,
+making outcry loud enough to frighten away all the wild beasts in
+the bush--herself almost in a state of nudity.
+
+"Och, masther, dear! don't timpt the ill-conditioned crathur wid
+charging too near; think of the wife and the childher. Let me come
+at the rampaging baste, an' I'll stick the knife into the heart of
+him."
+
+Moodie fired. The bear retreated up the clearing, with a low growl.
+Moodie and Jenny pursued him some way, but it was too dark to
+discern any object at a distance. I, for my part, stood at the open
+door, laughing until the tears ran down my cheeks, at the glaring
+eyes of the oxen, their ears erect, and their tails carried
+gracefully on a level with their backs, as they stared at me and the
+light, in blank astonishment. The noise of the gun had just roused
+John E--- from his slumbers. He was no less amused than myself,
+until he saw that a fine yearling heifer was bleeding, and found,
+upon examination, that the poor animal, having been in the claws
+of the bear, was dangerously, if not mortally hurt.
+
+"I hope," he cried, "that the brute has not touched my foal!"
+I pointed to the black face of the filly peeping over the back
+of an elderly cow.
+
+"You see, John, that Bruin preferred veal; there's your 'horsey,'
+as Dunbar calls her, safe, and laughing at you."
+
+Moodie and Jenny now returned from the pursuit of the bear. E---
+fastened all the cattle into the back yard, close to the house. By
+daylight he and Moodie had started in chase of Bruin, whom they
+tracked by his blood some way into the bush; but here he entirely
+escaped their search.
+
+
+THE BEARS OF CANADA
+
+  Oh! BEAR me from this savage land of BEARS,
+    For 'tis indeed UNBEARABLE to me:
+  I'd rather cope with vilest worldly cares,
+    Or writhe with cruel sickness of the sea.
+  Oh! BEAR me to my own BEAR land of hills,[1]
+    Where I'd be sure brave BEAR-legg'd lads to see--
+  BEAR cakes, BEAR rocks, and whiskey stills,
+    And BEAR-legg'd nymphs, to smile once more on me.
+
+  I'd BEAR the heat, I'd BEAR the freezing air
+    Of equatorial realm or Arctic sea,
+  I'd sit all BEAR at night, and watch the Northern BEAR,
+    And bless my soul that he was far from me.
+  I'd BEAR the poor-rates, tithes, and all the ills
+    John Bull must BEAR, (who takes them all, poor sinner!
+  As patients do, when forced to gulp down pills,
+    And water-gruel drink in lieu of dinner).
+
+  I'd BEAR the BARENESS of all barren lands
+    Before I'd BEAR the BEARISHNESS of this;
+  BARE head, BEAR feet, BEAR legs, BEAR hands,
+    BEAR everything, but want of social bliss.
+  But should I die in this drear land of BEARS,
+    Oh! ship me off, my friends, discharge the sable wearers,
+  For if you don't, in spite of priests and prayers,
+    The BEARS will come, and eat up corpse and BEARERS.
+
+J.W.D.M.
+
+[1] The Orkney Isles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE OUTBREAK
+
+
+
+  Can a corrupted stream pour through the land
+  Health-giving waters? Can the slave, who lures
+  His wretched followers with the hope of gain,
+  Feel in his bosom the immortal fire
+  That bound a Wallace to his country's cause,
+  And bade the Thracian shepherd cast away
+  Rome's galling yoke; while the astonish'd world--
+  Rapt into admiration at the deed--
+  Paus'd, ere she crush'd, with overwhelming force,
+  The man who fought to win a glorious grave?
+
+
+The long-protracted harvest was at length brought to a close. Moodie
+had procured another ox from Dummer, by giving a note at six months
+date for the payment; and he and John E--- were in the middle of
+sowing their fall crop of wheat, when the latter received a letter
+from the old country, which conveyed to him intelligence of the
+death of his mother, and of a legacy of two hundred pounds. It was
+necessary for him to return to claim the property, and though we
+felt his loss severely, we could not, without great selfishness,
+urge him to stay. John had formed an attachment to a young lady in
+the country, who, like himself, possessed no property. Their
+engagement, which had existed several years, had been dropped, from
+its utter hopelessness, by mutual consent. Still the young people
+continued to love each other, and to look forward to better days,
+when their prospects might improve so far that E--- would be able to
+purchase a bush farm, and raise a house, however lowly, to shelter
+his Mary.
+
+He, like our friend Malcolm, had taken a fancy to buy a part of our
+block of land, which he could cultivate in partnership with Moodie,
+without being obliged to hire, when the same barn, cattle, and
+implements would serve for both. Anxious to free himself from the
+thraldom of debts which pressed him sore, Moodie offered to part
+with two hundred acres at less than they cost us, and the bargain
+was to be considered as concluded directly the money was
+forthcoming.
+
+It was a sorrowful day when our young friend left us; he had been a
+constant inmate in the house for nine months, and not one unpleasant
+word had ever passed between us. He had rendered our sojourn in the
+woods more tolerable by his society, and sweetened our bitter lot by
+his friendship and sympathy. We both regarded him as a brother, and
+parted with him with sincere regret. As to old Jenny, she lifted up
+her voice and wept, consigning him to the care and protection of all
+the saints in the Irish calendar.
+
+For several days after John left us, a deep gloom pervaded the
+house. Our daily toil was performed with less cheerfulness and
+alacrity; we missed him at the evening board, and at the evening
+fire; and the children asked each day, with increasing earnestness,
+when dear E--- would return.
+
+Moodie continued sowing his fall wheat. The task was nearly
+completed, and the chill October days were fast verging upon winter,
+when towards the evening of one of them he contrived--I know not
+how--to crawl down from the field at the head of the hill, faint and
+pale, and in great pain. He had broken the small bone of his leg.
+In dragging, among the stumps, the heavy machine (which is made in
+the form of the letter V, and is supplied with large iron teeth),
+had hitched upon a stump, and being swung off again by the motion
+of the oxen, had come with great force against his leg. At first he
+was struck down, and for some time was unable to rise; but at length
+he contrived to unyoke the team, and crawled partly on his hands and
+knees down the clearing.
+
+What a sad, melancholy evening that was! Fortune seemed never tired
+of playing us some ugly trick. The hope which had so long sustained
+me seemed about to desert me altogether; when I saw him on whom we
+all depended for subsistence, and whose kindly voice ever cheered
+us under the pressure of calamity, smitten down helpless, all my
+courage and faith in the goodness of the Divine Father seemed to
+forsake me, and I wept long and bitterly.
+
+The next morning I went in search of a messenger to send to
+Peterborough for the doctor; but though I found and sent the
+messenger, the doctor never came. Perhaps he did not like to incur
+the expense of a fatiguing journey with small chance of obtaining
+a sufficient remuneration.
+
+Our dear sufferer contrived, with assistance, to bandage his leg;
+and after the first week of rest had expired, he amused himself with
+making a pair of crutches, and in manufacturing Indian paddles for
+the canoe, axe-handles, and yokes for the oxen. It was wonderful
+with what serenity he bore this unexpected affliction.
+
+Buried in the obscurity of those woods, we knew nothing, heard
+nothing of the political state of the country, and were little aware
+of the revolution which was about to work a great change for us and
+for Canada.
+
+The weather continued remarkably mild. The first great snow, which
+for years had ordinarily fallen between the 10th and 15th of
+November, still kept off. November passed on, and as all our
+firewood had to be chopped by old Jenny during the lameness of my
+husband, I was truly grateful to God for the continued mildness of
+the weather.
+
+On the 4th of December--that great day of the outbreak--Moodie was
+determined to take advantage of the open state of the lake to carry
+a large grist up to Y---'s mill. I urged upon him the danger of a
+man attempting to manage a canoe in rapid water, who was unable to
+stand without crutches; but Moodie saw that the children would need
+bread, and he was anxious to make the experiment.
+
+Finding that I could not induce him to give up the journey, I
+determined to go with him. Old Wittals, who happened to come down
+that morning, assisted in placing the bags of wheat in the little
+vessel, and helped to place Moodie at the stern. With a sad,
+foreboding spirit I assisted to push off from the shore.
+
+The air was raw and cold, but our sail was not without its pleasure.
+
+The lake was very full from the heavy rains, and the canoe bounded
+over the waves with a free, springy motion. A slight frost had hung
+every little bush and spray along the shores with sparkling
+crystals. The red pigeon-berries, shining through their coating of
+ice, looked like cornelian beads set in silver, and strung from bush
+to bush. We found the rapids at the entrance of Bessikakoon Lake
+very hard to stem, and were so often carried back by the force of
+the water, that, cold as the air was, the great exertion which
+Moodie had to make use of to obtain the desired object brought the
+perspiration out in big drops upon his forehead. His long
+confinement to the house and low diet had rendered him very weak.
+
+The old miller received us in the most hearty and hospitable manner;
+and complimented me upon my courage in venturing upon the water in
+such cold, rough weather. Norah was married, but the kind Betty
+provided us an excellent dinner, while we waited for the grist to
+be ground.
+
+It was near four o'clock when we started on our return. If there had
+been danger in going up the stream, there was more in coming down.
+The wind had changed, the air was frosty, keen, and biting, and
+Moodie's paddle came up from every dip into the water loaded with
+ice. For my part, I had only to sit still at the bottom of the
+canoe, as we floated rapidly down with wind and tide. At the landing
+we were met by old Jenny, who had a long story to tell us, of which
+we could make neither head nor tail--how some gentleman had called
+during our absence, and left a large paper, all about the Queen and
+the Yankees; that there was war between Canada and the States; that
+Toronto had been burnt, and the governor killed, and I know not what
+other strange and monstrous statements. After much fatigue, Moodie
+climbed the hill, and we were once more safe by our own fireside.
+Here we found the elucidation of Jenny's marvelous tales: a copy of
+the Queen's proclamation, calling upon all loyal gentlemen to join
+in putting down the unnatural rebellion.
+
+A letter from my sister explained the nature of the outbreak, and
+the astonishment with which the news had been received by all the
+settlers in the bush. My brother and my sister's husband had already
+gone off to join some of the numerous bands of gentlemen who were
+collecting from all quarters to march to the aid of Toronto, which
+it was said was besieged by the rebel force. She advised me not to
+suffer Moodie to leave home in his present weak state; but the
+spirit of my husband was aroused, he instantly obeyed what he
+considered the imperative call of duty, and told me to prepare him
+a few necessaries, that he might be ready to start early in the
+morning.
+
+Little sleep visited our eyes that night. We talked over the strange
+news for hours; our coming separation, and the probability that if
+things were as bad as they appeared to be, we might never meet
+again. Our affairs were in such a desperate condition that Moodie
+anticipated that any change must be for the better; it was
+impossible for them to be worse. But the poor, anxious wife thought
+only of a parting which to her put a finishing stroke to all her
+misfortunes.
+
+Before the cold, snowy morning broke, we were all stirring. The
+children, who had learned that their father was preparing to leave
+them, were crying and clinging round his knees. His heart was too
+deeply affected to eat; the meal passed over in silence, and he rose
+to go. I put on my hat and shawl to accompany him through the wood
+as far as my sister Mrs. T---'s. The day was like our destiny, cold,
+dark, and lowering. I gave the dear invalid his crutches, and we
+commenced our sorrowful walk. Then old Jenny's lamentations burst
+forth, as, flinging her arms round my husband's neck, she kissed
+and blessed him after the fashion of her country.
+
+"Och hone! Och hone!" she cried, wringing her hands, "masther dear,
+why will you lave the wife and the childher? The poor crathur is
+breakin' her heart intirely at partin' wid you. Shure an' the war is
+nothin' to you, that you must be goin' into danger; an' you wid a
+broken leg. Och hone! Och hone! Come back to your home--you will be
+kilt, and thin what will become of the wife and the wee bairns?"
+
+Her cries and lamentations followed us into the wood. At my
+sister's, Moodie and I parted; and with a heavy heart I retraced my
+steps through the wood. For once, I forgot all my fears. I never
+felt the cold. Sad tears were flowing over my cheeks; when I entered
+the house, hope seemed to have deserted me, and for upwards of an
+hour I lay upon the bed and wept.
+
+Poor Jenny did her best to comfort me, but all joy had vanished with
+him who was my light of life.
+
+Left in the most absolute uncertainty as to the real state of public
+affairs, I could only conjecture what might be the result of this
+sudden outbreak. Several poor settlers called at the house during
+the day, on their way down to Peterborough, but they brought with
+them the most exaggerated accounts. There had been a battle, they
+said, with the rebels, and the loyalists had been defeated; Toronto
+was besieged by sixty thousand men, and all the men in the backwoods
+were ordered to march instantly to the relief of the city.
+
+In the evening, I received a note from Emilia, who was at
+Peterborough, in which she informed me that my husband had borrowed
+a horse of Mr. S---, and had joined a large party of two hundred
+volunteers, who had left that morning for Toronto; that there had
+been a battle with the insurgents; that Colonel Moodie had been
+killed, and the rebels had retreated; and that she hoped my
+husband would return in a few days.
+
+The honest backwoodsman, perfectly ignorant of the abuses that had
+led to the present position of things, regarded the rebels as a set
+of monsters, for whom no punishment was too severe, and obeyed the
+call to arms with enthusiasm. The leader of the insurgents must have
+been astonished at the rapidity with which a large force was
+collected, as if by magic, to repel his designs. A great number of
+these volunteers were half-pay officers, many of whom had fought in
+the continental wars with the armies of Napoleon, and would have
+been found a host in themselves. I must own that my British spirit
+was fairly aroused, and as I could not aid in subduing the enemies
+of my beloved country with my arm, I did what little I could to
+serve the good cause with my pen. It may probably amuse my readers,
+to give them a few specimens of these loyal staves, which were
+widely circulated through the colony at the time.
+
+
+AN ADDRESS TO THE FREEMEN OF CANADA
+
+  Canadians! will you join the band--
+    The factious band--who dare oppose
+  The regal power of that bless'd land
+    From whence your boasted freedom flows?
+  Brave children of a noble race,
+    Guard well the altar and the hearth;
+  And never by your deeds disgrace
+    The British sires who gave you birth.
+
+  What though your bones may never lie
+    Beneath dear Albion's hallow'd sod,
+  Spurn the base wretch who dare defy,
+    In arms, his country and his God!
+  Whose callous bosom cannot feel
+    That he who acts a traitor's part,
+  Remorselessly uplifts the steel
+    To plunge it in a parent's heart.
+
+  Canadians! will you see the flag,
+    Beneath whose folds your fathers bled,
+  Supplanted by the vilest rag[1]
+    That ever host to rapine led?
+  Thou emblem of a tyrant's sway,
+    Thy triple hues are dyed in gore;
+  Like his, thy power has pass'd away--
+    Like his, thy short-lived triumph's o'er.
+
+  Ay! Let the trampled despot's fate
+    Forewarn the rash, misguided band
+  To sue for mercy, ere too late,
+    Nor scatter ruin o'er the land.
+  The baffled traitor, doomed to bear
+    A people's hate, his colleagues' scorn,
+  Defeated by his own despair,
+    Will curse the hour that he was born!
+
+  By all the blood for Britain shed
+    On many a glorious battle-field,
+  To the free winds her standard spread,
+    Nor to these base insurgents yield.
+  With loyal bosoms beating high,
+    In your good cause securely trust;
+  "God and Victoria!" be your cry,
+    And crush the traitors to the dust.
+
+
+[1] The tri-coloured flag assumed by the rebels.
+
+This outpouring of a national enthusiasm, which I found it
+impossible to restrain, was followed by
+
+
+THE OATH OF THE CANADIAN VOLUNTEERS
+
+  Huzza for England!--May she claim
+    Our fond devotion ever;
+  And, by the glory of her name,
+  Our brave forefathers' honest fame,
+    We swear--no foe shall sever
+  Her children from their parent's side;
+    Though parted by the wave,
+  In weal or woe, whate'er betide,
+    We swear to die, or save
+  Her honour from the rebel band
+  Whose crimes pollute our injured land!
+
+  Let the foe come--we will not shrink
+    To meet them if they dare;
+  Well must they fight, ere rashly think
+  To rend apart one sacred link
+    That binds our country fair
+  To that dear isle, from whence we sprung;
+    Which gave our fathers birth;
+  Whose glorious deeds her bards have sung;
+    The unrivall'd of the earth.
+  The highest privilege we claim,
+  To own her sway--to bear her name.
+
+  Then, courage, loyal volunteers!
+    God will defend the right;
+  That thought will banish slavish fears,
+  That blessed consciousness still cheers
+    The soldier in the fight.
+  The stars for us shall never burn,
+    The stripes may frighten slaves,
+  The Briton's eye will proudly turn
+    Where Britain's standard waves.
+  Beneath its folds, if Heaven requires,
+  We'll die, as died of old our sires!
+
+
+In a week, Moodie returned. So many volunteers had poured into
+Toronto that the number of friends was likely to prove as disastrous
+as that of enemies, on account of the want of supplies to maintain
+them all. The companies from the back townships had been remanded,
+and I received with delight my own again. But this re-union did not
+last long. Several regiments of militia were formed to defend the
+colony, and to my husband was given the rank of captain in one of
+those then stationed in Toronto.
+
+On the 20th of January, 1838, he bade us a long adieu. I was left
+with old Jenny and the children to take care of the farm. It was
+a sad, dull time. I could bear up against all trials with him to
+comfort and cheer me, but his long-continued absence cast a gloom
+upon my spirit not easily to be shaken off. Still his very
+appointment to this situation was a signal act of mercy. From his
+full pay, he was enabled to liquidate many pressing debts, and to
+send home from time to time sums of money to procure necessaries for
+me and the little ones. These remittances were greatly wanted; but
+I demurred before laying them out for comforts which we had been so
+long used to dispense with. It seemed almost criminal to purchase
+any article of luxury, such as tea or sugar, while a debt remained
+unpaid.
+
+The Y---y's were very pressing for the thirty pounds that we owed
+them for the clearing; but they had such a firm reliance upon the
+honour of my husband, that, poor and pressed for money as they were,
+they never sued us. I thought it would be a pleasing surprise to
+Moodie, if, with the sums of money which I occasionally received
+from him, I could diminish this debt, which had always given him
+the greatest uneasiness; and, my resolution once formed, I would
+not allow any temptation to shake it.
+
+The money was always transmitted to Dummer. I only reserved the
+sum of two dollars a month, to pay a little lad to chop wood for
+us. After a time, I began to think the Y---y's were gifted with
+secondsight; for I never received a money-letter, but the very
+next day I was sure to see some of the family.
+
+Just at this period I received a letter from a gentleman, requesting
+me to write for a magazine (the Literary Garland) just started in
+Montreal, with promise to remunerate me for my labours. Such an
+application was like a gleam of light springing up in the darkness;
+it seemed to promise the dawning of a brighter day. I had never been
+able to turn my thoughts towards literature during my sojourn in the
+bush. When the body is fatigued with labour, unwonted and beyond its
+strength, the mind is in no condition for mental occupation.
+
+The year before, I had been requested by an American author, of
+great merit, to contribute to the North American Review, published
+for several years in Philadelphia; and he promised to remunerate me
+in proportion to the success of the work. I had contrived to write
+several articles after the children were asleep, though the expense
+even of the stationery and the postage of the manuscripts was
+severely felt by one so destitute of means; but the hope of being of
+the least service to those dear to me cheered me to the task. I
+never realised anything from that source; but I believe it was not
+the fault of the editor. Several other American editors had written
+to me to furnish them with articles; but I was unable to pay the
+postage of heavy packets to the States, and they could not reach
+their destination without being paid to the frontier. Thus, all
+chance of making anything in that way had been abandoned. I wrote to
+Mr. L---, and frankly informed him how I was situated. In the most
+liberal manner, he offered to pay the postage on all manuscripts to
+his office, and left me to name my own terms of remuneration. This
+opened up a new era in my existence; and for many years I have
+found in this generous man, to whom I am still personally unknown,
+a steady friend. I actually shed tears of joy over the first
+twenty-dollar bill I received from Montreal. It was my own; I had
+earned it with my own hand; and it seemed to my delighted fancy to
+form the nucleus out of which a future independence for my family
+might arise. I no longer retired to bed when the labours of the
+day were over. I sat up, and wrote by the light of a strange sort
+of candles, that Jenny called "sluts," and which the old woman
+manufactured out of pieces of old rags, twisted together and dipped
+in pork lard, and stuck in a bottle. They did not give a bad light,
+but it took a great many of them to last me for a few hours.
+
+The faithful old creature regarded my writings with a jealous eye.
+"An', shure, it's killin' yerself that you are intirely. You were
+thin enough before you took to the pen; scribblin' an' scrabblin'
+when you should be in bed an' asleep. What good will it be to the
+childhren, dear heart! If you die afore your time, by wastin' your
+strength afther that fashion?"
+
+Jenny never could conceive the use of books. "Sure, we can live and
+die widout them. It's only a waste of time botherin' your brains wid
+the like of them; but, thanks goodness! the lard will soon be all
+done, an' thin we shall hear you spakin' again, instead of sittin'
+there doubled up all night, desthroying your eyes wid porin' over
+the dirthy writin'."
+
+As the sugar-making season drew near, Jenny conceived the bold
+thought of making a good lump of sugar, that the "childher" might
+have something to "ate" with their bread during the summer. We had
+no sugar-kettle, but a neighbour promised to lend us his, and to
+give us twenty-eight troughs, on condition that we gave him half
+the sugar we made. These terms were rather hard, but Jenny was so
+anxious to fulfil the darling object that we consented. Little Sol.
+and the old woman made some fifty troughs more, the trees were duly
+tapped, a shanty in the bush was erected of small logs and brush and
+covered in at the top with straw; and the old woman and Solomon, the
+hired boy, commenced operations.
+
+The very first day, a terrible accident happened to us; a large log
+fell upon the sugar-kettle--the borrowed sugar-kettle--and cracked
+it, spilling all the sap, and rendering the vessel, which had cost
+four dollars, useless. We were all in dismay. Just at that time
+Old Wittals happened to pass, on his way to Peterborough. He very
+good-naturedly offered to get the kettle repaired for us; which,
+he said, could be easily done by a rivet and an iron hoop. But
+where was the money to come from? I thought awhile. Katie had a
+magnificent coral and bells, the gift of her godfather; I asked the
+dear child if she would give it to buy another kettle for Mr. T---.
+She said, "I would give ten times as much to help mamma."
+
+I wrote a little note to Emilia, who was still at her father's;
+and Mr. W---, the storekeeper, sent us a fine sugar-kettle back
+by Wittals, and also the other mended, in exchange for the useless
+piece of finery. We had now two kettles at work, to the joy of
+Jenny, who declared that it was a lucky fairy who had broken the
+old kettle.
+
+While Jenny was engaged in boiling and gathering the sap in the
+bush, I sugared off the syrup in the house; an operation watched by
+the children with intense interest. After standing all day over the
+hot stove-fire, it was quite a refreshment to breathe the pure air
+at night. Every evening I ran up to see Jenny in the bush, singing
+and boiling down the sap in the front of her little shanty. The old
+woman was in her element, and afraid of nothing under the stars;
+she slept beside her kettles at night, and snapped her fingers at
+the idea of the least danger. She was sometimes rather despotic in
+her treatment of her attendant, Sol. One morning, in particular,
+she bestowed upon the lad a severe cuffing.
+
+I ran up the clearing to the rescue, when my ears were assailed by
+the "boo-hooing" of the boy.
+
+"What has happened? Why do you beat the child, Jenny?"
+
+"It's jist, thin, I that will bate him--the unlucky omadhawn! Has
+not he spilt and spiled two buckets of syrup, that I have been the
+live-long night bilin'. Sorra wid him; I'd like to strip the skin
+off him, I would! Musha! but 'tis enough to vex a saint."
+
+"Ah, Jenny!" blubbered the poor boy, "but you have no mercy. You
+forget that I have but one eye, and that I could not see the root
+which caught my foot and threw me down."
+
+"Faix! an' 'tis a pity that you have the one eye, when you don't
+know how to make a betther use of it," muttered the angry dame,
+as she picked up the pails, and, pushing him on before her, beat
+a retreat into the bush.
+
+I was heartily sick of the sugar-making, long before the season was
+over; however, we were well paid for our trouble. Besides one
+hundred and twelve pounds of fine soft sugar, as good as Muscovado,
+we had six gallons of molasses, and a keg containing six gallons of
+excellent vinegar.
+
+Fifty pounds went to Mr. T---, for the use of his kettle; and the
+rest (with the exception of a cake for Emilia, which I had drained
+in a wet flannel bag until it was almost as white as loaf sugar),
+we kept for our own use. There was no lack, this year, of nice
+preserves and pickled cucumbers, dainties found in every native
+Canadian establishment.
+
+Besides gaining a little money with my pen, I practised a method
+of painting birds and butterflies upon the white, velvety surface
+of the large fungi that grow plentifully upon the bark of the
+sugar-maple. These had an attractive appearance; and my brother,
+who was a captain in one of the provisional regiments, sold a great
+many of them among the officers, without saying by whom they were
+painted. One rich lady in Peterborough, long since dead, ordered
+two dozen to send as curiosities to England. These, at one shilling
+each, enabled me to buy shoes for the children, who, during our bad
+times, had been forced to dispense with these necessary coverings.
+How often, during the winter season, have I wept over their little
+chapped feet, literally washing them with my tears! But these days
+were to end; Providence was doing great things for us; and Hope
+raised at last her drooping head to regard with a brighter glance
+the far-off future.
+
+Slowly the winter rolled away; but he to whom every thought turned
+was still distant from his humble home. The receipt of an occasional
+letter from him was my only solace during his long absence, and we
+were still too poor to indulge often in this luxury. My poor Katie
+was as anxious as her mother to hear from her father; and when I did
+get the long-looked-for prize, she would kneel down before me, her
+little elbows resting on my knees, her head thrown back, and tears
+trickling down her innocent cheeks, eagerly drinking in every word.
+
+The spring brought us plenty of work; we had potatoes and corn to
+plant, and the garden to cultivate. By lending my oxen for two days'
+work, I got Wittals, who had no oxen, to drag me in a few acres of
+oats, and to prepare the land for potatoes and corn. The former I
+dropped into the earth, while Jenny covered them up with the hoe.
+
+Our garden was well dug and plentifully manured, the old woman
+bringing the manure, which had lain for several years at the barn
+door, down to the plot, in a large Indian basket placed upon a
+hand-sleigh. We had soon every sort of vegetable sown, with plenty
+of melons and cucumbers, and all our beds promised a good return.
+There were large flights of ducks upon the lake every night and
+morning; but though we had guns, we did not know how to use them.
+However, I thought of a plan, which I flattered myself might prove
+successful; I got Sol to plant two stakes in the shallow water, near
+the rice beds, and to these I attached a slender rope made by
+braiding long strips of the inner bark of the basswood together;
+to these again I fastened, at regular intervals, about a quarter of
+a yard of whipcord, headed by a strong perch-hook. These hooks I
+baited with fish offal, leaving them to float just under the water.
+Early next morning, I saw a fine black duck fluttering upon the
+line. The boy ran down with the paddles, but before he could reach
+the spot, the captive got away by carrying the hook and line with
+him. At the next stake he found upon the hooks a large eel and a
+cat-fish.
+
+I had never before seen one of those whiskered, toad-like natives of
+the Canadian waters (so common to the Bay of Quinte, where they grow
+to a great size), that I was really terrified at the sight of the
+hideous beast, and told Sol to throw it away. In this I was very
+foolish, for they are esteemed good eating in many parts of Canada;
+but to me, the sight of the reptile-like thing is enough--it is
+uglier, and far more disgusting-looking than a toad.
+
+When the trees came into leaf, and the meadows were green and
+flushed with flowers, the poor children used to talk constantly to
+me of their father's return; their innocent prattle made me very
+sad. Every evening we walked into the wood, along the path that he
+must come whenever he did return home, to meet him, and though it
+was a vain hope, and the walk was taken just to amuse the little
+ones, I used to be silly enough to feel deeply disappointed when we
+returned alone. Donald, who was a mere baby when his father left us,
+could just begin to put words together. "Who is papa?" "When will he
+come?" "Will he come by the road?" "Will he come in a canoe?" The
+little creature's curiosity to see this unknown father was really
+amusing; and oh! how I longed to present the little fellow, with
+his rosy cheeks and curling hair, to his father; he was so fair,
+so altogether charming in my eyes. Emilia had called him Cedric
+the Saxon; and he well suited the name, with his frank, honest
+disposition, and large, loving blue eyes.
+
+June had commenced; the weather was very warm, and Mr. T--- had
+sent for the loan of old Jenny to help him for a day with his
+potatoes. I had just prepared dinner when the old woman came
+shrieking like a mad thing down the clearing, and waving her
+hands towards me. I could not imagine what had happened.
+
+"Ninny's mad!" whispered Dunbar; "she's the old girl for making a
+noise."
+
+"Joy! Joy!" bawled out the old woman, now running breathlessly
+toward us. "The masther's come--the masther's come!"
+
+"Where?--where?"
+
+"Jist above in the wood. Goodness gracious! I have run to let you
+know--so fast--that my heart--is like to--break."
+
+Without stopping to comfort poor Jenny, off started the children and
+myself, at the very top of our speed; but I soon found that I could
+not run--I was too much agitated. I got to the head of the bush, and
+sat down upon a fallen tree. The children sprang forward like wild
+kids, all but Donald, who remained with his old nurse. I covered my
+face with my hands; my heart, too, was beating audibly; and now that
+he was come, and was so near me, I scarcely could command strength
+to meet him. The sound of happy young voices roused me up; the
+children were leading him along in triumph; and he was bending down
+to them, all smiles, but hot and tired with his long journey. It was
+almost worth our separation, that blissful meeting. In a few minutes
+he was at home, and the children upon his knees. Katie stood
+silently holding his hand, but Addie and Dunbar had a thousand
+things to tell him. Donald was frightened at his military dress,
+but he peeped at him from behind my gown, until I caught and placed
+him in his father's arms.
+
+His leave of absence only extended to a fortnight. It had taken him
+three days to come all the way from Lake Erie, where his regiment
+was stationed, at Point Abino; and the same time would be consumed
+in his return. He could only remain with us eight days. How soon
+they fled away! How bitter was the thought of parting with him
+again! He had brought money to pay the Y---y's. How surprised he was
+to find their large debt more than half liquidated. How gently did
+he chide me for depriving myself and the children of the little
+comforts he had designed for us, in order to make this sacrifice.
+But never was self-denial more fully rewarded; I felt happy in
+having contributed in the least to pay a just debt to kind and
+worthy people. You must become poor yourself before you can fully
+appreciate the good qualities of the poor--before you can sympathise
+with them, and fully recognise them as your brethren in the flesh.
+Their benevolence to each other, exercised amidst want and
+privation, as far surpasses the munificence of the rich towards
+them, as the exalted philanthropy of Christ and his disciples does
+the Christianity of the present day. The rich man gives from his
+abundance; the poor man shares with a distressed comrade his all.
+
+One short, happy week too soon fled away, and we were once more
+alone. In the fall, my husband expected the regiment in which he
+held his commission would be reduced, which would again plunge us
+into the same distressing poverty. Often of a night I revolved these
+things in my mind, and perplexed myself with conjectures as to what
+in future was to become of us. Although he had saved all he could
+from his pay, it was impossible to pay several hundreds of pounds
+of debt; and the steam-boat stock still continued a dead letter. To
+remain much longer in the woods was impossible, for the returns from
+the farm scarcely fed us; and but for the clothing sent us by
+friends from home, who were not aware of our real difficulties,
+we should have been badly off indeed.
+
+I pondered over every plan that thought could devise; at last, I
+prayed to the Almighty to direct me as to what would be the best
+course for us to pursue. A sweet assurance stole over me, and
+soothed my spirit, that God would provide for us, as He had hitherto
+done--that a great deal of our distress arose from want of faith. I
+was just sinking into a calm sleep when the thought seemed whispered
+into my soul, "Write to the Governor; tell him candidly all you have
+suffered during your sojourn in this country; and trust to God for
+the rest."
+
+At first I paid little heed to this suggestion; but it became so
+importunate that at last I determined to act upon it as if it were
+a message sent from heaven. I rose from my bed, struck a light,
+sat down, and wrote a letter to the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir George
+Arthur, a simple statement of facts, leaving it to his benevolence
+to pardon the liberty I had taken in addressing him.
+
+I asked of him to continue my husband in the militia service, in
+the same regiment in which he now held the rank of captain, which,
+by enabling him to pay our debts, would rescue us from our present
+misery. Of the political character of Sir George Arthur I knew
+nothing. I addressed him as a man and a Christian, and I
+acknowledge, with the deepest and most heartfelt gratitude,
+the generous kindness of his conduct towards us.
+
+Before the day dawned, my letter was ready for the post. The first
+secret I ever had from my husband was the writing of that letter;
+and, proud and sensitive as he was, and averse to asking the least
+favour of the great, I was dreadfully afraid that the act I had
+just done would be displeasing to him; still, I felt resolutely
+determined to send it. After giving the children their breakfast,
+I walked down and read it to my brother-in-law, who was not only
+much pleased with its contents, but took it down himself to the
+post-office.
+
+Shortly after, I received a letter from my husband, informing me
+that the regiment had been reduced, and that he should be home in
+time to get in the harvest. Most anxiously I awaited a reply to my
+application to the Governor; but no reply came.
+
+The first week in August our dear Moodie came home, and brought
+with him, to our no small joy, J. E---, who had just returned from
+Ireland. E--- had been disappointed about the money, which was
+subject to litigation; and, tired of waiting at home until the
+tedious process of the law should terminate, he had come back to
+the woods, and, before night, was reinstated in his old quarters.
+
+His presence made Jenny all alive; she dared him at once to a trial
+of skill with her in the wheat-field, which E--- prudently declined.
+He did not expect to stay longer in Canada than the fall, but,
+whilst he did stay, he was to consider our house his home.
+
+That harvest was the happiest we ever spent in the bush. We had
+enough of the common necessaries of life. A spirit of peace and
+harmony pervaded our little dwelling, for the most affectionate
+attachment existed among its members. We were not troubled with
+servants, for the good old Jenny we regarded as an humble friend,
+and were freed, by that circumstance, from many of the cares and
+vexations of a bush life. Our evening excursions on the lake were
+doubly enjoyed after the labours of the day, and night brought us
+calm and healthful repose.
+
+The political struggles that convulsed the country were scarcely
+echoed in the depths of those old primeval forests, though the
+expulsion of Mackenzie from Navy Island, and the burning of the
+Caroline by Captain Drew, had been discussed on the farthest borders
+of civilisation. With a tribute to the gallant conduct of that brave
+officer, I will close this chapter:--
+
+
+THE BURNING OF THE CAROLINE
+
+  A sound is on the midnight deep--
+    The voice of waters vast;
+  And onward, with resistless sweep,
+    The torrent rushes past,
+  In frantic chase, wave after wave,
+  The crowding surges press, and rave
+    Their mingled might to cast
+  Adown Niagara's giant steep;
+  The fretted billows foaming leap
+    With wild tumultuous roar;
+  The clashing din ascends on high,
+  In deaf'ning thunders to the sky,
+    And shakes the rocky shore.
+
+  Hark! what strange sounds arise--
+    'Tis not stern Nature's voice--
+  In mingled chorus to the skies!
+    The waters in their depths rejoice.
+  Hark! on the midnight air
+    A frantic cry uprose;
+  The yell of fierce despair,
+    The shout of mortal foes;
+  And mark yon sudden glare,
+    Whose red, portentous gleam
+    Flashes on rock and stream
+  With strange, unearthly light;
+    What passing meteor's beam
+  Lays bare the brow of night?
+
+  From yonder murky shore
+    What demon vessel glides,
+    Stemming the unstemm'd tides,
+  Where maddening breakers roar
+    In hostile surges round her path,
+  Or hiss, recoiling from her prow,
+    That reeling, staggers to their wrath;
+  While distant shores return the glow
+    That brightens from her burning frame,
+  And all above--around--below--
+    Is wrapt in ruddy flame?
+
+  Sail on!--sail on!--No mortal hand
+    Directs that vessel's blazing course;
+  The vengeance of an injured land
+    Impels her with resistless force
+  'Midst breaking wave and fiery gleam,
+    O'er-canopied with clouds of smoke;
+  Midway she stems the raging stream,
+    And feels the rapids' thundering stroke;
+  Now buried deep, now whirl'd on high,
+    She struggles with her awful doom,--
+  With frantic speed now hurries by
+    To find a watery tomb.
+
+  Lo, poised upon the topmost surge,
+    She shudders o'er the dark abyss;
+  The foaming waters round her hiss
+    And hoarse waves ring her funeral dirge;
+  The chafing billows round her close;
+    But ere her burning planks are riven,
+  Shoots up one ruddy spout of fire,--
+    Her last farewell to earth and heaven.
+  Down, down to endless night she goes!
+    So may the traitor's hope expire,
+  So perish all our country's foes!
+
+  Destruction's blazing star
+    Has vanish'd from our sight;
+  The thunderbolt of war
+    Is quench'd in endless night;
+  Nor sight, nor sound of fear
+  Startles the listening ear;
+    Naught but the torrent's roar,
+  The dull, deep, heavy sound,
+  From out the dark profound,
+    Echoes from shore to shore.
+  Where late the cry of blood
+    Rang on the midnight air,
+  The mournful lapsing of the flood,
+  The wild winds in the lonely wood,
+    Claim sole dominion there.
+
+  To thee, high-hearted Drew!
+    And thy victorious band
+  Of heroes tried and true
+  A nation's thanks are due.
+    Defender of an injured land!
+  Well hast thou taught the dastard foe
+    That British honour never yields
+  To democratic influence, low,
+    The glory of a thousand fields.
+
+  Justice to traitors, long delay'd,
+    This night was boldly dealt by thee;
+  The debt of vengeance thou hast paid,
+    And may the deed immortal be.
+  Thy outraged country shall bestow
+    A lasting monument of fame,
+  The highest meed of praise below--
+    A British patriot's deathless name!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE WHIRLWIND
+
+
+
+[For the poem that heads this chapter, I am indebted to my
+brother, Mr. Strickland, of Douro, C.W.]
+
+  Dark, heavy clouds were gathering in the west,
+    Wrapping the forest in funereal gloom;
+  Onward they roll'd, and rear'd each livid crest,
+    Like Death's murk shadows frowning o'er earth's tomb.
+  From out the inky womb of that deep night
+    Burst livid flashes of electric flame.
+  Whirling and circling with terrific might,
+    In wild confusion on the tempest came.
+  Nature, awakening from her still repose,
+    Shudders responsive to the whirlwind's shock,
+  Feels at her might heart convulsive throes,
+    And all her groaning forests to earth's bosom rock.
+
+  But hark!--What means that hollow, rushing sound,
+    That breaks the death-like stillness of the morn?
+  Red forked lightnings fiercely glare around,
+    Sharp, crashing thunders on the winds are borne,
+  And see yon spiral column, black as night,
+    Rearing triumphantly its wreathing form;
+  Ruin's abroad, and through the murky light--
+    Drear desolation marks the spirit of the storm.
+
+S.S.
+
+
+The 19th of August came, and our little harvest was all safely
+housed. Business called Moodie away for a few days to Cobourg.
+Jenny had gone to Dummer, to visit her friends, and J. E--- had
+taken a grist of the new wheat, which he and Moodie had threshed
+the day before, to the mill. I was consequently left alone with
+the children, and had a double portion of work to do. During their
+absence it was my lot to witness the most awful storm I ever beheld,
+and a vivid recollection of its terrors was permanently fixed upon
+my memory.
+
+The weather had been intensely hot during the three preceding days,
+although the sun was entirely obscured by a blueish haze, which
+seemed to render the unusual heat of the atmosphere more oppressive.
+Not a breath of air stirred the vast forest, and the waters of the
+lake assumed a leaden hue. After passing a sleepless night, I arose,
+a little after day-break, to superintend my domestic affairs. E---
+took his breakfast, and went off to the mill, hoping that the rain
+would keep off until after his return.
+
+"It is no joke," he said, "being upon these lakes in a small canoe,
+heavily laden, in a storm."
+
+Before the sun rose, the heavens were covered with hard-looking
+clouds, of a deep blue and black cast, fading away to white at their
+edges, and in the form resembling the long, rolling waves of a heavy
+sea--but with this difference, that the clouds were perfectly
+motionless, piled in long curved lines, one above the other, and
+so remained until four o'clock in the afternoon. The appearance
+of these clouds, as the sun rose above the horizon, was the most
+splendid that can be imagined, tinged up to the zenith with every
+shade of saffron, gold, rose-colour, scarlet, and crimson, fading
+away into the deepest violet. Never did the storm-fiend shake in
+the face of a day a more gorgeous banner; and, pressed as I was
+for time, I stood gazing like one entranced upon the magnificent
+pageant.
+
+As the day advanced, the same blue haze obscured the sun, which
+frowned redly through his misty veil. At ten o'clock the heat was
+suffocating, and I extinguished the fire in the cooking-stove,
+determined to make our meals upon bread and milk, rather than add
+to the oppressive heat. The thermometer in the shade ranged from
+ninety-six to ninety-eight degrees, and I gave over my work and
+retired with the ones to the coolest part of the house. The young
+creatures stretched themselves upon the floor, unable to jump about
+or play; the dog lay panting in the shade; the fowls half-buried
+themselves in the dust, with open beaks and outstretched wings;
+all nature seemed to droop beneath the scorching heat.
+
+Unfortunately for me, a gentlemen arrived about one o'clock from
+Kingston, to transact some business with my husband. He had not
+tasted food since six o'clock, and I was obliged to kindle the
+fire to prepare his dinner. It was one of the hardest tasks I ever
+performed; I almost fainted with the heat, and most inhospitably
+rejoiced when his dinner was over, and I saw him depart. Shortly
+after, my friend Mrs. C--- and her brother called in, on their
+way from Peterborough.
+
+"How do you bear the heat?" asked Mrs. C---. "This is one of the
+hottest days I ever remember to have experienced in this part of
+the province. I am afraid that it will end in a hurricane, or what
+the Lower Canadians term 'l'orage.'"
+
+About four o'clock they rose to go. I urged them to stay longer.
+"No," said Mrs. C---, "the sooner we get home the better. I think
+we can reach it before the storm breaks."
+
+I took Donald in my arms, and my eldest boy by the hand, and walked
+with them to the brow of the hill, thinking that the air would be
+cooler in the shade. In this I was mistaken. The clouds over our
+heads hung so low, and the heat was so great, that I was soon glad
+to retrace my steps.
+
+The moment I turned round to face the lake, I was surprised at the
+change that had taken place in the appearance of the heavens. The
+clouds, that had before lain so motionless, were now in rapid
+motion, hurrying and chasing each other round the horizon. It was
+a strangely awful sight. Before I felt a breath of the mighty blast
+that had already burst on the other side of the lake, branches of
+trees, leaves, and clouds of dust were whirled across the lake,
+whose waters rose in long sharp furrows, fringed with foam, as if
+moved in their depths by some unseen but powerful agent.
+
+Panting with terror, I just reached the door of the house as the
+hurricane swept up the hill, crushing and overturning everything
+in its course. Spell-bound, I stood at the open door, with clasped
+hands, unable to speak, rendered dumb and motionless by the terrible
+grandeur of the scene; while little Donald, who could not utter
+many intelligible words, crept to my feet, appealing to me for
+protection, while his rosy cheeks paled even to marble whiteness.
+The hurrying clouds gave to the heavens the appearance of a pointed
+dome, round which the lightning played in broad ribbons of fire.
+The roaring of the thunder, the rushing of the blast, the impetuous
+down-pouring of the rain, and the crash of falling trees were
+perfectly deafening; and in the midst of this uproar of the
+elements, old Jenny burst in, drenched with wet, and half-dead
+with fear.
+
+"The Lord preserve us!" she cried, "this surely is the day of
+judgment. Fifty trees fell across my very path, between this an' the
+creek. Mrs. C--- just reached her brother's clearing a few minutes
+before a great oak fell on her very path. What thunther!--what
+lightning! Misthress, dear!--it's turn'd so dark, I can only jist
+see yer face."
+
+Glad enough was I of her presence; for to be alone in the heart of
+a great forest, in a log hut, on such a night, was not a pleasing
+prospect. People gain courage by companionship, and in order to
+re-assure each other, struggle to conceal their fears.
+
+"And where is Mr. E---?"
+
+"I hope not on the lake. He went early this morning to get the wheat
+ground at the mill."
+
+"Och, the crathur! He's surely drowned. What boat could stan' such a
+scrimmage as this?"
+
+I had my fears for poor John; but as the chance that he had to wait
+at the mill till others were served was more than probable, I tried
+to still my apprehensions for his safety.
+
+The storm soon passed over, after having levelled several acres of
+wood near the house and smitten down in its progress two gigantic
+pines in the clearing, which must have withstood the force of a
+thousand winters. Talking over the effects of this whirlwind with my
+brother, he kindly sent me the following very graphic description of
+a whirlwind which passed the town of Guelph in the summer of 1829.
+
+[Written by Mr. Strickland, of Douro.] "In my hunting excursions
+and rambles through the Upper Canadian forests, I had frequently
+met with extensive wind-falls; and observed with some surprise
+that the fallen trees lay strewn in a succession of circles, and
+evidently appeared to have been twisted off the stumps. I also
+remarked that these wind-falls were generally narrow, and had the
+appearance of a road, slashed through the forest. From observations
+made at the time, and since confirmed, I have no doubt that
+Colonel Reid's theory of storms is the correct one, viz., that
+all wind-storms move in a circular direction, and the nearer the
+centre the more violent the force of the wind. Having seen the
+effects of several similar hurricanes since my residence in Canada
+West, I shall proceed to describe one which happened in the
+township of Guelph during the early part of the summer of 1829.
+
+"The weather, for the season of the year (May), had been hot and
+sultry, with scarcely a breath of wind stirring. I had heard distant
+thunder from an early hour in the morning, which, from the eastward,
+is rather an unusual occurrence. About 10 A.M., the sky had a most
+singular, and I must add a most awful appearance, presenting to the
+view a vast arch of rolling blackness, which seemed to gather
+strength and density as it approached the zenith. All at once the
+clouds began to work round in circles, as if chasing one another
+through the air. Suddenly the dark arch of clouds appeared to break
+up into detached masses, whirling and mixing through each other in
+dreadful commotion. The forked lightning was incessant, accompanied
+by heavy thunder. In a short time, the clouds seemed to converge to
+a point, which approached very near the earth, still whirling with
+great rapidity directly under this point; and apparently from the
+midst of the woods arose a black column, in the shape of a cone,
+which instantly joined itself to the depending cloud. The sight was
+now grand, and awful in the extreme. Picture to your imagination a
+vast column of smoke, of inky blackness, reaching from the earth to
+heaven, gyrating with fearful velocity--bright lightnings issuing
+from the vortex--the roar of the thunder--the rushing of the
+blast--the crash of timber--the limbs of trees, leaves and rubbish,
+mingled with clouds of dust, whirling through the air;--you then
+have a faint idea of the scene.
+
+"I had ample time for observation, as the hurricane commenced its
+devastating course about two miles from the town, through the centre
+of which it took its way, passing within fifty yards of where a
+number of persons, myself among the rest, were standing, watching
+its fearful progress.
+
+"As the tornado approached, the trees seemed to fall like a pack of
+cards before its irresistible current. After passing through the
+clearing made around the village, the force of the wind gradually
+abated, and in a few minutes died away entirely.
+
+"As soon as the storm was over, I went to see the damage it had
+done. From the point where I first observed the black column to rise
+from the woods and join the cloud, the trees were twisted in every
+direction. A belt of timber had been levelled to the ground about
+two miles in length, and about one hundred yards in breadth. At the
+entrance of the town it crossed the river Speed, and uprooted about
+six acres of wood, which had been thinned out, and left by Mr. Galt
+(late superintendent of the Canada Company), as an ornament to his
+house.
+
+"The Eremosa road was completely blocked up for nearly half-a-mile,
+in the wildest confusion possible. In its progress through the town
+the storm unroofed several houses, levelled many fences to the
+ground, and entirely demolished a frame barn. Windows were dashed
+in; and, in one instance, the floor of a log house was carried
+through the roof. Some hair-breadth escapes occurred; but, luckily,
+no lives were lost.
+
+"About twelve years since a similar storm occurred in the north part
+of the township of Douro, but was of much less magnitude. I heard
+an intelligent settler, who resided some years in the township of
+Madoc, state that, during his residence in that township, a similar
+hurricane to the one I have described, though of a much more awful
+character, passed through a part of Marmora and Madoc, and had been
+traced, in a north-easterly direction, upwards of forty miles into
+the unsurveyed lands; the uniform width of which appeared to be
+three quarters of a mile.
+
+"It is very evident, from the traces which they have left behind
+them, that storms of this description have not been unfrequent
+in the wooded districts of Canada; and it becomes a matter of
+interesting consideration whether the clearing of our immense
+forests will not, in a great measure, remove the cause of these
+phenomena."
+
+A few minutes after our household had retired to rest, my first
+sleep was broken by the voice of J. E---, speaking to old Jenny in
+the kitchen. He had been overtaken by the storm, but had run his
+canoe ashore upon an island before its full fury burst, and turned
+it over the flour; while he had to brave the terrors of the pitiless
+tempest-buffeted by the wind, and drenched with torrents of rain.
+I got up and made him a cup of tea, while Jenny prepared a rasher
+of bacon and eggs for his supper.
+
+Shortly after this, J. E--- bade a final adieu to Canada, with his
+cousin C. W---. He volunteered into the Scotch Greys, and we never
+saw him more; but I have been told that he was so highly respected
+by the officers of the regiment that they have subscribed for his
+commission; that he rose to the rank of lieutenant; accompanied the
+regiment to India, and was at the taking of Cabul; but from himself
+we never heard again.
+
+The 16th of October, my third son was born; and a few days after,
+my husband was appointed pay-master to the militia regiments in the
+V. District, with the rank and full pay of captain.
+
+This was Sir George Arthur's doing. He returned no answer to my
+application, but he did not forget us.
+
+As the time that Moodie might retain this situation was very
+doubtful, he thought it advisable not to remove me and the family
+until he could secure some permanent situation; by so doing, he
+would have a better opportunity of saving the greater part of his
+income to pay off his old debts.
+
+This winter of 1839 was one of severe trial to me. Hitherto I had
+enjoyed the blessing of health; but both the children and myself
+were now doomed to suffer from dangerous attacks of illness. All the
+little things had malignant scarlet fever, and for several days I
+thought it would please the Almighty to take from me my two girls.
+This fever is so fatal to children in Canada that none of my
+neighbors dared approach the house. For three weeks Jenny and I were
+never undressed; our whole time was taken up nursing the five little
+helpless creatures through the successive states of their alarming
+disease. I sent for Dr. Taylor; but he did not come, and I was
+obliged to trust to the mercy of God, and my own judgment and good
+nursing. Though I escaped the fever, mental anxiety and fatigue
+brought on other illness, which for nearly ten weeks rendered me
+perfectly helpless. When I was again able to creep from my sick bed,
+the baby was seized with an illness, which Dr. B--- pronounced
+mortal. Against all hope, he recovered, but these severe mental
+trials rendered me weak and nervous, and more anxious than ever to
+be re-united to my husband. To add to these troubles, my sister and
+her husband sold their farm, and removed from our neighbourhood.
+Mr. --- had returned to England, and had obtained a situation in the
+Customs; and his wife, my friend Emilia, was keeping a school in the
+village; so that I felt more solitary than ever, thus deprived of so
+many kind, sympathising friends.
+
+
+A SONG OF PRAISE TO THE CREATOR
+
+  Oh, thou great God! from whose eternal throne
+    Unbounded blessings in rich bounty flow,
+  Like thy bright sun in glorious state alone,
+    Thou reign'st supreme, while round thee as they go,
+  Unnumber'd worlds, submissive to thy sway,
+  With solemn pace pursue their silent way.
+
+  Benignant God! o'er every smiling land.
+    Thy handmaid, Nature, meekly walks abroad,
+  Scattering thy bounties with unsparing hand,
+    While flowers and fruits spring up along her road.
+  How can thy creatures their weak voices raise
+  To tell thy deeds in their faint songs of praise?
+
+  When, darkling o'er the mountain's summit hoar,
+    Portentous hangs the black and sulph'rous cloud,
+  When lightnings flash, and awful thunders roar,
+    Great Nature sings to thee her anthem loud.
+  The rocks reverberate her mighty song,
+  And crushing woods the pealing notes prolong.
+
+  The storm is pass'd; o'er fields and woodlands gay,
+    Gemm'd with bright dew-drops from the eastern sky,
+  The morning sun now darts his golden ray,
+    The lark on fluttering wing is poised on high;
+  Too pure for earth, he wings his way above,
+  To pour his grateful song of joy and love.
+
+  Hark! from the bowels of the earth, a sound
+    Of awful import! From the central deep
+  The struggling lava rends the heaving ground,
+    The ocean-surges roar--the mountains leap--
+  They shoot aloft,--Oh, God! the fiery tide
+  Has burst its bounds, and rolls down Etna's side.
+
+  Thy will is done, great God! the conflict's o'er,
+    The silvery moonbeams glance along the sea;
+  The whispering waves half ripple on the shore,
+    And lull'd creation breathes a prayer to thee!
+  The night-flower's incense to their God is given,
+  And grateful mortals raise their thoughts to heaven.
+
+J.W.D.M.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE WALK TO DUMMER
+
+
+
+  We trod a weary path through silent woods,
+  Tangled and dark, unbroken by a sound
+  Of cheerful life. The melancholy shriek
+  Of hollow winds careering o'er the snow,
+  Or tossing into waves the green pine tops,
+  Making the ancient forest groan and sigh
+  Beneath their mocking voice, awoke alone
+  The solitary echoes of the place.
+
+
+Reader! have you ever heard of a place situated in the forest-depths
+of this far western wilderness, called Dummer? Ten years ago, it
+might not inaptly have been termed "The last clearing in the world."
+Nor to this day do I know of any in that direction which extends
+beyond it. Our bush-farm was situated on the border-line of a
+neighbouring township, only one degree less wild, less out of
+the world, or nearer to the habitations of civilisation than
+the far-famed "English Line," the boast and glory of this terra
+incognita.
+
+This place, so named by the emigrants who had pitched their tents
+in that solitary wilderness, was a long line of cleared land,
+extending upon either side for some miles through the darkest and
+most interminable forest. The English Line was inhabited chiefly
+by Cornish miners, who, tired of burrowing like moles underground,
+had determined to emigrate to Canada, where they could breathe the
+fresh air of Heaven, and obtain the necessaries of life upon the
+bosom of their mother earth. Strange as it may appear, these men
+made good farmers, and steady, industrious colonists, working as
+well above ground as they had toiled in their early days beneath it.
+All our best servants came from Dummer; and although they spoke a
+language difficult to be understood, and were uncouth in their
+manners and appearance, they were faithful and obedient, performing
+the tasks assigned to them with patient perseverance; good food and
+kind treatment rendering them always cheerful and contented.
+
+My dear old Jenny, that most faithful and attached of all humble
+domestic friends, came from Dummer, and I was wont to regard it
+with complacency for her sake. But Jenny was not English; she was
+a generous, warm-hearted daughter of the Green Isle--the Emerald
+gem set in the silver of ocean. Yes, Jenny was one of the poorest
+children of that impoverished but glorious country where wit and
+talent seem indigenous, springing up spontaneously in the rudest and
+most uncultivated minds; showing what the land could bring forth
+in its own strength, unaided by education, and unfettered by the
+conventional rules of society. Jenny was a striking instance of the
+worth, noble self-denial, and devotion which are often met withand,
+alas! but too often disregarded--in the poor and ignorant natives of
+that deeply-injured, and much abused land. A few words about my old
+favourite may not prove uninteresting to my readers.
+
+Jenny Buchanan, or as she called it, Bohanon, was the daughter of a
+petty exciseman, of Scotch extraction (hence her industry) who, at
+the time of her birth, resided near the old town of Inniskillen. Her
+mother died a few months after she was born; and her father, within
+the twelve months, married again. In the meanwhile, the poor orphan
+babe had been adopted by a kind neighbour, the wife of a small
+farmer in the vicinity.
+
+In return for coarse food and scanty clothing, the little Jenny
+became a servant-of-all-work. She fed the pigs, herded the cattle,
+assisted in planting potatoes and digging peat from the bog, and
+was undisputed mistress of the poultry-yard. As she grew up to
+womanhood, the importance of her labours increased. A better reaper
+in the harvest-field, or footer of turf in the bog, could not be
+found in the district, or a woman more thoroughly acquainted with
+the management of cows and the rearing of young cattle; but here
+poor Jenny's accomplishments terminated.
+
+Her usefulness was all abroad. Within the house she made more dirt
+than she had the inclination or the ability to clear away. She could
+neither read, nor knit, nor sew; and although she called herself a
+Protestant, and a Church of England woman, she knew no more of
+religion, as revealed to man through the Word of God, than the
+savage who sinks to the grave in ignorance of a Redeemer. Hence
+she stoutly resisted all ideas of being a sinner, or of standing
+the least chance of receiving hereafter the condemnation of one.
+
+"Och, sure thin," she would say, with simple earnestness of look and
+manner, almost irresistible. "God will never throuble Himsel' about
+a poor, hard-working crathur like me, who never did any harm to the
+manest of His makin'."
+
+One thing was certain, that a benevolent Providence had "throubled
+Himsel'" about poor Jenny in times past, for the warm heart of this
+neglected child of nature contained a stream of the richest
+benevolence, which, situated as she had been, could not have been
+derived from any other source. Honest, faithful, and industrious,
+Jenny became a law unto herself, and practically illustrated the
+golden rule of her blessed Lord, "to do unto others as we would they
+should do unto us." She thought it was impossible that her poor
+services could ever repay the debt of gratitude that she owed to the
+family who had brought her up, although the obligation must have
+been entirely on their side. To them she was greatly attached--for
+them she toiled unceasingly; and when evil days came, and they were
+not able to meet the rent-day, or to occupy the farm, she determined
+to accompany them in their emigration to Canada, and formed one of
+the stout-hearted band that fixed its location in the lonely and
+unexplored wilds now known as the township of Dummer.
+
+During the first year of their settlement, the means of obtaining
+the common necessaries of life became so precarious, that, in order
+to assist her friends with a little ready money, Jenny determined
+to hire out into some wealthy house as a servant. When I use the
+term wealth as applied to any bush-settler, it is of course only
+comparatively; but Jenny was anxious to obtain a place with settlers
+who enjoyed a small income independent of their forest means.
+
+Her first speculation was a complete failure. For five long,
+hopeless years she served a master from whom she never received a
+farthing of her stipulated wages. Still her attachment to the family
+was so strong, and had become so much the necessity of her life,
+that the poor creature could not make up her mind to leave them.
+The children whom she had received into her arms at their birth,
+and whom she had nursed with maternal tenderness, were as dear to
+her as if they had been her own; she continued to work for them
+although her clothes were worn to tatters, and her own friends were
+too poor to replace them.
+
+Her master, Captain N---, a handsome, dashing officer, who had
+served many years in India, still maintained the carriage and
+appearance of a gentleman, in spite of his mental and moral
+degradation arising from a constant state of intoxication; he still
+promised to remunerate at some future day her faithful services;
+and although all his neighbours well knew that his means were
+exhausted, and that that day would never come, yet Jenny, in the
+simplicity of her faith, still toiled on, in the hope that the
+better day he spoke of would soon arrive.
+
+And now a few words respecting this master, which I trust may serve
+as a warning to others. Allured by the bait that has been the ruin
+of so many of his class, the offer of a large grant of land, Captain
+N--- had been induced to form a settlement in this remote and
+untried township; laying out much, if not all, of his available
+means in building a log house, and clearing a large extent of barren
+and stony land. To this uninviting home he conveyed a beautiful
+young wife, and a small and increasing family. The result may be
+easily anticipated. The want of society--a dreadful want to a man of
+his previous habits--the absence of all the comforts and decencies
+of life, produced inaction, apathy, and at last, despondency, which
+was only alleviated by a constant and immoderate use of ardent
+spirits. As long as Captain N--- retained his half-pay, he contrived
+to exist. In an evil hour he parted with this, and quickly trod the
+downhill path to ruin.
+
+And here I would remark that it is always a rash and hazardous step
+for any officer to part with his half-pay; although it is almost
+every day done, and generally followed by the same disastrous
+results. A certain income, however small, in a country where money
+is so hard to be procured, and where labour cannot be obtained but
+at a very high pecuniary remuneration, is invaluable to a gentleman
+unaccustomed to agricultural employment; who, without this reserve
+to pay his people, during the brief but expensive seasons of
+seed-time and harvest, must either work himself or starve. I have
+known no instance in which such sale has been attended with ultimate
+advantage; but, alas! too many in which it has terminated in the
+most distressing destitution. These government grants of land, to
+half-pay officers, have induced numbers of this class to emigrate
+to the backwoods of Canada, who are totally unfit for pioneers;
+but, tempted by the offer of finding themselves landholders of what,
+on paper, appear to them fine estates, they resign a certainty, to
+waste their energies, and die half-starved and broken-hearted in
+the depths of the pitiless wild.
+
+If a gentleman so situated would give up all idea of settling on
+his grant, but hire a good farm in a favourable situation--that is,
+not too far from a market--and with his half-pay hire efficient
+labourers, of which plenty are now to be had, to cultivate the land,
+with common prudence and economy, he would soon obtain a comfortable
+subsistence for his family. And if the males were brought up to
+share the burthen and heat of the day, the expense of hired labour,
+as it yearly diminished, would add to the general means and
+well-being of the whole, until the hired farm became the real
+property of the industrious tenants. But the love of show, the vain
+boast of appearing richer and better-dressed than our neighbours,
+too often involves the emigrant's family in debt, from which they
+are seldom able to extricate themselves without sacrificing the
+means which would have secured their independence.
+
+This, although a long digression, will not, I hope, be without its
+use; and if this book is regarded not as a work of amusement but one
+of practical experience, written for the benefit of others, it will
+not fail to convey some useful hints to those who have contemplated
+emigration to Canada: the best country in the world for the
+industrious and well-principled man, who really comes out to work,
+and to better his condition by the labour of his hands; but a gulf
+of ruin to the vain and idle, who only set foot upon these shores
+to accelerate their ruin.
+
+But to return to Captain N---. It was at this disastrous period that
+Jenny entered his service. Had her master adapted his habits and
+expenditure to his altered circumstances, much misery might have
+been spared, both to himself and his family. But he was a proud
+man--too proud to work, or to receive with kindness the offers of
+service tendered to him by his half-civilised, but well-meaning
+neighbours.
+
+"Hang him!" cried an indignant English settler (Captain N--- was
+an Irishman), whose offer of drawing wood had been rejected with
+unmerited contempt. "Wait a few years, and we shall see what his
+pride will do for him. I AM sorry for his poor wife and children;
+but for himself, I have no pity for him."
+
+This man had been uselessly insulted, at the very moment when he was
+anxious to perform a kind and benevolent action; when, like a true
+Englishman, his heart was softened by witnessing the sufferings of a
+young, delicate female and her infant family. Deeply affronted by
+the captain's foolish conduct, he now took a malignant pleasure in
+watching his arrogant neighbour's progress to ruin.
+
+The year after the sale of his commission, Captain N--- found
+himself considerably in debt, "Never mind, Ella," he said to his
+anxious wife; "the crops will pay all."
+
+The crops were a failure that year. Creditors pressed hard; the
+captain had no money to pay his workmen, and he would not work
+himself. Disgusted with his location, but unable to change it for
+a better; without friends in his own class (for he was the only
+gentleman then resident in the new township), to relieve the
+monotony of his existence with their society, or to afford him
+advice or assistance in his difficulties, the fatal whiskey-bottle
+became his refuge from gloomy thoughts.
+
+His wife, an amiable and devoted creature, well-born, well-educated,
+and deserving of a better lot, did all in her power to wean him from
+the growing vice. But, alas! the pleadings of an angel, in such
+circumstances, would have had little effect upon the mind of such a
+man. He loved her as well as he could love anything, and he fancied
+that he loved his children, while he was daily reducing them, by his
+favourite vice, to beggary.
+
+For awhile, he confined his excesses to his own fireside, but this
+was only for as long a period as the sale of his stock and land
+would supply him with the means of criminal indulgence. After a
+time, all these resources failed, and his large grant of eight
+hundred acres of land had been converted into whiskey, except the
+one hundred acres on which his house and barn stood, embracing the
+small clearing from which the family derived their scanty supply of
+wheat and potatoes. For the sake of peace, his wife gave up all her
+ornaments and household plate, and the best articles of a once
+handsome and ample wardrobe, in the hope of hiding her sorrows
+from the world, and keeping her husband at home.
+
+The pride, that had rendered him so obnoxious to his humbler
+neighbours, yielded at length to the inordinate craving for drink;
+the man who had held himself so high above his honest and
+industrious fellow-settlers, could now unblushingly enter their
+cabins and beg for a drop of whiskey. The feeling of shame once
+subdued, there was no end to his audacious mendacity. His whole
+time was spent in wandering about the country, calling upon every
+new settler, in the hope of being asked to partake of the coveted
+poison. He was even known to enter by the window of an emigrant's
+cabin, during the absence of the owner, and remain drinking in the
+house while a drop of spirits could be found in the cupboard. When
+driven forth by the angry owner of the hut, he wandered on to the
+distant town of P---, and lived there in a low tavern, while his
+wife and children were starving at home.
+
+"He is the filthiest beast in the township," said the
+afore-mentioned neighbour to me; "it would be a good thing for his
+wife and children if his worthless neck were broken in one of his
+drunken sprees."
+
+This might be the melancholy fact, but it was not the less dreadful
+on that account. The husband of an affectionate wife--the father of
+a lovely family--and his death to be a matter of rejoicing!--a
+blessing, instead of being an affliction!--an agony not to be
+thought upon without the deepest sorrow.
+
+It was at this melancholy period of her sad history that Mrs. N---
+found, in Jenny Buchanan, a help in her hour of need. The heart of
+the faithful creature bled for the misery which involved the wife
+of her degraded master, and the children she so dearly loved. Their
+want and destitution called all the sympathies of her ardent nature
+into active operation; they were long indebted to her labour for
+every morsel of food which they consumed. For them, she sowed, she
+planted, she reaped. Every block of wood which shed a cheering
+warmth around their desolate home was cut from the forest by her
+own hands, and brought up a steep hill to the house upon her back.
+For them, she coaxed the neighbours, with whom she was a general
+favourite, out of many a mess of eggs for their especial benefit;
+while with her cheerful songs, and hearty, hopeful disposition,
+she dispelled much of the cramping despair which chilled the heart
+of the unhappy mother in her deserted home.
+
+For several years did this great, poor woman keep the wolf from the
+door of her beloved mistress, toiling for her with the strength and
+energy of a man. When was man ever so devoted, so devoid of all
+selfishness, so attached to employers, yet poorer than herself,
+as this uneducated Irishwoman?
+
+A period was at length put to her unrequited services. In a fit of
+intoxication her master beat her severely with the iron ramrod of
+his gun, and turned her, with abusive language, from his doors. Oh,
+hard return for all her unpaid labours of love! She forgave this
+outrage for the sake of the helpless beings who depended upon her
+care. He repeated the injury, and the poor creature returned almost
+heart-broken to her former home.
+
+Thinking that his spite would subside in a few days, Jenny made a
+third effort to enter his house in her usual capacity; but Mrs. N---
+told her, with many tears, that her presence would only enrage her
+husband, who had threatened herself with the most cruel treatment
+if she allowed the faithful servant again to enter the house. Thus
+ended her five years' service to this ungrateful master. Such was
+her reward!
+
+I heard of Jenny's worth and kindness from the Englishman who had
+been so grievously affronted by Captain N---, and sent for her to
+come to me. She instantly accepted my offer, and returned with my
+messenger. She had scarcely a garment to cover her. I was obliged
+to find her a suit of clothes before I could set her to work. The
+smiles and dimples of my curly-headed, rosy little Donald, then
+a baby-boy of fifteen months, consoled the old woman for her
+separation from Ellie N---; and the good-will with which all the
+children (now four in number) regarded the kind old body, soon
+endeared to her the new home which Providence had assigned to her.
+
+Her accounts of Mrs. N---, and her family, soon deeply interested
+me in her fate; and Jenny never went to visit her friends in Dummer
+without an interchange of good wishes passing between us.
+
+The year of the Canadian rebellion came, and brought with it sorrow
+into many a bush dwelling. Old Jenny and I were left alone with the
+little children, in the depths of the dark forest, to help ourselves
+in the best way we could. Men could not be procured in that
+thinly-settled spot for love nor money, and I now fully realised the
+extent of Jenny's usefulness. Daily she yoked the oxen, and brought
+down from the bush fuel to maintain our fires, which she felled and
+chopped up with her own hands. She fed the cattle, and kept all
+things snug about the doors; not forgetting to load her master's two
+guns, "in case," as she said, "the ribels should attack us in our
+retrate."
+
+The months of November and December of 1838 had been unnaturally
+mild for this iron climate; but the opening of the ensuing January
+brought a short but severe spell of frost and snow. We felt very
+lonely in our solitary dwelling, crouching round the blazing fire,
+that scarcely chased the cold from our miserable log-tenement, until
+this dreary period was suddenly cheered by the unexpected presence
+of my beloved friend, Emilia, who came to spend a week with me in
+my forest home.
+
+She brought her own baby-boy with her, and an ample supply of
+buffalo robes, not forgetting a treat of baker's bread, and
+"sweeties" for the children. Oh, dear Emilia! best and kindest of
+women, though absent in your native land, long, long shall my heart
+cherish with affectionate gratitude all your visits of love, and
+turn to you as to a sister, tried, and found most faithful, in the
+dark hour of adversity, and, amidst the almost total neglect of
+those from whom nature claimed a tenderer and holier sympathy.
+
+Great was the joy of Jenny at this accession to our family party;
+and after Mrs. S--- was well warmed, and had partaken of tea--the
+only refreshment we could offer her--we began to talk over the news
+of the place.
+
+"By-the-bye, Jenny," said she, turning to the old servant, who was
+undressing the little boy by the fire, "have you heard lately from
+poor Mrs. N---? We have been told that she and the family are in a
+dreadful state of destitution. That worthless man has left them for
+the States, and it is supposed that he has joined Mackenzie's band
+of ruffians on Navy Island; but whether this be true or false, he
+has deserted his wife and children, taking his eldest son along with
+him (who might have been of some service at home), and leaving them
+without money or food."
+
+"The good Lord! What will become of the crathurs?" responded Jenny,
+wiping her wrinkled cheek with the back of her hard, brown hand.
+"An' thin they have not a sowl to chop and draw them firewood; an'
+the weather so oncommon savare. Och, hone! what has not that BASTE
+of a man to answer for?"
+
+"I heard," continued Mrs. S---, "that they have tasted no food but
+potatoes for the last nine months, and scarcely enough of them to
+keep soul and body together; that they have sold their last cow;
+and the poor young lady and her second brother, a lad of only
+twelve years old, bring all the wood for the fire from the bush on
+a hand sleigh."
+
+"Oh, dear!--oh, dear!" sobbed Jenny; "an' I not there to hilp them!
+An' poor Miss Mary, the tinder thing! Oh, 'tis hard, terribly hard
+upon the crathurs, an' they not used to the like."
+
+"Can nothing be done for them?" said I.
+
+"That is what we want to know," returned Emilia, "and that was one
+of my reasons for coming up to D---. I wanted to consult you and
+Jenny upon the subject. You, who are an officer's wife, and I, who
+am both an officer's wife and daughter, ought to devise some plan of
+rescuing this poor, unfortunate lady and her family from her present
+forlorn situation."
+
+The tears sprang to my eyes, and I thought, in the bitterness of my
+heart, upon my own galling poverty, that my pockets did not contain
+even a single copper, and that I had scarcely garments enough to
+shield me from the inclemency of the weather. By unflinching
+industry, and taking my part in the toil of the field, I had bread
+for myself and family, and this was more than poor Mrs. N---
+possessed; but it appeared impossible for me to be of any assistance
+to the unhappy sufferer, and the thought of my incapacity gave me
+severe pain. It was only in moments like the present that I felt the
+curse of poverty.
+
+"Well," continued my friend, "you see, Mrs. Moodie, that the ladies
+of P--- are all anxious to do what they can for her; but they first
+want to learn if the miserable circumstances in which she is said to
+be placed are true. In short, my dear friend, they want you and me
+to make a pilgrimage to Dummer, to see the poor lady herself; and
+then they will be guided by our report."
+
+"Then let us lose no time in going upon our own mission of mercy."
+
+"Och, my dear heart, you will be lost in the woods!" said old Jenny.
+"It is nine long miles to the first clearing, and that through a
+lonely, blazed path. After you are through the beaver-meadow, there
+is not a single hut for you to rest or warm yourselves. It is too
+much for the both of yees; you will be frozen to death on the road."
+
+"No fear," said my benevolent friend; "God will take care of us,
+Jenny. It is on His errand we go; to carry a message of hope to one
+about to perish."
+
+"The Lord bless you for a darlint," cried the old woman, devoutly
+kissing the velvet cheek of the little fellow sleeping upon her lap.
+"May your own purty child never know the want and sorrow that is
+around her."
+
+Emilia and I talked over the Dummer scheme until we fell asleep.
+Many were the plans we proposed for the immediate relief of the
+unfortunate family. Early the next morning, my brother-in-law, Mr.
+T---, called upon my friend. The subject next to our heart was
+immediately introduced, and he was called into the general council.
+His feelings, like our own, were deeply interested; and he proposed
+that we should each provide something from our own small stores to
+satisfy the pressing wants of the distressed family; while he
+promised to bring his cutter the next morning, and take us through
+the beaver-meadow, and to the edge of the great swamp, which would
+shorten four miles, at least, of our long and hazardous journey.
+
+We joyfully acceded to his proposal, and set cheerfully to work to
+provide for the morrow. Jenny baked a batch of her very best bread,
+and boiled a large piece of beef; and Mr. T--- brought with him, the
+next day, a fine cooked ham, in a sack, into the bottom of which he
+stowed the beef and loaves, besides some sugar and tea, which his
+own kind wife, the author of "the Backwoods of Canada," had sent.
+I had some misgivings as to the manner in which these good things
+could be introduced to the poor lady, who, I had heard, was reserved
+and proud.
+
+"Oh, Jenny," I said, "how shall I be able to ask her to accept
+provisions from strangers? I am afraid of wounding her feelings."
+
+"Oh, darlint, never fear that! She is proud, I know; but 'tis not
+a stiff pride, but jist enough to consale her disthress from her
+ignorant English neighbours, who think so manely of poor folk like
+her who were once rich. She will be very thankful to you for your
+kindness, for she has not experienced much of it from the Dummer
+people in her throuble, though she may have no words to tell you so.
+Say that old Jenny sent the bread to dear wee Ellie, 'cause she knew
+she would like a loaf of Jenny's bakin'."
+
+"But the meat."
+
+"Och, the mate, is it? May be, you'll think of some excuse for the
+mate when you get there."
+
+"I hope so; but I'm a sad coward with strangers, and I have lived so
+long out of the world that I am at a great loss what to do. I will
+try and put a good face on the matter. Your name, Jenny, will be no
+small help to me."
+
+All was now ready. Kissing our little bairns, who crowded around us
+with eager and inquiring looks, and charging Jenny for the hundredth
+time to take especial care of them during our absence, we mounted
+the cutter, and set off, under the care and protection of Mr. T---,
+who determined to accompany us on the journey.
+
+It was a black, cold day; no sun visible in the grey, dark sky; a
+keen wind, and hard frost. We crouched close to each other.
+
+"Good heavens, how cold it is!" whispered Emilia. "What a day for
+such a journey!"
+
+She had scarcely ceased speaking, when the cutter went upon a stump
+which lay concealed under the drifted snow; and we, together with
+the ruins of our conveyance, were scattered around.
+
+"A bad beginning," said my brother-in-law, with a rueful aspect, as
+he surveyed the wreck of the cutter from which we had promised
+ourselves so much benefit. "There is no help for it but to return
+home."
+
+"Oh, no," said Mrs. S---; "bad beginnings make good endings, you
+know. Let us go on; it will be far better walking than riding such a
+dreadful day. My feet are half-frozen already with sitting still."
+
+"But, my dear madam," expostulated Mr. T---, "consider the distance,
+the road, the dark, dull day, and our imperfect knowledge of the
+path. I will get the cutter mended to-morrow; and the day after we
+may be able to proceed."
+
+"Delays are dangerous," said the pertinacious Emilia, who,
+woman-like, was determined to have her own way. "Now, or never.
+While we wait for the broken cutter, the broken-hearted Mrs. N---
+may starve. We can stop at Colonel C---'s and warm ourselves, and
+you can leave the cutter at his house until our return."
+
+"It was upon your account that I proposed the delay," said the good
+Mr. T---, taking the sack, which was no inconsiderable weight, upon
+his shoulder, and driving his horse before him into neighbour W---'s
+stable. "Where you go, I am ready to follow."
+
+When we arrived, Colonel C---'s family were at breakfast, of which
+they made us partake; and after vainly endeavouring to dissuade us
+from what appeared to them our Quixotic expedition, Mrs. C--- added
+a dozen fine white fish to the contents of the sack, and sent her
+youngest son to help Mr. T--- along with his burthen, and to bear
+us company on our desolate road.
+
+Leaving the colonel's hospitable house on our left, we again plunged
+into the woods, and after a few minutes' brisk walking, found
+ourselves upon the brow of a steep bank that overlooked the
+beaver-meadow, containing within its area several hundred acres.
+
+There is no scenery in the bush that presents such a novel
+appearance as those meadows, or openings, surrounded as they
+invariably are, by dark, intricate forests; their high, rugged
+banks covered with the light, airy tamarack and silver birch. In
+summer they look like a lake of soft, rich verdure, hidden in the
+bosom of the barren and howling waste. Lakes they certainly have
+been, from which the waters have receded, "ages, ages long ago";
+and still the whole length of these curious level valleys is
+traversed by a stream, of no inconsiderable dimensions.
+
+The waters of the narrow, rapid creek, which flowed through the
+meadow we were about to cross, were of sparkling brightness, and
+icy cold. The frost-king had no power to check their swift, dancing
+movements, or stop their perpetual song. On they leaped, sparkling
+and flashing beneath their ice-crowned banks, rejoicing as they
+revelled on in their lonely course. In the prime of the year, this
+is a wild and lovely spot, the grass is of the richest green, and
+the flowers of the most gorgeous dyes. The gayest butterflies float
+above them upon painted wings; and the whip-poor-will pours forth
+from the neighbouring woods, at close of dewy eve, his strange but
+sadly plaintive cry. Winter was now upon the earth, and the once
+green meadow looked like a small forest lake covered with snow.
+
+The first step we made into it plunged us up to the knees in the
+snow, which was drifted to a great height in the open space. Mr.
+T--- and our young friend C--- walked on ahead of us, in order to
+break a track through the untrodden snow. We soon reached the cold
+creek; but here a new difficulty presented itself. It was too wide
+to jump across, and we could see no other way of passing to the
+other side.
+
+"There must be some sort of a bridge here about," said young C---,
+"or how can the people from Dummer pass constantly during the winter
+to and fro. I will go along the bank, and halloo to you if I find
+one."
+
+In a few minutes he gave the desired signal, and on reaching the
+spot, we found a round, slippery log flung across the stream by way
+of bridge. With some trouble, and after various slips, we got safely
+on the other side. To wet our feet would have been to ensure their
+being frozen; and as it was, we were not without serious
+apprehension on that score. After crossing the bleak, snowy plain,
+we scrambled over another brook, and entered the great swamp, which
+occupied two miles of our dreary road.
+
+It would be vain to attempt giving any description of this tangled
+maze of closely-interwoven cedars, fallen trees, and loose-scattered
+masses of rock. It seemed the fitting abode of wolves and bears, and
+every other unclean beast. The fire had run through it during the
+summer, making the confusion doubly confused. Now we stooped,
+half-doubled, to crawl under fallen branches that hung over our
+path, then again we had to clamber over prostrate trees of great
+bulk, descending from which we plumped down into holes in the snow,
+sinking mid-leg into the rotten trunk of some treacherous, decayed
+pine-tree. Before we were half through the great swamp, we began to
+think ourselves sad fools, and to wish that we were safe again by
+our own firesides. But, then, a great object was in view,--the
+relief of a distressed fellow-creature, and like the "full of hope,
+misnamed forlorn," we determined to overcome every difficulty, and
+toil on.
+
+It took us an hour at least to clear the great swamp, from which we
+emerged into a fine wood, composed chiefly of maple-trees. The sun
+had, during our immersion in the dark shades of the swamp, burst
+through his leaden shroud, and cast a cheery gleam along the rugged
+boles of the lofty trees. The squirrel and chipmunk occasionally
+bounded across our path; the dazzling snow which covered it
+reflected the branches above us in an endless variety of dancing
+shadows. Our spirits rose in proportion. Young C--- burst out
+singing, and Emilia and I laughed and chatted as we bounded along
+our narrow road. On, on for hours, the same interminable forest
+stretched away to the right and left, before and behind us.
+
+"It is past twelve," said my brother T--- thoughtfully; "if we do
+not soon come to a clearing, we may chance to spend the night in
+the forest."
+
+"Oh, I am dying with hunger," cried Emilia. "Do C---, give us one or
+two of the cakes your mother put into the bag for us to eat upon the
+road."
+
+The ginger-cakes were instantly produced. But where were the teeth
+to be found that could masticate them? The cakes were frozen as hard
+as stones; this was a great disappointment to us tired and hungry
+wights; but it only produced a hearty laugh. Over the logs we went
+again; for it was a perpetual stepping up and down, crossing the
+fallen trees that obstructed our path. At last we came to a spot
+where two distinct blazed roads diverged.
+
+"What are we to do now?" said Mr. T---.
+
+We stopped, and a general consultation was held, and without one
+dissenting voice we took the branch to the right, which, after
+pursuing for about half a mile, led us to a log hut of the rudest
+description.
+
+"Is this the road to Dummer?" we asked a man, who was chopping wood
+outside the fence.
+
+"I guess you are in Dummer," was the answer.
+
+My heart leaped for joy, for I was dreadfully fatigued.
+
+"Does this road lead through the English Line?"
+
+"That's another thing," returned the woodman. "No, you turned off
+from the right path when you came up here." We all looked very blank
+at each other. "You will have to go back, and keep the other road,
+and that will lead you straight to the English Line."
+
+"How many miles is it to Mrs. N---'s?"
+
+"Some four, or thereabouts," was the cheering rejoinder. "'Tis one
+of the last clearings on the line. If you are going back to Douro
+to-night, you must look sharp."
+
+Sadly and dejectedly we retraced our steps. There are few trifling
+failures more bitter in our journey through life than that of a
+tired traveller mistaking his road. What effect must that tremendous
+failure produce upon the human mind, when at the end of life's
+unretraceable journey, the traveller finds that he has fallen upon
+the wrong track through every stage, and instead of arriving at a
+land of blissful promise, sinks for ever into the gulf of despair!
+
+The distance we had trodden in the wrong path, while led on by hope
+and anticipation, now seemed to double in length, as with painful
+steps we toiled on to reach the right road. This object once
+attained, soon led us to the dwellings of men.
+
+Neat, comfortable log houses, surrounded by well-fenced patches of
+clearing, arose on either side of the forest road; dogs flew out and
+barked at us, and children ran shouting indoors to tell their
+respective owners that strangers were passing their gates; a most
+unusual circumstance, I should think, in that location.
+
+A servant who had hired two years with my brother-in-law, we knew
+must live somewhere in this neighbourhood, at whose fireside we
+hoped not only to rest and warm ourselves, but to obtain something
+to eat. On going up to one of the cabins to inquire for Hannah J---,
+we fortunately happened to light upon the very person we sought.
+With many exclamations of surprise, she ushered us into her neat and
+comfortable log dwelling.
+
+A blazing fire, composed of two huge logs, was roaring up the wide
+chimney, and the savoury smell that issued from a large pot of
+pea-soup was very agreeable to our cold and hungry stomachs. But,
+alas, the refreshment went no further! Hannah most politely begged
+us to take seats by the fire, and warm and rest ourselves; she even
+knelt down and assisted in rubbing our half-frozen hands; but she
+never once made mention of the hot soup, or of the tea, which was
+drawing in a tin teapot upon the hearth-stone, or of a glass of
+whiskey, which would have been thankfully accepted by our male
+pilgrims.
+
+Hannah was not an Irishwoman, no, nor a Scotch lassie, or her very
+first request would have been for us to take "a pickle of soup," or
+"a sup of thae warm broths." The soup was no doubt cooking for
+Hannah's husband and two neighbours, who were chopping for him in
+the bush; and whose want of punctuality she feelingly lamented.
+
+As we left her cottage, and jogged on, Emilia whispered, laughing,
+"I hope you are satisfied with your good dinner? Was not the
+pea-soup excellent?--and that cup of nice hot tea!--I never relished
+anything more in my life. I think we should never pass that house
+without giving Hannah a call, and testifying our gratitude for her
+good cheer."
+
+Many times did we stop to inquire the way to Mrs. N---'s, before we
+ascended the steep, bleak hill upon which her house stood. At the
+door, Mr. T--- deposited the sack of provisions, and he and young
+C--- went across the road to the house of an English settler (who,
+fortunately for them, proved more hospitable than Hannah J---),
+to wait until our errand was executed.
+
+The house before which Emilia and I were standing had once been
+a tolerably comfortable log dwelling. It was larger than such
+buildings generally are, and was surrounded by dilapidated barns
+and stables, which were not cheered by a solitary head of cattle.
+A black pine-forest stretched away to the north of the house, and
+terminated in a dismal, tangled cedar-swamp, the entrance to the
+house not having been constructed to face the road.
+
+The spirit that had borne me up during the journey died within me. I
+was fearful that my visit would be deemed an impertinent intrusion.
+I knew not in what manner to introduce myself, and my embarrassment
+had been greatly increased by Mrs. S--- declaring that I must break
+the ice, for she had not courage to go in. I remonstrated, but she
+was firm. To hold any longer parley was impossible. We were standing
+on the top of a bleak hill, with the thermometer many degrees below
+zero, and exposed to the fiercest biting of the bitter, cutting
+blast. With a heavy sigh, I knocked slowly but decidedly at the
+crazy door. I saw the curly head of a boy glance for a moment
+against the broken window. There was a stir within, but no one
+answered our summons. Emilia was rubbing her hands together, and
+beating a rapid tattoo with her feet upon the hard and glittering
+snow, to keep them from freezing.
+
+Again I appealed to the inhospitable door, with a vehemence which
+seemed to say, "We are freezing, good people; in mercy let us in!"
+
+Again there was a stir, and a whispered sound of voices, as if
+in consultation, from within; and after waiting a few minutes
+longer--which, cold as we were, seemed an age--the door was
+cautiously opened by a handsome, dark-eyed lad of twelve years of
+age, who was evidently the owner of the curly head that had been
+sent to reconnoitre us through the window. Carefully closing the
+door after him, he stepped out upon the snow, and asked us coldly
+but respectfully what we wanted. I told him that we were two ladies,
+who had walked all the way from Douro to see his mamma, and that we
+wished very much to speak to her. The lad answered us, with the ease
+and courtesy of a gentleman, that he did not know whether his mamma
+could be seen by strangers, but he would go in and see. So saying he
+abruptly left us, leaving behind him an ugly skeleton of a dog, who,
+after expressing his disapprobation at our presence in the most
+disagreeable and unequivocal manner, pounced like a famished wolf
+upon the sack of good things which lay at Emilia's feet; and our
+united efforts could scarcely keep him off.
+
+"A cold, doubtful reception this!" said my friend, turning her back
+to the wind, and hiding her face in her muff. "This is worse than
+Hannah's liberality, and the long, weary walk."
+
+I thought so too, and began to apprehend that our walk had been in
+vain, when the lad again appeared, and said that we might walk in,
+for his mother was dressed.
+
+Emilia, true to her determination, went no farther than the passage.
+In vain were all my entreating looks and mute appeals to her
+benevolence and friendship; I was forced to enter alone the
+apartment that contained the distressed family.
+
+I felt that I was treading upon sacred ground, for a pitying angel
+hovers over the abode of suffering virtue, and hallows all its woes.
+On a rude bench, before the fire, sat a lady, between thirty and
+forty years of age, dressed in a thin, coloured muslin gown, the
+most inappropriate garment for the rigour of the season, but, in all
+probability, the only decent one that she retained. A subdued
+melancholy looked forth from her large, dark, pensive eyes. She
+appeared like one who, having discovered the full extent of her
+misery, had proudly steeled her heart to bear it. Her countenance
+was very pleasing, and, in early life (but she was still young), she
+must have been eminently handsome. Near her, with her head bent
+down, and shaded by her thin, slender hand, her slight figure
+scarcely covered by her scanty clothing, sat her eldest daughter, a
+gentle, sweet-looking girl, who held in her arms a baby brother,
+whose destitution she endeavoured to conceal. It was a touching
+sight; that suffering girl, just stepping into womanhood, hiding
+against her young bosom the nakedness of the little creature she
+loved. Another fine boy, whose neatly-patched clothes had not one
+piece of the original stuff apparently left in them, stood behind
+his mother, with dark, glistening eyes fastened upon me, as if
+amused, and wondering who I was, and what business I could have
+there. A pale and attenuated, but very pretty, delicately-featured
+little girl was seated on a low stool before the fire. This was
+old Jenny's darling, Ellie, or Eloise. A rude bedstead, of home
+manufacture, in a corner of the room, covered with a coarse woollen
+quilt, contained two little boys, who had crept into it to conceal
+their wants from the eyes of the stranger. On the table lay a dozen
+peeled potatoes, and a small pot was boiling on the fire, to receive
+their scanty and only daily meal. There was such an air of patient
+and enduring suffering to the whole group, that, as I gazed
+heart-stricken upon it, my fortitude quite gave way, and I burst
+into tears.
+
+Mrs. N--- first broke the painful silence, and, rather proudly,
+asked me to whom she had the pleasure of speaking. I made a
+desperate effort to regain my composure, and told her, but with much
+embarrassment, my name; adding that I was so well acquainted with
+her and her children, through Jenny, that I could not consider her
+as a stranger; that I hoped that, as I was the wife of an officer,
+and like her, a resident in the bush, and well acquainted with all
+its trials and privations, she would look upon me as a friend.
+
+She seemed surprised and annoyed, and I found no small difficulty
+in introducing the object of my visit; but the day was rapidly
+declining, and I knew that not a moment was to be lost. At first
+she coldly rejected all offers of service, and said that she was
+contented, and wanted for nothing.
+
+I appealed to the situation in which I beheld herself and her
+children, and implored her, for their sakes, not to refuse help from
+friends who felt for her distress. Her maternal feelings triumphed
+over her assumed indifference, and when she saw me weeping, for I
+could no longer restrain my tears, her pride yielded, and for some
+minutes not a word was spoken. I heard the large tears, as they
+slowly fell from her daughter's eyes, drop one by one upon her
+garments.
+
+At last the poor girl sobbed out, "Dear mamma, why conceal the
+truth? You know that we are nearly naked, and starving."
+
+Then came the sad tale of domestic woes:--the absence of the husband
+and eldest son; the uncertainty as to where they were, or in what
+engaged; the utter want of means to procure the common necessaries
+of life; the sale of the only remaining cow that used to provide the
+children with food. It had been sold for twelve dollars, part to be
+paid in cash, part in potatoes; the potatoes were nearly exhausted,
+and they were allowanced to so many a day. But the six dollars she
+had retained as their last resource. Alas! she had sent the eldest
+boy the day before to P---, to get a letter out of the post-office,
+which she hoped contained some tidings of her husband and son.
+She was all anxiety and expectation, but the child returned late
+at night without the letter which they had longed for with such
+feverish impatience. The six dollars upon which they had depended
+for a supply of food were in notes of the Farmer's Bank, which at
+that time would not pass for money, and which the roguish purchaser
+of the cow had passed off upon this distressed family.
+
+Oh! imagine, ye who revel in riches--who can daily throw away a
+large sum upon the merest toy--the cruel disappointment, the bitter
+agony of this poor mother's heart, when she received this calamitous
+news, in the midst of her starving children. For the last nine weeks
+they had lived upon a scanty supply of potatoes; they had not tasted
+raised bread or animal food for eighteen months.
+
+"Ellie," said I, anxious to introduce the sack, which had lain like
+a nightmare upon my mind, "I have something for you; Jenny baked
+some loaves last night, and sent them to you with her best love."
+
+The eyes of all the children grew bright. "You will find the sack
+with the bread in the passage," said I to one of the boys. He rushed
+joyfully out, and returned with Mrs. --- and the sack. Her bland and
+affectionate greeting restored us all to tranquillity.
+
+The delighted boy opened the sack. The first thing he produced was
+the ham.
+
+"Oh," said I, "that is a ham that my sister sent to Mrs. N---; 'tis
+of her own curing, and she thought that it might be acceptable."
+
+Then came the white fish, nicely packed in a clean cloth. "Mrs. C---
+thought fish might be a treat to Mrs. N---, as she lived so far from
+the great lakes." Then came Jenny's bread, which had already been
+introduced. The beef, and tea, and sugar, fell upon the floor
+without any comment. The first scruples had been overcome, and the
+day was ours.
+
+"And now, ladies," said Mrs. N---, with true hospitality, "since you
+have brought refreshments with you, permit me to cook something for
+your dinner."
+
+The scene I had just witnessed had produced such a choking sensation
+that all my hunger had vanished. Before we could accept or refuse
+Mrs. N---'s kind offer, Mr. T--- arrived, to hurry us off.
+
+It was two o'clock when we descended the hill in front of the
+house, that led by a side-path round to the road, and commenced our
+homeward route. I thought the four miles of clearings would never
+be passed; and the English Line appeared to have no end. At length
+we entered once more the dark forest.
+
+The setting sun gleamed along the ground; the necessity of exerting
+our utmost speed, and getting through the great swamp before
+darkness surrounded us, was apparent to all. The men strode
+vigorously forward, for they had been refreshed with a substantial
+dinner of potatoes and pork, washed down with a glass of whiskey, at
+the cottage in which they had waited for us; but poor Emilia and I,
+faint, hungry, and foot-sore, it was with the greatest difficulty we
+could keep up. I thought of Rosalind, as our march up and down the
+fallen logs recommenced, and often exclaimed with her, "Oh, Jupiter!
+how weary are my legs!"
+
+Night closed in just as we reached the beaver-meadow. Here our ears
+were greeted with the sound of well-known voices. James and Henry
+C--- had brought the ox-sleigh to meet us at the edge of the bush.
+Never was splendid equipage greeted with such delight. Emilia and I,
+now fairly exhausted with fatigue, scrambled into it, and lying down
+on the straw which covered the bottom of the rude vehicle, we drew
+the buffalo robes over our faces, and actually slept soundly until
+we reached Colonel C---'s hospitable door.
+
+An excellent supper of hot fish and fried venison was smoking on the
+table, with other good cheer, to which we did ample justice. I, for
+one, never was so hungry in my life. We had fasted for twelve hours,
+and that on an intensely cold day, and had walked during that period
+upwards of twenty miles. Never, never shall I forget that weary walk
+to Dummer; but a blessing followed it.
+
+It was midnight when Emilia and I reached my humble home; our good
+friends the oxen being again put in requisition to carry us there.
+Emilia went immediately to bed, from which she was unable to rise
+for several days. In the meanwhile I wrote to Moodie an account of
+the scene I had witnessed, and he raised a subscription among the
+officers of the regiment for the poor lady and her children, which
+amounted to forty dollars. Emilia lost no time in making a full
+report to her friends at P---; and before a week passed away, Mrs.
+N--- and her family were removed thither by several benevolent
+individuals in the place. A neat cottage was hired for her; and, to
+the honour of Canada be it spoken, all who could afford a donation
+gave cheerfully. Farmers left at her door, pork, beef, flour, and
+potatoes; the storekeepers sent groceries and goods to make clothes
+for the children; the shoemakers contributed boots for the boys;
+while the ladies did all in their power to assist and comfort the
+gentle creature thus thrown by Providence upon their bounty.
+
+While Mrs. N--- remained at P--- she did not want for any comfort.
+Her children were clothed and her rent paid by her benevolent
+friends, and her house supplied with food and many comforts from the
+same source. Respected and beloved by all who knew her, it would
+have been well had she never left the quiet asylum where for several
+years she enjoyed tranquillity and a respectable competence from her
+school; but in an evil hour she followed her worthless husband to
+the Southern States, and again suffered all the woes which
+drunkenness inflicts upon the wives and children of its degraded
+victims.
+
+
+THE CONVICT'S WIFE
+
+  Pale matron! I see thee in agony steep
+  The pillow on which thy young innocents sleep;
+  Their slumbers are tranquil, unbroken their rest,
+  They know not the grief that convulses thy breast;
+  They mark not the glance of that red, swollen eye,
+  That must weep till the fountain of sorrow is dry;
+  They guess not thy thoughts in this moment of dread,
+  Thou desolate widow, but not of the dead!
+
+  Ah, what are thy feelings, whilst gazing on those,
+  Who unconsciously smile in their balmy repose,--
+  The pangs which thy grief-stricken bosom must prove
+  Whilst gazing through tears on those pledges of love,
+  Who murmur in slumber the dear, cherish'd name
+  Of that sire who has cover'd his offspring with shame,--
+  Of that husband whom justice has wrench'd from thy side
+  Of the wretch, who the laws of his country defied?
+
+  Poor, heart-broken mourner! thy tears faster flow,
+  Time can bring no oblivion to banish thy woe;
+  The sorrows of others are soften'd by years.
+  Ah, what now remains for thy portion but tears?
+  Anxieties ceaseless, renew'd day by day,
+  While thy heart yearns for one who is ever away.
+  No hope speeds thy thoughts as they traverse the wave
+  To the far-distant land of the exile and slave.
+
+  And those children, whose birth with such rapture was hail'd,
+  When the holiest feelings of nature prevail'd,
+  And the bright drops that moisten'd the father's glad cheek
+  Could alone the deep transport of happiness speak;
+  When he turn'd from his first-born with glances of pride,
+  In grateful devotion to gaze on his bride,
+  The loved and the loving, who, silent with joy,
+  Alternately gazed from the sire to his boy.
+
+  Ah! what could induce the young husband to fling
+  Love's garland away in life's beautiful spring,
+  To scatter the roses Hope wreath'd for her brow
+  In the dust, and abandon his partner to woe?
+  The wine-cup can answer. The Bacchanal's bowl
+  Corrupted life's chalice, and poison'd his soul.
+  It chill'd the warm heart, added fire to the brain,
+  Gave to pleasure and passion unbridled the rein;
+  Till the gentle endearments of children and wife
+  Only roused the fell demon to anger and strife.
+
+  By conscience deserted, by law unrestrain'd,
+  A felon, convicted, unblushing, and chain'd;
+  Too late from the dark dream of ruin he woke
+  To remember the wife whose fond heart he had broke;
+  The children abandon'd to sorrow and shame,
+  Their deepest misfortune the brand of his name.
+  Oh, dire was the curse he invoked on his soul,
+  Then gave his last mite for a draught of the bowl!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+A CHANGE IN OUR PROSPECTS
+
+
+
+  The future flower lies folded in the bud,--
+  Its beauty, colour, fragrance, graceful form,
+  Carefully shrouded in that tiny cell;
+  Till time and circumstance, and sun and shower,
+  Expand the embryo blossom--and it bursts
+  Its narrow cerements, lifts its blushing head,
+  Rejoicing in the light and dew of heaven.
+  But if the canker-worm lies coil'd around
+  The heart o' the bud, the summer sun and dew
+  Visit in vain the sear'd and blighted flower.
+
+
+During my illness, a kind neighbour, who had not only frequently
+come to see me, but had brought me many nourishing things, made by
+her own fair hands, took a great fancy to my second daughter, who,
+lively and volatile, could not be induced to remain quiet in the
+sick chamber. The noise she made greatly retarded my recovery, and
+Mrs. H--- took her home with her, as the only means of obtaining for
+me necessary rest. During that winter and through the ensuing
+summer, I only received occasional visits from my little girl, who,
+fairly established with her new friends, looked upon their house as
+her home.
+
+This separation, which was felt as a great benefit at the time,
+greatly estranged the affections of the child from her own people.
+She saw us so seldom that she almost regarded us, when she did meet,
+as strangers; and I often deeply lamented the hour when I had
+unwittingly suffered the threefold cord of domestic love to be
+unravelled by absence, and the flattering attentions which fed the
+vanity of a beautiful child, without strengthening her moral
+character. Mrs. H---, whose husband was wealthy, was a generous,
+warm-hearted girl of eighteen. Lovely in person, and fascinating
+in manners, and still too young to have any idea of forming the
+character of a child, she dressed the little creature expensively;
+and, by constantly praising her personal appearance, gave her an
+idea of her own importance which it took many years to eradicate.
+
+It is a great error to suffer a child, who has been trained in the
+hard school of poverty and self-denial, to be transplanted suddenly
+into the hot-bed of wealth and luxury. The idea of the child being
+so much happier and better off blinds her fond parents to the
+dangers of her new situation, where she is sure to contract a
+dislike to all useful occupation, and to look upon scanty means and
+plain clothing as a disgrace. If the re-action is bad for a grown-up
+person, it is almost destructive to a child who is incapable of
+moral reflection. Whenever I saw little Addie, and remarked the
+growing coldness of her manner towards us, my heart reproached me
+for having exposed her to temptation.
+
+Still, in the eye of the world, she was much better situated than
+she could possibly be with us. The heart of the parent could alone
+understand the change.
+
+So sensible was her father of this alteration, that the first time
+he paid us a visit he went and brought home his child.
+
+"If she remain so long away from us, at her tender years," he said,
+"she will cease to love us. All the wealth in the world would not
+compensate me for the love of my child."
+
+The removal of my sister rendered my separation from my husband
+doubly lonely and irksome. Sometimes the desire to see and converse
+with him would press so painfully on my heart that I would get up in
+the night, strike a light, and sit down and write him a long letter,
+and tell him all that was in my mind; and when I had thus unburdened
+my spirit, the letter was committed to the flames, and after
+fervently commending him to the care of the Great Father of mankind,
+I would lay down my throbbing head on my pillow beside our
+first-born son, and sleep tranquilly.
+
+It is a strange fact that many of my husband's letters to me were
+written at the very time when I felt those irresistible impulses to
+hold communion with him. Why should we be ashamed to admit openly
+our belief in this mysterious intercourse between the spirits of
+those who are bound to each other by the tender ties of friendship
+and affection, when the experience of every day proves its truth?
+Proverbs, which are the wisdom of ages collected into a few brief
+words, tell us in one pithy sentence that "if we talk of the devil
+he is sure to appear." While the name of a long-absent friend is
+in our mouth, the next moment brings him into our presence. How
+can this be, if mind did not meet mind, and the spirit had not a
+prophetic consciousness of the vicinity of another spirit, kindred
+with its own? This is an occurrence so common that I never met with
+any person to whom it had not happened; few will admit it to be
+a spiritual agency, but in no other way can they satisfactorily
+explain its cause. If it were a mere coincidence, or combination of
+ordinary circumstances, it would not happen so often, and people
+would not be led to speak of the long-absent always at the moment
+when they are just about to present themselves before them. My
+husband was no believer in what he termed my fanciful, speculative
+theories; yet at the time when his youngest boy and myself lay
+dangerously ill, and hardly expected to live, I received from him a
+letter, written in great haste, which commenced with this sentence:
+"Do write to me, dear S---, when you receive this. I have felt very
+uneasy about you for some days past, and am afraid that all is not
+right at home."
+
+Whence came this sudden fear? Why at that particular time did his
+thoughts turn so despondingly towards those so dear to him? Why
+did the dark cloud in his mind hang so heavily above his home?
+The burden of my weary and distressed spirit had reached him;
+and without knowing of our sufferings and danger, his own responded
+to the call.
+
+The holy and mysterious nature of man is yet hidden from himself; he
+is still a stranger to the movements of that inner life, and knows
+little of its capabilities and powers. A purer religion, a higher
+standard of moral and intellectual training may in time reveal all
+this. Man still remains a half-reclaimed savage; the leaven of
+Christianity is surely working its way, but it has not yet changed
+the whole lump, or transformed the deformed into the beauteous child
+of God. Oh, for that glorious day! It is coming. The dark clouds of
+humanity are already tinged with the golden radiance of the dawn,
+but the sun of righteousness has not yet arisen upon the world with
+healing on his wings; the light of truth still struggles in the womb
+of darkness, and man stumbles on to the fulfilment of his sublime
+and mysterious destiny.
+
+This spring I was not a little puzzled how to get in the crops. I
+still continued so weak that I was quite unable to assist in the
+field, and my good old Jenny was sorely troubled with inflamed feet,
+which required constant care. At this juncture, a neighbouring
+settler, who had recently come among us, offered to put in my small
+crop of peas, potatoes, and oats, in all not comprising more than
+eight acres, if I would lend him my oxen to log-up a large fallow of
+ten acres, and put in his own crops. Trusting to his fair dealing, I
+consented to this arrangement; but he took advantage of my isolated
+position, and not only logged-up his fallow, but put in all his
+spring crops before he sowed an acre of mine. The oxen were worked
+down so low that they were almost unfit for use, and my crops were
+put in so late, and with such little care, that they all proved a
+failure. I should have felt this loss more severely had it happened
+in any previous year; but I had ceased to feel that deep interest in
+the affairs of the farm, from a sort of conviction in my own mind
+that it would not long remain my home.
+
+Jenny and I did our best in the way of hoeing and weeding; but no
+industry on our part could repair the injury done to the seed by
+being sown out of season.
+
+We therefore confined our attention to the garden, which, as usual,
+was very productive, and with milk, fresh butter, and eggs, supplied
+the simple wants of our family. Emilia enlivened our solitude by her
+company, for several weeks during the summer, and we had many
+pleasant excursions on the water together.
+
+My knowledge of the use of the paddle, however, was not entirely
+without its danger.
+
+One very windy Sunday afternoon, a servant-girl, who lived with my
+friend Mrs. C---, came crying to the house, and implored the use of
+my canoe and paddles, to cross the lake to see her dying father. The
+request was instantly granted; but there was no man upon the place
+to ferry her across, and she could not manage the boat herself--in
+short, had never been in a canoe in her life.
+
+The girl was deeply distressed. She said that she had got word that
+her father could scarcely live till she could reach Smith-town; that
+if she went round by the bridge, she must walk five miles, while if
+she crossed the lake she could be home in half an hour.
+
+I did not much like the angry swell upon the water, but the poor
+creature was in such grief that I told her, if she was not afraid
+of venturing with me, I would try and put her over.
+
+She expressed her thanks in the warmest terms, accompanied by a
+shower of blessings; and I took the paddles and went down to the
+landing. Jenny was very averse to my "tempting Providence," as she
+termed it, and wished that I might get back as safe as I went.
+However, the old woman launched the canoe for me, pushed us from
+the shore, and away we went. The wind was in my favour, and I found
+so little trouble in getting across that I began to laugh at my
+own timidity. I put the girl on shore, and endeavoured to shape
+my passage home. But this I found was no easy task. The water was
+rough, and the wind high, and the strong current, which runs through
+that part of the lake to the Smith rapids, was dead against me. In
+vain I laboured to cross this current; it resisted all my efforts,
+and at each repulse I was carried farther down towards the rapids,
+which were full of sunken rocks, and hard for the strong arm of a
+man to stem--to the weak hand of a woman their safe passage was
+impossible. I began to feel rather uneasy at the awkward situation
+in which I found myself placed, and for some time I made desperate
+efforts to extricate myself, by paddling with all my might. I soon
+gave this up, and contented myself by steering the canoe in the path
+that it thought fit to pursue. After drifting down with the current
+for some little space, until I came opposite a small island, I
+put out all my strength to gain the land. In this I fortunately
+succeeded, and getting on shore, I contrived to drag the canoe so
+far round the headland that I got her out of the current. All now
+was smooth sailing, and I joyfully answered old Jenny's yells from
+the landing, that I was safe, and would join her in a few minutes.
+
+This fortunate manoeuvre stood me in good stead upon another
+occasion, when crossing the lake, some weeks after this, in company
+with a young female friend, during a sudden storm.
+
+Two Indian women, heavily laden with their packs of dried venison,
+called at the house to borrow the canoe, to join their encampment
+upon the other side. It so happened that I wanted to send to the
+mill that afternoon, and the boat could not be returned in time
+without I went over with the Indian women and brought it back.
+My young friend was delighted at the idea of the frolic, and as
+she could both steer and paddle, and the day was calm and bright,
+though excessively warm, we both agreed to accompany the squaws
+to the other side, and bring back the canoe.
+
+Mrs. Muskrat has fallen in love with a fine fat kitten, whom the
+children had called "Buttermilk," and she begged so hard for the
+little puss, that I presented it to her, rather marvelling how she
+would contrive to carry it so many miles through the woods, and she
+loaded with such an enormous pack; when, lo! the squaw took down
+the bundle, and, in the heart of the piles of dried venison, she
+deposited the cat in a small basket, giving it a thin slice of the
+meat to console it for its close confinement. Puss received the
+donation with piteous mews; it was evident that mice and freedom
+were preferred by her to venison and the honour of riding on a
+squaw's back.
+
+The squaws paddled us quickly across, and we laughed and chatted
+as we bounded over the blue waves, until we were landed in a dark
+cedar-swamp, in the heart of which we found the Indian encampment.
+
+A large party were lounging around the fire, superintending the
+drying of a quantity of venison which was suspended on forked
+sticks. Besides the flesh of the deer, a number of musk-rats were
+skinned, and extended as if standing bolt upright before the fire,
+warming their paws. The appearance they cut was most ludicrous. My
+young friend pointed to the musk-rats, as she sank down, laughing,
+upon one of the skins.
+
+Old Snow-storm, who was present, imagined that she wanted one of
+them to eat, and very gravely handed her the unsavoury beast, stick
+and all.
+
+"Does the old man take me for a cannibal?" she said. "I would as
+soon eat a child."
+
+Among the many odd things cooking at that fire there was something
+that had the appearance of a bull-frog.
+
+"What can that be?" she said, directing my eyes to the strange
+monster. "Surely they don't eat bull-frogs!"
+
+This sally was received by a grunt of approbation from Snow-storm;
+and, though Indians seldom forget their dignity so far as to laugh,
+he for once laid aside his stoical gravity, and, twirling the thing
+round with a stick, burst into a hearty peal.
+
+"Muckakee! Indian eat muckakee?--Ha! ha! Indian no eat muckakee!
+Frenchmans eat his hind legs; they say the speckled beast much good.
+This no muckakee!--the liver of deer, dried--very nice--Indian eat
+him."
+
+"I wish him much joy of the delicate morsel," said the saucy girl,
+who was intent upon quizzing and examining everything in the camp.
+
+We had remained the best part of an hour, when Mrs. Muskrat laid
+hold of my hand, and leading me through the bush to the shore,
+pointed up significantly to a cloud, as dark as night, that hung
+loweringly over the bush.
+
+"Thunder in that cloud--get over the lake--quick, quick, before it
+breaks." Then motioning for us to jump into the canoe, she threw in
+the paddles, and pushed us from shore.
+
+We saw the necessity of haste, and both plied the paddle with
+diligence to gain the opposite bank, or at least the shelter of the
+island, before the cloud poured down its fury upon us. We were just
+in the middle of the current when the first peal of thunder broke
+with startling nearness over our heads. The storm frowned darkly
+upon the woods; the rain came down in torrents; and there were we
+exposed to its utmost fury in the middle of a current too strong
+for us to stem.
+
+"What shall we do? We shall be drowned!" said my young friend,
+turning her pale, tearful face towards me.
+
+"Let the canoe float down the current till we get close to the
+island; then run her into the land. I saved myself once before
+by this plan."
+
+We did so, and were safe; but there we had to remain, wet to our
+skins, until the wind and the rain abated sufficiently for us to
+manage our little craft. "How do you like being upon the lake in a
+storm like this?" I whispered to my shivering, dripping companion.
+
+"Very well in romance, but terribly dull in reality. We cannot,
+however, call it a dry joke," continued she, wringing the rain from
+her dress. "I wish we were suspended over Old Snow-storm's fire with
+the bull-frog, for I hate a shower-bath with my clothes on."
+
+I took warning by this adventure, never to cross the lake again
+without a stronger arm than mine in the canoe to steer me safely
+through the current.
+
+I received much kind attention from my new neighbour, the Rev. W.
+W---, a truly excellent and pious clergyman of the English Church.
+The good, white-haired old man expressed the kindest sympathy in all
+my trials, and strengthened me greatly with his benevolent counsels
+and gentle charity. Mr. W--- was a true follower of Christ. His
+Christianity was not confined to his own denomination; and every
+Sabbath his log cottage was filled with attentive auditors, of all
+persuasions, who met together to listen to the word of life
+delivered to them by a Christian minister in the wilderness.
+
+He had been a very fine preacher, and though considerably turned of
+seventy, his voice was still excellent, and his manner solemn and
+impressive.
+
+His only son, a young man of twenty-eight years of age, had received
+a serious injury in the brain by falling upon a turf-spade from a
+loft window when a child, and his intellect had remained stationary
+from that time. Poor Harry was an innocent child; he loved his
+parents with the simplicity of a child, and all who spoke kindly to
+him he regarded as friends. Like most persons of his caste of mind,
+his predilection for pet animals was a prominent instinct. He was
+always followed by two dogs, whom he regarded with especial favour.
+The moment he caught your eye, he looked down admiringly upon his
+four-footed attendants, patting their sleek necks, and murmuring,
+"Nice dogs--nice dogs." Harry had singled out myself and my little
+ones as great favourites. He would gather flowers for the girls, and
+catch butterflies for the boys; while to me he always gave the title
+of "dear aunt."
+
+It so happened that one fine morning I wanted to walk a couple of
+miles through the bush, to spend the day with Mrs. C---; but the
+woods were full of the cattle belonging to the neighbouring
+settlers, and of these I was terribly afraid. Whilst I was dressing
+the little girls to accompany me, Harry W--- came in with a message
+from his mother. "Oh, thought I, here is Harry W---. He will walk
+with us through the bush, and defend us from the cattle."
+
+The proposition was made, and Harry was not a little proud of being
+invited to join our party. We had accomplished half the distance
+without seeing a single hoof; and I was beginning to congratulate
+myself upon our unusual luck, when a large red ox, maddened by the
+stings of the gad-flies, came headlong through the brush, tossing
+up the withered leaves and dried moss with his horns, and making
+directly towards us. I screamed to my champion for help; but where
+was he?--running like a frightened chipmunk along the fallen timber,
+shouting to my eldest girl, at the top of his voice--
+
+"Run Katty, run!--The bull, the bull! Run, Katty!--The bull,
+the bull!"--leaving us poor creatures far behind in the chase.
+
+The bull, who cared not one fig for us, did not even stop to give
+us a passing stare, and was soon lost among the trees; while our
+valiant knight never stopped to see what had become of us, but made
+the best of his way home. So much for taking an innocent for a
+guard.
+
+The next month most of the militia regiments were disbanded. My
+husband's services were no longer required at B---, and he once more
+returned to help to gather in our scanty harvest. Many of the old
+debts were paid off by his hard-saved pay; and though all hope of
+continuing in the militia service was at an end, our condition was
+so much improved that we looked less to the dark than to the sunny
+side of the landscape.
+
+The potato crop was gathered in, and I had collected my store of
+dandelion-roots for our winter supply of coffee, when one day
+brought a letter to my husband from the Governor's secretary,
+offering him the situation of sheriff of the V--- district. Though
+perfectly unacquainted with the difficulties and responsibilities of
+such an important office, my husband looked upon it as a gift sent
+from heaven to remove us from the sorrows and poverty with which we
+were surrounded in the woods.
+
+Once more he bade us farewell; but it was to go and make ready a
+home for us, that we should no more be separated from each other.
+
+Heartily did I return thanks to God that night for all his mercies
+to us; and Sir George Arthur was not forgotten in those prayers.
+
+From B---, my husband wrote to me to make what haste I could in
+disposing of our crops, household furniture, stock, and farming
+implements; and to prepare myself and the children to join him on
+the first fall of snow that would make the roads practicable for
+sleighing. To facilitate this object, he sent me a box of clothing,
+to make up for myself and the children.
+
+For seven years I had lived out of the world entirely; my person had
+been rendered coarse by hard work and exposure to the weather. I
+looked double the age I really was, and my hair was already thickly
+sprinkled with grey. I clung to my solitude. I did not like to be
+dragged from it to mingle in gay scenes, in a busy town, and with
+gaily-dressed people. I was no longer fit for the world; I had lost
+all relish for the pursuits and pleasures which are so essential to
+its votaries; I was contented to live and die in obscurity.
+
+My dear Emilia rejoiced, like a true friend, in my changed
+prospects, and came up to help me to cut clothes for the children,
+and to assist me in preparing them for the journey.
+
+I succeeded in selling off our goods and chattels much better than
+I expected. My old friend, Mr. W---, who was a new comer, became
+the principal purchaser, and when Christmas arrived I had not one
+article left upon my hands save the bedding, which it was necessary
+to take with us.
+
+
+THE MAGIC SPELL
+
+  The magic spell, the dream is fled,
+    The dream of joy sent from above;
+  The idol of my soul is dead,
+    And naught remains but hopeless love.
+  The song of birds, the scent of flowers,
+    The tender light of parting day--
+  Unheeded now the tardy hours
+    Steal sadly, silently away.
+
+  But welcome now the solemn night,
+    When watchful stars are gleaming high,
+  For though thy form eludes my sight,
+    I know thy gentle spirit's nigh.
+  O! dear one, now I feel thy power,
+    'Tis sweet to rest when toil is o'er,
+  But sweeter far that blessed hour
+    When fond hearts meet to part no more.
+
+J.W.D.M.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+ADIEU TO THE WOODS
+
+
+
+  Adieu!--adieu!--when quivering lips refuse
+    The bitter pangs of parting to declare;
+  And the full bosom feels that it must lose
+    Friends who were wont its inmost thoughts to share;
+  When hands are tightly clasp'd, 'mid struggling sighs
+  And streaming tears, those whisper'd accents rise,
+    Leaving to God the objects of our care
+    In that short, simple, comprehensive prayer--
+                                  ADIEU!
+
+
+Never did eager British children look for the first violets and
+primroses of spring with more impatience than my baby boys and girls
+watched, day after day, for the first snow-flakes that were to form
+the road to convey them to their absent father.
+
+"Winter never means to come this year. It will never snow again?"
+exclaimed my eldest boy, turning from the window on Christmas Day,
+with the most rueful aspect that ever greeted the broad, gay beams
+of the glorious sun. It was like a spring day. The little lake in
+front of the window glittered like a mirror of silver, set in its
+dark frame of pine woods.
+
+I, too, was wearying for the snow, and was tempted to think that it
+did not come as early as usual, in order to disappoint us. But I
+kept this to myself, and comforted the expecting child with the
+oft-repeated assertion that it would certainly snow upon the morrow.
+
+But the morrow came and passed away, and many other morrows, and the
+same mild, open weather prevailed. The last night of the old year
+was ushered in with furious storms of wind and snow; the rafters of
+our log cabin shook beneath the violence of the gale, which swept
+up from the lake like a lion roaring for its prey, driving the
+snow-flakes through every open crevice, of which there were not a
+few, and powdering the floor until it rivalled in whiteness the
+ground without.
+
+"Oh, what a dreadful night!" we cried, as we huddled, shivering,
+around the old broken stove. "A person abroad in the woods to-night
+would be frozen. Flesh and blood could not long stand this cutting
+wind."
+
+"It reminds me of the commencement of a laughable extempore ditty,"
+said I to my young friend, A. C---, who was staying with me,
+"composed by my husband, during the first very cold night we spent
+in Canada"--
+
+  Oh, the cold of Canada nobody knows,
+  The fire burns our shoes without warming our toes;
+  Oh, dear, what shall we do?
+  Our blankets are thin, and our noses are blue--
+  Our noses are blue, and our blankets are thin,
+  It's at zero without, and we're freezing within!
+            (Chorus)--Oh, dear, what shall we do?
+
+"But, joking apart, my dear A---, we ought to be very thankful that
+we are not travelling this night to B---."
+
+"But to-morrow," said my eldest boy, lifting up his curly head from
+my lap. "It will be fine to-morrow, and we shall see dear papa
+again."
+
+In this hope he lay down on his little bed upon the floor, and was
+soon fast asleep; perhaps dreaming of that eagerly-anticipated
+journey, and of meeting his beloved father.
+
+Sleep was a stranger to my eyes. The tempest raged so furiously
+without that I was fearful the roof would be carried off the house,
+or that the chimney would take fire. The night was far advanced when
+old Jenny and myself retired to bed.
+
+My boy's words were prophetic; that was the last night I ever spent
+in the bush--in the dear forest home which I had loved in spite of
+all the hardships which we had endured since we pitched our tent in
+the backwoods. It was the birthplace of my three boys, the school of
+high resolve and energetic action in which we had learned to meet
+calmly, and successfully to battle with the ills of life. Nor did I
+leave it without many regretful tears, to mingle once more with a
+world to whose usages, during my long solitude, I had become almost
+a stranger, and to whose praise or blame I felt alike indifferent.
+
+When the day dawned, the whole forest scenery lay glittering in a
+mantle of dazzling white; the sun shone brightly, the heavens were
+intensely blue, but the cold was so severe that every article of
+food had to be thawed before we could get our breakfast. The very
+blankets that covered us during the night were stiff with our frozen
+breath. "I hope the sleighs won't come to-day," I cried; "we should
+be frozen on the long journey."
+
+About noon two sleighs turned into our clearing. Old Jenny ran
+screaming into the room, "The masther has sent for us at last! The
+sleighs are come! Fine large sleighs, and illigant teams of horses!
+Och, and its a cowld day for the wee things to lave the bush."
+
+The snow had been a week in advance of us at B---, and my husband
+had sent up the teams to remove us. The children jumped about, and
+laughed aloud for joy. Old Jenny did not know whether to laugh or
+cry, but she set about helping me to pack up trunks and bedding as
+fast as our cold hands would permit.
+
+In the midst of the confusion, my brother arrived, like a good
+genius, to our assistance, declaring his determination to take us
+down to B--- himself in his large lumber-sleigh. This was indeed
+joyful news. In less than three hours he despatched the hired
+sleighs with their loads, and we all stood together in the empty
+house, striving to warm our hands over the embers of the expiring
+fire.
+
+How cold and desolate every object appeared! The small windows, half
+blocked up with snow, scarcely allowed a glimpse of the declining
+sun to cheer us with his serene aspect. In spite of the cold,
+several kind friends had waded through the deep snow to say, "God
+bless you!--Good-bye;" while a group of silent Indians stood
+together, gazing upon our proceedings with an earnestness which
+showed that they were not uninterested in the scene. As we passed
+out to the sleigh, they pressed forward, and silently held out their
+hands, while the squaws kissed me and the little ones with tearful
+eyes. They had been true friends to us in our dire necessity, and I
+returned their mute farewell from my very heart.
+
+Mr. S--- sprang into the sleigh. One of our party was missing.
+"Jenny!" shouted my brother, at the top of his voice, "it is too
+cold to keep your mistress and the little children waiting."
+
+"Och, shure thin, it is I that am comin'!" returned the old body,
+as she issued from the house.
+
+Shouts of laughter greeted her appearance. The figure she cut upon
+that memorable day I shall never forget. My brother dropped the
+reins upon the horses' necks, and fairly roared. Jenny was about to
+commence her journey to the front in three hats. Was it to protect
+her from the cold? Oh, no; Jenny was not afraid of the cold! She
+could have eaten her breakfast on the north side of an iceberg, and
+always dispensed with shoes, during the most severe of our Canadian
+winters. It was to protect these precious articles from injury.
+
+Our good neighbour, Mrs. W---, had presented her with an old
+sky-blue drawn-silk bonnet, as a parting benediction. This, by way
+of distinction, for she never had possessed such an article of
+luxury as a silk bonnet in her life, Jenny had placed over the
+coarse calico cap, with its full furbelow of the same yellow,
+ill-washed, homely material, next to her head; over this, as second
+in degree, a sun-burnt straw hat, with faded pink ribbons, just
+showed its broken rim and tawdry trimmings; and, to crown all, and
+serve as a guard to the rest, a really serviceable grey-beaver
+bonnet, once mine, towered up as high as the celebrated crown in
+which brother Peter figures in Swift's "Tale of a Tub."
+
+"Mercy, Jenny! Why, old woman, you don't mean to go with us that
+figure?"
+
+"Och, my dear heart! I've no band-box to kape the cowld from
+desthroying my illigant bonnets," returned Jenny, laying her
+hand upon the side of the sleigh.
+
+"Go back, Jenny; go back," cried my brother. "For God's sake
+take all that tom-foolery from off your head. We shall be the
+laughing-stock of every village we pass through."
+
+"Och, shure now, Mr. S---, who'd think of looking at an owld
+crathur like me! It's only yersel' that would notice the like."
+
+"All the world, everybody would look at you, Jenny. I believe that
+you put on those hats to draw the attention of all the young fellows
+that we shall happen to meet on the road. Ha, Jenny!"
+
+With an air of offended dignity, the old woman returned to the
+house to re-arrange her toilet, and provide for the safety of her
+"illigant bonnets," one of which she suspended to the strings of
+her cloak, while she carried the third dangling in her hand; and
+no persuasion of mine would induce her to put them out of sight.
+
+Many painful and conflicting emotions agitated my mind, but found no
+utterance in words, as we entered the forest path, and I looked my
+last upon that humble home consecrated by the memory of a thousand
+sorrows. Every object had become endeared to me during my long exile
+from civilised life. I loved the lonely lake, with its magnificent
+belt of dark pines sighing in the breeze; the cedar-swamp, the
+summer home of my dark Indian friends; my own dear little garden,
+with its rugged snake-fence which I had helped Jenny to place
+with my own hands, and which I had assisted the faithful woman in
+cultivating for the last three years, where I had so often braved
+the tormenting mosquitoes, black flies, and intense heat, to provide
+vegetables for the use of the family. Even the cows, that had given
+a breakfast for the last time to my children, were now regarded with
+mournful affection. A poor labourer stood in the doorway of the
+deserted house, holding my noble water-dog, Rover, in a string.
+The poor fellow gave a joyous bark as my eyes fell upon him.
+
+"James J---, take care of my dog."
+
+"Never fear, ma'am, he shall bide with me as long as he lives."
+
+"He and the Indians at least feel grieved for our departure," I
+thought. Love is so scarce in this world that we ought to prize it,
+however lowly the source from whence it flows.
+
+We accomplished only twelve miles of our journey that night.
+The road lay through the bush, and along the banks of the grand,
+rushing, foaming Otonabee river, the wildest and most beautiful of
+forest streams. We slept at the house of kind friends, and early in
+the morning resumed our long journey, but minus one of our party.
+Our old favourite cat, Peppermint, had made her escape from the
+basket in which she had been confined, and had scampered off, to
+the great grief of the children.
+
+As we passed Mrs. H---'s house, we called for dear Addie. Mr. H---
+brought her in his arms to the gate, well wrapped up in a large fur
+cape and a warm woollen shawl.
+
+"You are robbing me of my dear little girl," he said. "Mrs. H--- is
+absent; she told me not to part with her if you should call; but I
+could not detain her without your consent. Now that you have seen
+her, allow me to keep her for a few months longer?"
+
+Addie was in the sleigh. I put my arm about her. I felt I had my
+child again, and I secretly rejoiced in the possession of my own.
+I sincerely thanked him for his kindness, and Mr. S--- drove on.
+
+At Mr. R---'s, we found a parcel from dear Emilia, containing a
+plum-cake and other good things for the children. Her kindness never
+flagged.
+
+We crossed the bridge over the Otonabee, in the rising town of
+Peterborough, at eight o'clock in the morning. Winter had now set in
+fairly. The children were glad to huddle together in the bottom of
+the sleigh, under the buffalo skins and blankets; all but my eldest
+boy, who, just turned of five years old, was enchanted with all he
+heard and saw, and continued to stand up and gaze around him. Born
+in the forest, which he had never quitted before, the sight of a
+town was such a novelty that he could find no words wherewith to
+express his astonishment.
+
+"Are the houses come to see one another?" he asked. "How did they
+all meet here?"
+
+The question greatly amused his uncle, who took some pains to
+explain to him the difference between town and country. During the
+day, we got rid of old Jenny and her bonnets, whom we found a very
+refractory travelling companion; as wilful, and far more difficult
+to manage than a young child. Fortunately, we overtook the sleighs
+with the furniture, and Mr. S--- transferred Jenny to the care of
+one of the drivers; an arrangement that proved satisfactory to all
+parties.
+
+We had been most fortunate in obtaining comfortable lodgings for the
+night. The evening had closed in so intensely cold that although we
+were only two miles from C---, Addie was so much affected by it that
+the child lay sick and pale in my arms, and, when spoken to, seemed
+scarcely conscious of our presence.
+
+My brother jumped from the front seat, and came round to look at
+her. "That child is ill with the cold; we must stop somewhere to
+warm her, or she will hardly hold out till we get to the inn at
+C---."
+
+We were just entering the little village of A---, in the vicinity of
+the court-house, and we stopped at a pretty green cottage, and asked
+permission to warm the children. A stout, middle-aged woman came to
+the sleigh, and in the kindest manner requested us to alight.
+
+"I think I know that voice," I said. "Surely it cannot be Mrs. S---,
+who once kept the --- hotel at C---?"
+
+"Mrs. Moodie, you are welcome," said the excellent woman, bestowing
+upon me a most friendly embrace; "you and your children. I am
+heartily glad to see you again after so many years. God bless you
+all!"
+
+Nothing could exceed the kindness and hospitality of this generous
+woman; she would not hear of our leaving her that night, and,
+directing my brother to put up his horses in her stable, she made
+up an excellent fire in a large bedroom, and helped me to undress
+the little ones who were already asleep, and to warm and feed the
+rest before we put them to bed.
+
+This meeting gave me real pleasure. In their station of life, I
+seldom have found a more worthy couple than this American and his
+wife; and, having witnessed so many of their acts of kindness, both
+to ourselves and others, I entertained for them a sincere respect
+and affection, and truly rejoiced that Providence had once more led
+me to the shelter of their roof.
+
+Mr. S--- was absent, but I found little Mary--the sweet child who
+used to listen with such delight to Moodie's flute--grown up into a
+beautiful girl; and the baby that was, a fine child of eight years
+old. The next morning was so intensely cold that my brother would
+not resume the journey until past ten o'clock, and even then it was
+a hazardous experiment.
+
+We had not proceeded four miles before the horses were covered
+with icicles. Our hair was frozen as white as old Time's solitary
+forelock, our eyelids stiff, and every limb aching with cold.
+
+"This will never do," said my brother, turning to me; "the children
+will freeze. I never felt the cold more severe than this."
+
+"Where can we stop?" said I; "we are miles from C---, and I see no
+prospect of the weather becoming milder."
+
+"Yes, yes; I know, by the very intensity of the cold, that a change
+is at hand. We seldom have more than three very severe days running,
+and this is the third. At all events, it is much warmer at night in
+this country than during the day; the wind drops, and the frost is
+more bearable. I know a worthy farmer who lives about a mile ahead;
+he will give us house-room for a few hours; and we will resume our
+journey in the evening. The moon is at full; and it will be easier
+to wrap the children up, and keep them warm when they are asleep.
+Shall we stop at Old Woodruff's?"
+
+"With all my heart." My teeth were chattering with the cold, and the
+children were crying over their aching fingers at the bottom of the
+sleigh.
+
+A few minutes' ride brought us to a large farm-house, surrounded
+by commodious sheds and barns. A fine orchard opposite, and a
+yard well-stocked with fat cattle and sheep, sleek geese, and
+plethoric-looking swine, gave promise of a land of abundance and
+comfort. My brother ran into the house to see if the owner was at
+home, and presently returned, accompanied by the staunch Canadian
+yeoman and his daughter, who gave us a truly hearty welcome, and
+assisted in removing the children from the sleigh to the cheerful
+fire, that made all bright and cozy within.
+
+Our host was a shrewd, humorous-looking Yorkshireman. His red,
+weather-beaten face, and tall, athletic figure, bent as it was
+with hard labour, gave indications of great personal strength;
+and a certain knowing twinkle in his small, clear grey eyes, which
+had been acquired by long dealing with the world, with a quiet,
+sarcastic smile that lurked round the corners of his large mouth,
+gave you the idea of a man who could not easily be deceived by his
+fellows; one who, though no rogue himself, was quick in detecting
+the roguery of others. His manners were frank and easy, and he was
+such a hospitable entertainer that you felt at home with him in a
+minute.
+
+"Well, how are you, Mr. S---?" cried the farmer, shaking my brother
+heartily by the hand. "Toiling in the bush still, eh?"
+
+"Just in the same place."
+
+"And the wife and children?"
+
+"Hearty. Some half-dozen have been added to the flock since you were
+our way."
+
+"So much the better--so much the better. The more the merrier,
+Mr. S---; children are riches in this country."
+
+"I know not how that may be; I find it hard to clothe and feed
+mine."
+
+"Wait till they grow up; they will be brave helps to you then. The
+price of labour--the price of labour, Mr. S---, is the destruction
+of the farmer."
+
+"It does not seem to trouble you much, Woodruff," said my brother,
+glancing round the well-furnished apartment.
+
+"My son and S--- do it all," cried the old man. "Of course the
+girls help in busy times, and take care of the dairy, and we hire
+occasionally; but small as the sum is which is expended in wages
+during seed-time and harvest, I feel it, I can tell you."
+
+"You are married again, Woodruff?"
+
+"No, sir," said the farmer, with a peculiar smile; "not yet;"
+which seemed to imply the probability of such an event. "That tall
+gal is my eldest daughter; she manages the house, and an excellent
+housekeeper she is. But I cannot keep her for ever." With a knowing
+wink, "Gals will think of getting married, and seldom consult the
+wishes of their parents upon the subject when once they have taken
+the notion into their heads. But 'tis natural, Mr. S---, it is
+natural; we did just the same when we were young."
+
+My brother looked laughingly towards the fine, handsome young woman,
+as she placed upon the table hot water, whiskey, and a huge plate of
+plum-cake, which did not lack a companion, stored with the finest
+apples which the orchard could produce.
+
+The young girl looked down, and blushed.
+
+"Oh, I see how it is, Woodruff! You will soon lose your daughter.
+I wonder that you have kept her so long. But who are these young
+ladies?" he continued, as three girls very demurely entered the
+room.
+
+"The two youngest are my darters, by my last wife, who, I fear, mean
+soon to follow the bad example of their sister. The other LADY,"
+said the old man, with a reverential air, "is a PARTICULAR friend
+of my eldest darter's."
+
+My brother laughed slily, and the old man's cheek took a deeper glow
+as he stooped forward to mix the punch.
+
+"You said that these two young ladies, Woodruff, were by your last
+wife. Pray how many wives have you had?"
+
+"Only three. It is impossible, they say in my country, to have too
+much of a good thing."
+
+"So I suppose you think," said my brother, glancing first at the old
+man and then towards Miss Smith. "Three wives! You have been a
+fortunate man, Woodruff, to survive them all."
+
+"Ay, have I not, Mr. S---? But to tell you the truth, I have been
+both lucky and unlucky in the wife way," and then he told us the
+history of his several ventures in matrimony, with which I shall not
+trouble my readers.
+
+When he had concluded, the weather was somewhat milder, the sleigh
+was ordered to the door, and we proceeded on our journey, resting
+for the night at a small village about twenty miles from B---,
+rejoicing that the long distance which separated us from the husband
+and father was diminished to a few miles, and that, with the
+blessing of Providence, we should meet on the morrow.
+
+About noon we reached the distant town, and were met at the inn by
+him whom one and all so ardently longed to see. He conducted us to a
+pretty, neat cottage, which he had prepared for our reception, and
+where we found old Jenny already arrived. With great pride the old
+woman conducted me over the premises, and showed me the furniture
+"the masther" had bought; especially recommending to my notice a
+china tea-service, which she considered the most wonderful
+acquisition of the whole.
+
+"Och! who would have thought, a year ago, misthress dear, that we
+should be living in a mansion like this, and ating off raal chaney?
+It is but yestherday that we were hoeing praties in the field."
+
+"Yes, Jenny, God has been very good to us, and I hope that we shall
+never learn to regard with indifference the many benefits which we
+have received at His hands."
+
+Reader! it is not my intention to trouble you with the sequel of our
+history. I have given you a faithful picture of a life in the
+backwoods of Canada, and I leave you to draw from it your own
+conclusions. To the poor, industrious working man it presents many
+advantages; to the poor gentleman, none! The former works hard,
+puts up with coarse, scanty fare, and submits, with a good grace,
+to hardships that would kill a domesticated animal at home. Thus
+he becomes independent, inasmuch as the land that he has cleared
+finds him in the common necessaries of life; but it seldom, if ever,
+in remote situations, accomplishes more than this. The gentleman
+can neither work so hard, live so coarsely, nor endure so many
+privations as his poorer but more fortunate neighbour. Unaccustomed
+to manual labour, his services in the field are not of a nature to
+secure for him a profitable return. The task is new to him, he knows
+not how to perform it well; and, conscious of his deficiency, he
+expends his little means in hiring labour, which his bush-farm
+can never repay. Difficulties increase, debts grow upon him, he
+struggles in vain to extricate himself, and finally sees his family
+sink into hopeless ruin.
+
+If these sketches should prove the means of deterring one family
+from sinking their property, and shipwrecking all their hopes, by
+going to reside in the backwoods of Canada, I shall consider myself
+amply repaid for revealing the secrets of the prison-house, and feel
+that I have not toiled and suffered in the wilderness in vain.
+
+
+THE MAPLE-TREE
+
+A CANADIAN SONG
+
+  Hail to the pride of the forest--hail
+    To the maple, tall and green;
+  It yields a treasure which ne'er shall fail
+    While leaves on its boughs are seen.
+      When the moon shines bright,
+      On the wintry night,
+  And silvers the frozen snow;
+      And echo dwells
+      On the jingling bells
+  As the sleighs dart to and fro;
+      Then it brightens the mirth
+      Of the social hearth
+  With its red and cheery glow.
+
+  Afar, 'mid the bosky forest shades,
+    It lifts its tall head on high;
+  When the crimson-tinted evening fades
+    From the glowing saffron sky;
+      When the sun's last beams
+      Light up woods and streams,
+  And brighten the gloom below;
+      And the deer springs by
+      With his flashing eye,
+  And the shy, swift-footed doe;
+      And the sad winds chide
+      In the branches wide,
+  With a tender plaint of woe.
+
+  The Indian leans on its rugged trunk,
+    With the bow in his red right-hand,
+  And mourns that his race, like a stream, has sunk
+    From the glorious forest land.
+      But, blythe and free,
+      The maple-tree
+  Still tosses to sun and air
+      Its thousand arms,
+      While in countless swarms
+  The wild bee revels there;
+      But soon not a trace
+      Of the red man's race
+  Shall be found in the landscape fair.
+
+  When the snows of winter are melting fast,
+    And the sap begins to rise,
+  And the biting breath of the frozen blast
+    Yields to the spring's soft sighs,
+      Then away to the wood,
+      For the maple, good,
+  Shall unlock its honied store;
+      And boys and girls,
+      With their sunny curls,
+  Bring their vessels brimming o'er
+      With the luscious flood
+      Of the brave tree's blood,
+  Into cauldrons deep to pour.
+
+  The blaze from the sugar-bush gleams red;
+    Far down in the forest dark,
+  A ruddy glow on the trees is shed,
+    That lights up their rugged bark;
+      And with merry shout,
+      The busy rout
+  Watch the sap as it bubbles high;
+      And they talk of the cheer
+      Of the coming year,
+  And the jest and the song pass by;
+      And brave tales of old
+      Round the fire are told,
+  That kindle youth's beaming eye.
+
+  Hurrah! For the sturdy maple-tree!
+    Long may its green branch wave;
+  In native strength sublime and free,
+    Meet emblem for the brave.
+      May the nation's peace
+      With its growth increase,
+  And its worth be widely spread;
+      For it lifts not in vain
+      To the sun and rain
+  Its tall, majestic head.
+      May it grace our soil,
+      And reward our toil,
+  Till the nation's heart is dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+CANADIAN SKETCHES
+
+
+The preceding sketches of Canadian life, as the reader may well
+suppose, are necessarily tinctured with somewhat somber hues,
+imparted by the difficulties and privations with which, for so many
+years the writer had to struggle; but we should be sorry should
+these truthful pictures of scenes and characters, observed fifteen
+or twenty years ago, have the effect of conveying erroneous
+impressions of the present state of a country, which is manifestly
+destined, at no remote period, to be one of the most prosperous in
+the world. Had we merely desired to please the imagination of our
+readers, it would have been easy to have painted the country and the
+people rather as we could have wished them to be, than as they
+actually were, at the period to which our description refers; and,
+probably, what is thus lost in truthfulness, it would have gained
+in popularity with that class of readers who peruse books more for
+amusement than instruction.
+
+When I say that Canada is destined to be one of the most prosperous
+countries in the world, let it not be supposed that I am influenced
+by any unreasonable partiality for the land of my adoption. Canada
+may not possess mines of gold or silver, but she possesses all those
+advantages of climate, geological structure, and position, which are
+essential to greatness and prosperity. Her long and severe winter,
+so disheartening to her first settlers, lays up, amidst the forests
+of the West, inexhaustible supplies of fertilising moisture for the
+summer, while it affords the farmer the very best of natural roads
+to enable him to carry his wheat and other produce to market. It is
+a remarkable fact, that hardly a lot of land containing two hundred
+acres, in British America, can be found without an abundant supply
+of water at all seasons of the year; and a very small proportion
+of the land itself is naturally unfit for cultivation. To crown
+the whole, where can a country be pointed out which possesses such
+an extent of internal navigation? A chain of river navigation and
+navigable inland seas, which, with the canals recently constructed,
+gives to the countries bordering on them all the advantages of an
+extended sea-coast, with a greatly diminished risk of loss from
+shipwreck!
+
+Little did the modern discoverers of America dream, when they called
+this country "Canada," from the exclamation of one of the exploring
+party, "Aca nada,"--"there is nothing here," as the story goes, that
+Canada would far outstrip those lands of gold and silver, in which
+their imaginations revelled, in that real wealth of which gold
+and silver are but the portable representatives. The interminable
+forests--that most gloomy and forbidding feature in its scenery to
+the European stranger, should have been regarded as the most certain
+proof of its fertility.
+
+The severity of the climate, and the incessant toil of clearing the
+land to enable the first settlers to procure the mere necessaries of
+life, have formed in its present inhabitants an indomitable energy
+of character, which, whatever may be their faults, must be regarded
+as a distinguishing attribute of the Canadians, in common with our
+neighbours of the United States. When we consider the progress of
+the Northern races of mankind, it cannot be denied, that while the
+struggles of the hardy races of the North with their severe climate,
+and their forests, have gradually endowed them with an unconquerable
+energy of character, which has enabled them to become the masters of
+the world; the inhabitants of more favoured climates, where the
+earth almost spontaneously yields all the necessaries of life, have
+remained comparatively feeble and inactive, or have sunk into sloth
+and luxury. It is unnecessary to quote any other instances in proof
+of this obvious fact, than the progress of Great Britain and the
+United States of America, which have conquered as much by their
+industry as by their swords.
+
+Our neighbours of the United States are in the habit of attributing
+their wonderful progress in improvements of all kinds to their
+republican institutions. This is no doubt quite natural in a people
+who have done so much for themselves in so short a time; but when
+we consider the subject in all its bearings, it may be more truly
+asserted that, with any form of government not absolutely despotic,
+the progress of North America, peopled by a civilised and energetic
+race, with every motive to industry and enterprise in the nature of
+the country itself, must necessarily have been rapid. An unbounded
+extent of fertile soil, with an increasing population, were
+circumstances which of themselves were sufficient to create a
+strong desire for the improvement of internal communications; as,
+without common roads, rail-roads, or canals, the interior of the
+country would have been unfit to be inhabited by any but absolute
+barbarians. All the first settlers of America wanted was to be left
+to themselves.
+
+When we compare the progress of Great Britain with that of North
+America, the contrast is sufficiently striking to attract our
+attention. While the progress of the former has been the work of
+ages, North America has sprung into wealth and power almost within
+a period which we can remember. But the colonists of North America
+should recollect, when they indulge in such comparisons, that their
+British ancestors took many centuries to civilise themselves, before
+they could send free and intelligent settlers to America. The
+necessity for improvements in the internal communications is vastly
+more urgent in a widely extended continent than in an island, no
+part of which is far removed from the sea-coast; and patriotism,
+as well as self-interest, would readily suggest such improvements
+to the minds of a people who inherited the knowledge of their
+ancestors, and were besides stimulated to extraordinary exertions by
+their recently-acquired independence. As the political existence of
+the United States commenced at a period when civilisation had made
+great progress in the mother-country, their subsequent improvement
+would, for various reasons, be much more rapid than that of the
+country from which they originally emigrated. To show the influence
+of external circumstances on the characters of men, let us just
+suppose two individuals, equal in knowledge and natural capacity,
+to be placed, the one on an improved farm in England, with the
+necessary capital and farm-stock, and the other in the wilds of
+America, with no capital but his labour, and the implements required
+to clear the land for his future farm. In which of these individuals
+might we reasonably expect to find the most energy, ingenuity, and
+general intelligence on subjects connected with their immediate
+interests? No one who has lived for a few years in the United States
+or Canada can hesitate for a reply.
+
+The farmer in the more improved country generally follows the beaten
+track, the example of his ancestors, or the successful one of his
+more intelligent contemporaries; he is rarely compelled to draw upon
+his individual mental resources. Not so with the colonist. He treads
+in tracks but little known; he has to struggle with difficulties on
+all sides. Nature looks sternly on him, and in order to preserve
+his own existence, he must conquer Nature, as it were, by his
+perseverance and ingenuity. Each fresh conquest tends to increase
+his vigour and intelligence, until he becomes a new man, with
+faculties of mind which, but for his severe lessons in the school
+of adversity, might have lain for ever dormant.
+
+While America presents the most forbidden aspect to the new settler,
+it at the same time offers the richest rewards to stimulate his
+industry. On the one hand, there is want and misery; on the other,
+abundance and prosperity. There is no middle course for the settler;
+he must work or starve. In North America there is another strong
+incentive to improvement, to be found in the scarcity of labour;
+and still more, therefore, than in Europe must every mechanical
+contrivance which supersedes manual labour tend to increase the
+prosperity of the inhabitants. When these circumstances are duly
+considered, we need no longer wonder at the rapid improvements in
+labour-saving machinery, and in the means of internal communication
+throughout the United States. But for the steam-engine, canals, and
+railroads, North America would have remained for ages a howling
+wilderness of endless forests, and instead of the busy hum of men,
+and the sound of the mill and steam-engine, we should now have heard
+nothing but
+
+"The melancholy roar of unfrequented floods."
+
+The scenes and characters presented to the reader in the preceding
+pages, belong, in some measure, rather to the past than the present
+state of Canada. In the last twenty years great changes have taken
+place, as well in the external appearance of the country, as in the
+general character of its inhabitants. In many localities where the
+land was already under the plough, the original occupants of the
+soil have departed to renew their endless wars with the giants of
+the forest, in order to procure more land for their increasing
+families where it could be obtained at a cheaper price. In the
+back-woods, forests have been felled, the blackened stumps have
+disappeared, and regular furrows are formed by the ploughman, where
+formerly he had not time or inclination to whistle at his work. A
+superior class of farmers has sprung up, whose minds are as much
+improved by cultivation as their lands, and who are comfortably
+settled on farms supposed to be exhausted of their fertility by
+their predecessors. As the breadth of land recovered from the
+forest is increased, villages, towns, and cities have grown up
+and increased in population and wealth in proportion to the
+productiveness of the surrounding country.
+
+In Canada, it is particularly to be noted, that there is hardly
+any intermediate stage between the rude toil and privation of the
+back-woods, and the civilisation, comfort, and luxury of the towns
+and cities, many of which are to outward appearance entirely
+European, with the encouraging prospect of a continual increase
+in the value of fixed property. When a colony, capable, from the
+fertility of the soil and abundance of moisture, of supporting a
+dense population, has been settled by a civilised race, they are
+never long in establishing a communication with the sea-coast and
+with other countries. When such improvements have been effected,
+the inhabitants may be said at once to take their proper place
+among civilised nations. The elements of wealth and power are
+already there, and time and population only are required fully
+to develope the resources of the country.
+
+Unhappily the natural progress of civilised communities in our
+colonies is too often obstructed by the ignorance of governments,
+and unwise or short-sighted legislation; and abundance of selfish
+men are always to be found in the colonies themselves, who,
+destitute of patriotism, greedily avail themselves of this
+ignorance, in order to promote their private interests at the
+expense of the community. Canada has been greatly retarded in its
+progress by such causes, and this will in a great measure account
+for its backwardness when compared with the United States, without
+attributing the difference to the different forms of government.
+It was manifestly the intention of the British government, in
+conferring representative institutions on Canada, that the people
+should enjoy all the privileges of their fellow-subjects in the
+mother-country. The more to assimilate our government to that of its
+great original, the idea was for some time entertained of creating a
+titled and hereditary aristocracy, but it was soon found that though
+
+  "The King can make a belted knight,
+  A marquis, duke, an' a' that,"
+
+it was not in his power to give permanency to an institution which,
+in its origin, was as independent as royalty itself, arising
+naturally out of the feudal system: but which was utterly
+inconsistent with the genius and circumstances of a modern colony.
+The sovereign might endow the members of such an aristocracy with
+grants of the lands of the crown to support their dignity, but what
+benefit could such grants be, even to the recipients, in a country
+covered with boundless forests and nearly destitute of inhabitants?
+It is obvious that no tenants could be found to pay rents for such
+lands, or indeed even to occupy them, while lands could be purchased
+on easy terms in the United States, or in Canada itself. Had this
+plan been carried out, Canada would have been a doomed country for
+centuries.
+
+The strongest incitements to industry are required, those of
+proprietorship and ultimate independence, to induce settlers to
+encounter all the privations and toil of a new settlement in such
+a country. A genuine aristocracy can only exist in a country
+already peopled, and which has been conquered and divided among
+the conquerors. In such a state of things, aristocracy, though
+artificial in its origin, becomes naturalised, if I may use the
+expression, and even, as in Great Britain, when restrained within
+proper limits, highly beneficial in advancing civilization. Be it
+for good or be it for evil, it is worse than useless to disguise
+the fact that the government of a modern colony, where every conquest
+is made from the forest by little at a time, must be essentially
+republican.
+
+Any allusion to political parties is certainly foreign to the object
+of the preceding sketches; but it is impossible to make the British
+reader acquainted with the various circumstances which retarded the
+progress of this fine colony, without explaining how the patronage
+of the local government came formerly to be so exclusively bestowed
+on one class of the population,--thus creating a kind of spurious
+aristocracy which disgusted the colonists, and drove emigration from
+our shores to those of the United States.
+
+After the American Revolution, considerable numbers of loyalists
+in the United States voluntarily relinquished their homesteads and
+property, and came to Canada, which then, even on the shores of
+Lake Ontario, was a perfect wilderness. Lands were of course granted
+to them by the government, and very naturally these settlers were
+peculiarly favoured by the local authorities. These loyalists were
+generally known by the name of "tories," to distinguish them from
+the republicans, and forming the great mass of the population. Any
+one who called himself a reformer was regarded with distrust and
+suspicion, as a concealed republican or rebel. It must not, however,
+be supposed that these loyalists were really tories in their
+political principles. Their notions on such subjects were generally
+crude and undefined, and living in a country where the whole
+construction of society and habits of feeling were decidedly
+republican, the term tory, when adopted by them, was certainly a
+misnomer. However, hated by, and hating as cordially, the republican
+party in the United States, they by no means unreasonably considered
+that their losses and their attachment to British institutions, gave
+them an almost exclusive claim to the favour of the local government
+in Canada. Thus the name of U.E. (United Empire) Loyalist or Tory
+came to be considered an indispensable qualification for every
+office in the colony.
+
+This was all well enough so long as there was no other party in the
+country. But gradually a number of other American settlers flowed
+into Canada from the United States, who had no claim to the title
+of tories or loyalists, but who in their feelings and habits were
+probably not much more republican than their predecessors. These
+were of course regarded with peculiar jealousy by the older or
+loyalist settlers from the same country. It seemed to them as if
+a swarm of locusts had come to devour their patrimony. This will
+account for the violence of party feeling which lately prevailed
+in Canada.
+
+There is nothing like a slight infusion of self-interest to give
+point and pungency to party feeling. The British immigrants, who
+afterwards flowed into this colony in greater numbers, of course
+brought with them their own particular political predilections.
+They found what was called toryism and high churchism in the
+ascendant, and self-interest or prejudice induced most of the more
+early settlers of this description to fall in with the more powerful
+and favoured party; while influenced by the representations of the
+old loyalist party they shunned the other American settlers as
+republicans. In the meantime, however, the descendants of the
+original loyalists were becoming numerous, while the government
+became unable to satisfy them all according to their own estimation
+of their merits; and as high churchism was, unfortunately for the
+peace of society, associated with toryism, every shade of religious
+dissent as well as political difference of opinion generally added
+to the numbers and power of the reform party, which was now
+beginning to be known in the colony. Strange to say, the great bulk
+of the present reform party is composed of the descendants of these
+U.E. Loyalists, while many of our most ultra tories are the
+descendants of republican settlers from the United States.
+
+As may be supposed, thirty years of increasing emigration from the
+mother-country has greatly strengthened the reform party, and they
+now considerably out-number the conservatives. While the mass of
+the people held tory, or, I should rather call them, CONSERVATIVE
+principles, our government seemed to work as well as any
+representative government may be supposed to work without the
+necessary check of a constitutional opposition. Favouritism was, of
+course, the order of the day; and the governor, for the time being,
+filled up all offices according to his will and pleasure, without
+many objections being made by the people as to the qualifications
+of the favourite parties, provided the selections for office were
+made from the powerful party. Large grants of land were given to
+favoured individuals in the colony, or to immigrants who came with
+commendations from the home government. In such a state of matters
+the people certainly possessed the external form of a free
+government, but as an opposition party gradually acquired an
+ascendancy in the lower House of Parliament, they were unable to
+carry the measures adopted by their majority into operation, in
+consequence of the systematic opposition of the legislative and
+executive councils, which were generally formed exclusively from
+the old conservative party. Whenever the conservatives obtained the
+majority in the House of Assembly, the reformers, in retaliation, as
+systematically opposed every measure. Thus a constant bickering was
+kept up between the parties in Parliament; while the people, amidst
+these attentions, lost sight of the true interests of the country,
+and improvements of all kinds came nearly to a stand-still. As
+matters were then conducted, it would have been much better had
+the colony been ruled by a governor and council; for, in that case,
+beneficial measures might have been carried into effect. Such a
+state of things could not last long; and the discontent of a large
+portion of the people, terminating, through the indiscretion of an
+infatuated local government, in actual rebellion, soon produced
+the remedy. The party generally most powerful in the Legislative
+Assembly, and the members of which had been so long and so
+unconstitutionally excluded from holding offices under the
+government, at once obtained the position which they were entitled,
+and the people being thus given the power of governing by their
+majorities in Parliament, improvements of all kinds are steadily
+advancing up the present moment, and their prosperity and
+contentment have increased in an equal proportion.
+
+Had the first settlement of Canada been conducted on sound and
+philosophical principles, much hardship and privation, as well as
+loss of capital in land speculations, would have been saved to its
+first settlers, and the country, improved and improving as it now
+is, would have presented a very different aspect at the present
+time. With the best intentions, the British government may be justly
+accused of gross ignorance of the true principles of colonisation,
+and the local governments are still more open to the accusation of
+squandering the resources of the colony--its lands--in building
+up the fortunes of a would-be aristocracy, who being non-resident
+proprietors of wild lands, necessarily obstructed the progress of
+improvement, while the people were tantalised with the empty
+semblance of a free government.
+
+No sooner did emigrants from Great Britain begin to pour into Upper
+Canada, so as to afford a prospect of the wild lands becoming
+saleable, than a system of land speculation was resorted to by many
+of the old colonists. This land speculation has no doubt enriched
+many individuals, but more than any other abuse has it retarded the
+natural progress of the country, and the interests of the many have
+thus been sacrificed to those of the few. Almost all other
+speculations may be said, in one shape or another, to do good; but
+land speculation has been an unmitigated curse to Canada, because it
+occasions a monopoly of the soil, and prevents it from being cleared
+and rendered productive, until the speculators can obtain their own
+price for it.
+
+The lands granted to soldiers and sailors who had served in Canada,
+and those granted to the U.E. loyalists, were bought up, often
+at merely nominal prices, from the original grantees and their
+children, and sold again with an immense profit to new settlers
+from the old country, or retained for many years in an unproductive
+state. A portion of the lands granted to the U.E. loyalists was, of
+course, occupied by the heads of families; but the lands to which
+their children became entitled, under the same benevolent provision
+of the government, were generally drawn in remote situations. By
+far the larger portion of these grants, however, were not located
+or rendered available by the grantees, but remained in the shape
+of U.E. rights, which were purchased at very low prices by the
+speculators. These U.E. rights were bought at the rate of 1s. 3d.,
+2s. 6d., or 3s. 9d. per acre; and it was by no means uncommon for
+old soldiers to sell one hundred acres of land for two or three
+dollars, or even for a bottle of rum, so little value did they set
+on such grants in the then state of Canada. These grants, though
+well meant, and with respect to the U.E. Loyalists, perhaps,
+unavoidable, have been most injurious to the country.
+
+The great error in this matter, and which could have been avoided,
+was the opening of too great an extent of land AT ONCE for
+settlement. A contrary system, steadily pursued, would have produced
+a concentrated population; and the resources of such a population
+would have enabled the colonists, by uniting their labour and
+capital, to make the means of communication, in some degree, keep
+pace with the settlement of the lands; and Upper Canada would now
+have been as well provided with canals and railroads as the United
+States. The same abuses, no doubt, existed formerly to as great an
+extent in that country, but, being longer settled, it has outgrown
+the evil. Enough has been said on this subject to show some of the
+causes which have retarded improvements in Canada.
+
+Another chief cause of the long and helpless torpor in which the
+country lay, was the absence of municipal governments in the various
+rural localities. It indeed seems strange, that such a simple matter
+as providing the means of making roads and bridges by local
+assessment could not have been conceded to the people, who, if we
+suppose them to be gifted with common sense, are much more capable
+of understanding and managing their own parish business, than any
+government, however well disposed to promote their interests.
+
+Formerly the government of Upper Canada was deluged with petitions
+for grants of money from Parliament to be expended in improvements
+in this or that locality, of the reasonableness of which claims the
+majority of the legislators were, of course, profoundly ignorant.
+These money grants became subjects of a species of jobbing, or
+manoeuvering, among the members of the House of Assembly; and he
+was considered the best member who could get the most money for
+his county. Commissioners resident in the particular localities
+were appointed to superintend these public works; and as these
+commissioners were generally destitute of practical knowledge,
+these Parliamentary grants were usually expended without producing
+equivalent results. Nothing in the abstract is more reasonable
+than that any number of individuals should be allowed to associate
+themselves for the purpose of effecting some local improvement,
+which would be beneficial to others as well as to themselves; but
+nothing of this could be attempted without an Act of Parliament,
+which, of course, was attended with expense and delay, if not
+disappointment. The time and attention of the provincial parliament
+were thus occupied with a mass of parish business, which could have
+been much better managed by the people themselves on the spot.
+
+When the union of the two provinces was in contemplation, it became
+evident that the business of such an extended colony could not be
+carried on in the United Parliament, were it to be encumbered and
+distracted with the contending claims of so many localities. This
+consideration led to the establishment of the District (now County)
+Municipal Councils. These municipal councils were denounced by the
+conservative party at the time as a step towards republicanism! Were
+this true, it would only prove that the government of our republican
+neighbours is better than our own; for these municipal institutions
+have been eminently beneficial to Canada. But municipal councils are
+necessarily no more republican in their nature, than the House of
+Commons in England. However this may be, the true prosperity of
+Upper Canada may be mainly attributed to their influence on the
+minds of the people.
+
+Possessing many of the external forms of a parliament, they are
+admirable political schools for a free people. The most intelligent
+men in the different townships are freely elected by the
+inhabitants, and assemble in the county town to deliberate and make
+by-laws, to levy taxes, and, in short, to do everything which in
+their judgment will promote the interest of their constituents.
+Having previously been solely occupied in agricultural pursuits,
+it might naturally be expected that their first notions would be
+somewhat crude, and that they would have many long-cherished
+prejudices to overcome. Their daily intercourse with the more
+educated inhabitants of the towns, however, tended to remove these
+prejudices, while new ideas were continually presented to their
+minds. The rapidity with which this species of practical education
+is acquired is remarkable, and also, how soon men with such limited
+opportunities of acquiring knowledge, learn to think and to express
+their views and opinions in appropriate language. These municipal
+councillors go home among their constituents, where they have to
+explain and defend their proceedings; while so engaged, they have
+occasion to communicate facts and opinions, which are fairly
+discussed, and thus enlightened views are diffused through the
+mass of people.
+
+The councillors, at first, were averse to the imposition or increase
+of taxation, however desirable the object might be; but pride and
+emulation very soon overcame this natural reluctance; and the
+example of some neighbouring county, with that natural desire to do
+good, which, more or less, influences the feelings and conduct of
+all public men, were not long in producing their beneficial results,
+even with the risk of offending their constituents. When the County
+Municipal Councils were first established, the warden or president
+of the council, and also the treasurer, were appointed by the
+governor; but both these offices were afterwards made elective, the
+warden being elected by the council from their own body, and the
+treasurer being selected by them, without previous election by the
+people.
+
+Lately, councils have been also established in each township for
+municipal purposes affecting the interest of the township only, the
+reeves, or presidents, of which minor councils form the members of
+the county council. This general system of municipalities, and a
+late act of the provincial parliament, enabling the inhabitants to
+form themselves into road companies, have converted the formerly
+torpid and inactive townships into busy hives of industry and
+progressive improvement.
+
+Our agricultural societies have also played no mean part in
+furthering the progress of the colony. In colonies fewer prejudices
+are entertained on the subject of agricultural matters than on any
+others, and the people are ever ready to try any experiment which
+offers any prospect of increased remuneration for labour. Education,
+of late, has also made rapid advances in this province; and now, the
+yeomanry of the more improved townships, though they may be inferior
+to the yeomanry of England in the acquirements derived from common
+school education, are certainly far superior to them in general
+intelligence. Their minds are better stocked with ideas, and they
+are infinitely more progressive. When we consider the relative
+periods at which the first settlements were formed in the United
+States and in Upper Canada, and the accumulation of capital in the
+former, it will not be difficult to show that the progress of Canada
+has been much more rapid.
+
+The excavation of the Erie Canal, the parent of all the subsequent
+improvements of a similar nature in the United States, opened-up for
+settlement a vast country to the westward, which would otherwise for
+many years have remained a wilderness, unfit for the habitation of
+man. The boundless success of this experiment necessarily led to
+all the other similar undertakings. The superior advantages Canada
+enjoyed in her river and lake navigation, imperfect as that
+navigation was, operated in a manner rather to retard than to
+accelerate improvements of this kind; while the construction of
+the Erie Canal was a matter of prospective necessity, in order to
+provide for a rapidly increasing population and immigration. In the
+same manner, the recent completion of the works on the St. Lawrence,
+and the enlargement of the Welland Canal, connecting Lakes Erie and
+Ontario, will just as necessarily be followed by similar results,
+with the additional advantage of the whole colony being greatly
+benefitted by the commerce of the United States, in addition to
+her own.
+
+We have now, thanks to responsible government, municipal councils,
+and common schools, no longer any reason to consider their
+institutions better calculated to develope the resources of the
+colony, than our own. Our interests are almost identical, and with
+our canals and railroads on both sides mutually beneficial, our
+former hostility has merged into a friendly rivalry in the march of
+intellect, and we may now truly say that, without wishing for any
+change in political institutions, which are most congenial to the
+feelings of the people where they exist, each country now sincerely
+rejoices in the prosperity of its neighbour.
+
+Before concluding this chapter, I shall endeavour to give the reader
+a short description of the county of Hastings, in which I have held
+the office of sheriff for the last twelve years, and which, I
+believe, possesses many advantages as a place of settlement, over
+all the other places I have seen in the Upper Province. I should
+premise, however, lest my partiality for this part of the colony
+should be supposed to incline me to overrate its comparative
+advantages to the settler, that my statements are principally
+intended to show the progress of Upper Province generally; and that
+when I claim any superiority for this part of it, I shall give,
+what I trust the reader will consider, satisfactory reasons for my
+conclusion.
+
+The settlement of a thickly-wooded country, when it is left to
+chance, is a most uncertain and capricious matter. The narrow views
+and interests of a clique in the colony, or even of an influential
+individual, often direct emigration out of its natural course,
+involving unnecessary suffering to the settler, a waste or absolute
+loss of capital, and a retarding of the progress of the country.
+The circumstances and situation of the United States were less
+productive of these evils than those of Upper Canada, because
+settlement went on more uniformly from the seacoast towards the
+interior. The mighty rivers and lakes of Canada, though productive
+of boundless prosperity, operated in the first period of its
+settlement, most unfavourably on the growth of the colony, by
+throwing open for settlement an extensive inland coast, at that
+time unconnected with the ocean by means of canals. Hence numerous
+detached, feeble, and unprogressive settlements, came into
+existence, where the new settlers had to struggle for years with
+the most disheartening difficulties.
+
+European settlers know but little of the value of situation. In most
+cases they are only desirous of acquiring a large extent of land at
+a low price, and thus, unless restrained by the wise regulations of
+a provident government, they too often ruin themselves, and waste
+their capital in a wilderness, where it does good to no one. When
+emigration from the United Kingdom began to set in to Upper Canada,
+the pernicious speculation in wild lands commenced in earnest. As
+most of the land speculators possessed shares in the steam-boats on
+Lake Ontario, the interests of both speculations were combined. It
+was, of course, the interest of the steam-boat proprietors to direct
+emigration as far to the westward as possible; and influenced by
+their interested representations and those of the land speculators
+settled in Toronto, Cobourg, and Hamilton, the greater portion of
+the emigrants possessing capital were thrown into these towns, near
+which they were led to expect desirable locations. In the same
+manner the agents of the Canada Land Company, who were to be found
+on every steamer, were actively employed in directing the emigrants
+to the Huron tract.
+
+By a simple inspection of the map of Upper Canada, it will be seen,
+that as the Bay of Quinte was out of the general route of the
+steamers, and too near the lower end of the lake navigation, it
+did not suit the views of the parties most interested to direct
+emigration to its shores. Thus the beautiful Bay of Quinte, with
+the most fertile land on its shores, and scenery which exceeds in
+variety and picturesque beauty that of any part of Upper Canada,
+Hamilton and Niagara alone excepted, has been passed by for years
+for situations much less desirable or attractive to European
+settlers.
+
+The forbidding aspect of the country near Kingston, which is
+situated at the entrance of the bay from the St. Lawrence, where
+the soil has a rocky and barren appearance, has no doubt deterred
+emigrants from proceeding in this direction.
+
+The shores of the Bay of Quinte were originally occupied principally
+by U.E. loyalists and retired officers, who had served during the
+late war with the United States, but the emigration from Europe has
+chiefly consisted of the poorer class of Irish Catholics, and of
+Protestants from the North of Ireland, settled in two very thriving
+townships in the county of Hastings. There is also a sprinkling of
+Scotch and English in different parts of the county. Comparatively
+few possessing any considerable amount of capital have found their
+way here, as the county town, Belleville, is not in the line of the
+summer travel on the lakes.
+
+The scenery along the shores of the bay is exceedingly beautiful all
+the way from Kingston to the head, where a large river, the Trent,
+discharges itself into it at a thriving village, of about a thousand
+inhabitants, called Trent Port. A summer ride along the lower
+portion of this river presents scenery of a bolder and grander
+character than is often met with in Upper Canada, and it is
+enlivened by spectacles of immense rafts of timber descending the
+rapids, and by the merry chorus of the light-hearted lumbermen,
+as they pursue their toilsome and perilous voyage to Quebec.
+
+Belleville was originally a spot reserved for the Mississagua
+Indians, and was laid out in 1816 for a village, when there were
+only two or three white men settled among them as traders in
+the place. It was only during the last year that the two frame
+farm-houses, situated about a quarter of a mile apart, were
+removed to make room for more substantial buildings. Belleville
+remained nearly stationary for several years, during which a few
+persons realised handsome fortunes, by means of large profits,
+not withstanding the limited extent of their business. It at
+length began to grow in importance as the fine country in its
+neighbourhood was cleared and rendered productive.
+
+In 1839, when the county of Hastings was set apart from the Midland
+district, under the name of the District of Victoria, and Belleville
+became the District town, the population of the county, including
+Belleville, was about 12,000, and that of Belleville about 1500. In
+1850 the population of the county had reached 23,454, of which that
+of Belleville was 3326. By the census just taken, on a much more
+correct principle than formerly, the population of Belleville in
+1852 appears to be 4554, showing an increase of 1228 in two years.
+During the same period, from 1850 to 1852, the population of Cobourg
+on Lake Ontario, which town formerly enjoyed the full benefit of a
+large emigration, has risen from 3379 to 3867, showing an increase
+of only 488. The town of Dundas in the same time has increased its
+population from 2311 in 1850 to 3519 in 1852, showing an increase
+of 1208. The population of the city of Hamilton in 1850 was 10,312,
+and now, in 1852, it is said to exceed 13,000. In 1838 the then
+TOWN of Hamilton contained a population of only 3116. When I first
+visited that place in 1832 it was a dull insignificant village,
+which might, I suppose, contain a population of 1200 or 1500. I can
+hardly describe my surprise on revisiting it in 1849, to behold a
+city grown up suddenly, as if by enchantment, with several handsome
+churches and public and private buildings of cut stone, brought
+from the fine freestone quarries in the precipitous mountains or
+tableland behind the city.
+
+Little need be said of the capital of the province, the city of
+Toronto, the progress of which has been less remarkable in the
+same period, for the obvious reason that its merits were sooner
+appreciated or known by the emigrants from Europe. The population
+of Toronto, then called Little York, in 1826 was 1677, while that
+of the now city of Kingston was 2329. In 1838 the population
+of Toronto was 12,571, and that of Kingston 3877. In 1850 the
+population of Toronto was 25,166, and that of Kingston 10,097.
+
+These few facts will enable the reader to form some idea of the
+comparative progress of different towns in Upper Canada, under
+circumstances similar in some cases and different in others. When
+it is considered that all of these last-mentioned towns have for
+many years reaped the full benefit of the influx of emigration and
+capital from the mother country, while the shores of the Bay of
+Quinte were little known or appreciated, it will appear that the
+progress of Belleville has been at least equal to that of any of
+them. The prosperity of Belleville may in fact be almost entirely
+attributed to the gradual development of its own internal resources,
+the fertility of the lands in its vicinity, and a large exportation,
+of late years, of lumber of all kinds to the United States.
+
+Having no desire unnecessarily to trouble the reader with dry
+statistical tables, I shall merely quote the following facts and
+figures, kindly furnished me by G. Benjamin, Esq., the present
+warden of the county of Hastings, to whose business talents and
+public spirit the county is largely indebted for its progress in
+internal improvement.
+
+The increase of business at the port of Belleville has been most
+extraordinary. In 1839, the total amount of duties paid at this port
+amounted to 280l; and in the year (1850) the amount reached 3659l.
+12s. 4d. The total arrivals at this port from the United States are
+as follows:
+
+                                 No. of     Tons      Hands
+                                Vessels              employed
+  British propellers ...........    8       2,400      104
+  British sailing vessels ......   81       4,140      375
+  Foreign do. do. ..............  124      12,643      730
+                                -------   --------   -------
+  Total ........................  213      19,183     1209
+
+  This in addition to our daily steamers.
+
+  Our exports to the United States are ............   L52,532  17   5
+  And British ports below Belleville ..............   153,411  16   6
+                                                    -----------------
+                                                     L205,944  13  11
+                                        L      s  d
+  Total imports from United States     25,067  2  6
+  Total acceptances from United States 17,435  0  0
+  Total importations from lower ports,
+  including drafts and other resources 130,294 0  0   172,796   2   6
+                                      -------------  ----------------
+  Showing the balance of trade in
+  favour of this port to be ........................  L33,148  11   5
+
+  Our exports to the lower ports are made up as follows:
+
+      3,485 barrels of Potash ....................    L27,880   0   0
+     33,198     "      Flour .....................     33,198   0   0
+        357 bushels of Grass seed ................        133  17   6
+      1,450     "      Barley ....................        181   5   0
+      4,947     "      Peas ......................        594  14   0
+      4,349     "      Rye .......................        434  18   0
+     37,360     "      Wheat .....................      7,472   0   0
+        198 barrels of Pork ......................        396   0   0
+         54     "      Beef ......................         74   5   0
+      1,141 Sheep-skins ..........................        114   2   0
+  4,395,590 feet square Timber ...................     74,903   2   6
+        173 kegs of Butter .......................        540  12   6
+            Furs .................................        716   0   0
+            Fatted Cattle ........................      1,840   0   0
+            High Wines ...........................      3,098   0   0
+            Whiskey ..............................      1,830   0   0
+                                                  -------------------
+                                                     L153,411  16   6
+
+  Our exports to the United States are made up as follows:
+
+      30,686 bushels of Wheat .....................    L6,137   4  11
+       3,514     "      Rye .......................       351   8   0
+       3,728     "      Peas ......................       466   0   0
+          90     "      Barley ....................         9   0   0
+         316     "      Grass seed ................       118  10   0
+      18,756 barrels of Flour .....................    18,756   0   0
+         338     "      Potash ....................     2,366   0   0
+       1,000 bushels of Potatoes ..................        62  10   0
+          92    M.      Shingles ..................        23   0   0
+         117    M.      Laths .....................        43  15   0
+      18,210 lbs.       Rags ......................       190   0   0
+       9,912 lbs.       Wool ......................       481  19   6
+         466 Sheep-skins ..........................        57  10   0
+          61 kegs of Butter .......................       122   0   0
+  19,648,000 feet sawed Lumber ....................    21,296   0   0
+         513 Cows .................................     2,052   0   0
+                                                   ------------------
+                                                      L52,532  17   5
+
+
+The River Moira passing through Belleville, where it discharges
+itself into the Bay of Quinte, is one principal source of its
+prosperity. The preceding statement will show the quantity of sawed
+lumber exported, most of which is furnished by the saw-mills of
+Belleville, or its immediate vicinity. Besides saw and flour-mills,
+there are cloth and paper manufactories, a manufactory of edge
+tools; pail manufactories, where great quantities of these useful
+articles are made at a low price by machinery; planing machines,
+several iron foundries breweries, distilleries, &c., in almost all
+of which establishments steam-engines, or water-power from the
+river, are used. A remarkable feature in Belleville, in common
+with other towns in Canada, is the great number of tailoring and
+shoe-making establishments, when compared with towns of an equal
+population in Great Britain. This shows, more than anything I am
+aware of, the general prosperity of the people, who can afford to
+be large consumers of such articles.
+
+There is very little difference to be observed in the costliness of
+the clothing of the different classes of society in Upper Canadian
+towns and cities, and much less difference in the taste with which
+these articles are selected, than might be expected. With the
+exception of the lower class of labourers, all persons are well
+and suitably clad, and they can afford to be so.
+
+Twelve years ago there were not more than five or six piano-fortes
+in Belleville. Now there are nearly one hundred of a superior
+description, costing from 80 to 150 pounds.
+
+Another remarkable circumstance in Upper Canada is the number of
+lawyers in all the towns. In Belleville there are about a dozen,
+which seems to be a large number for a town containing only 4554
+inhabitants, when in an English town of the same size there is
+often not more than one. Of course, I do not mention this as any
+particular advantage, but to show the great difference in the
+amount of transactions, and of subjects of contention, in an old
+and a new country. The same may be said of the number of newspapers,
+as indicative of commercial activity. Two newspapers, representing
+the two political parties, are well-supported in Belleville, both
+by their subscribers, and the number of advertisements.
+
+The mouth of the Moira River, which widens out at its junction
+with the Bay of Quinte, is completely covered with saw-logs and
+square timber of various kinds during the summer months. This river,
+at Belleville, is often dammed up by confused piles of timber. No
+sooner are these removed than its waters are covered over by vast
+quantities of oak staves, which are floated down separately to
+be rafted off like the squared lumber for the Quebec market.
+The greater proportion of the saw-logs are, however, cut up for
+exportation to the United States by the various saw-mills on the
+river, or by a large steam saw-mill with twenty or thirty run of
+saws, erected on a little island in the mouth of the river. Several
+large schooners are constantly loading with sawed lumber, and there
+are two or three steamboats always running between Belleville and
+Kingston, carrying passengers to and fro, and generally heavily
+laden with goods or produce. The Bay of Quinte offers more
+than common facilities in the summer months for rapid and safe
+communication with other places; and, in the winter time, being
+but slightly affected by the current of the river Trent, it
+affords excellent sleighing.
+
+Large quantities of wheat and other farm produce are transported
+over the ice to Belleville from the neighbouring county of Prince
+Edward, which is an exceedingly prosperous agricultural settlement,
+yielding wheat of the finest quality, and particularly excellent
+cheese and butter. The scenery on the shores of Prince Edward is
+exceedingly picturesque, and there are numerous wharfs at short
+distances, from whence the farmers roll their barrels of flour and
+other articles on board the steamers on their way to market. I have
+seen no scenery in Upper Canada presenting the same variety and
+beauty as that of the shores of Prince Edward in particular.
+
+The peninsular situation of this county is its only
+disadvantage--being out of the line of the land travel and of the
+telegraphic communication which passes through Belleville. The
+county of Prince Edward having nearly exhausted its exportation
+lumber--the people are thus freed from the evils of a trade that
+is always more or less demoralising in its tendency and can now
+give their undivided attention to the cultivation of their farms.
+Certain it is, that more quiet, industrious, and prosperous
+settlers, are not to be found in the Province.
+
+A few miles below Belleville, on the south side of the bay, is a
+very remarkable natural curiosity, called "The Stone Mills." On the
+summit of a table-land, rising abruptly several hundred feet above
+the shore of the bay, there is a lake of considerable size and very
+great depth, and which apparently receives a very inadequate supply
+from the elevated land on which it is situated. The lake has no
+natural outlet, and the common opinion is that it is unfathomable,
+and that it is supplied with water by means of a subterranean
+communication with Lake Huron, or some other lake at the same level.
+This is, of course, extremely improbable, but there can be no doubt
+of its great depth, and that it cannot be supplied from the Bay of
+Quinte, so far beneath its level. As a small rivulet runs into this
+lake from the flat ground in its vicinity, and as the soil of this
+remarkable excavation, however it may have been originally formed,
+is tenacious, I think we require no such improbable theory to
+account for its existence. Availing himself of the convenient
+position of this lake, a farmer in the neighbourhood erected a mill,
+which gives its name to the lake, on the shore of the Bay of Quinte,
+and which he supplied with water by making a deep cutting from the
+lake to the edge of the precipice, from whence it is conveyed in
+troughs to the mill.
+
+There is a somewhat similar lake in the township of Sidney in the
+county of Hastings, covering some hundred acres. This lake is also
+of great depth, though situated on the summit of a range of high
+hills, from whence it gets the name of the "Oak Hill Pond."
+
+The Bay of Quinte abounds in excellent fish of various kinds,
+affording excellent sport to those who are fond of fishing. When the
+ice breaks up in the spring, immense shoals of pickerel commence
+running up the Moira river, at Belleville, to spawn in the interior.
+At that time a number of young men amuse themselves with spearing
+them, standing on the flat rocks at the end of the bridge which
+crosses the river They dart their spears into the rushing waters at
+hap-hazard in the darkness, bringing up a large fish at every second
+or third stroke. My eldest son, a youth of fifteen, sometimes caught
+so many fish in this manner in two or three hours, that we had to
+send a large wheelbarrow to fetch them home. Formerly, before so
+many mills were erected, the fish swarmed in incredible numbers in
+all our rivers and lakes.
+
+In the back-woods there is excellent deer-hunting, and parties are
+often formed for this purpose by the young men, who bring home whole
+waggon-loads of venison.
+
+While speaking of Belleville, I may mention, as one of its chief
+advantages, the long period for which the sleighing continues in
+this part of the country, when compared with other places on the
+shore of Lake Ontario. Nearly the whole winter there is excellent
+sleighing on the Bay of Quinte; and on the land we have weeks of
+good sleighing for days in most other places. This is owing to the
+influence of a large sheet of frozen water interposed between us
+and Lake Ontario, which is never frozen.
+
+The county of Prince Edward is a peninsula connected with the main
+land by a narrow isthmus of low swampy land about four miles wide.
+Through this neck of land it has long been in contemplation to cut
+a canal to enable the lake steam-boats to take Belleville in their
+route between Kingston and Toronto, thus affording a safe navigation
+in stormy weather. The effect of such a work on the prosperity of
+the counties of Hastings and Prince Edward would be very great, as
+European emigrants would have an opportunity of seeing a country
+which has hitherto escaped their notice, from the causes already
+mentioned.
+
+Besides the usual variety of churches, there is a grammar-school,
+and also four large common schools, which latter are free schools,
+being supported by assessments on the people of the town.
+
+Every Saturday, which is the great day for business from the
+country, the streets are crowded with farmers' waggons or sleighs,
+with their wives and pretty daughters, who come in to make their
+little purchases of silk gowns and ribbons, and to sell their butter
+and eggs, which are the peculiar perquisites for the females in this
+country. The counties of Hastings and Prince Edward are celebrated
+for female beauty, and nowhere can you see people in the same class
+more becomingly attired. At the same time there is nothing rustic
+about them, except genuine good nature and unaffected simplicity
+of manners. To judge by their light elastic step and rosy smiling
+countenances, no people on earth seem to enjoy a greater share of
+health and contentment.
+
+Since the establishment of the county municipal councils, plank and
+macadamised roads have branched out in all directions from the
+various central county towns, stretching their ramifications like
+the veins of the human body, conveying nourishment and prosperity
+throughout the country, increasing the trade and the travel,
+connecting man with man and promoting intelligence and civilisation;
+while the magnetic telegraph, now traversing the whole length of
+the country, like the nervous system, still further stimulates the
+inhabitants to increased activity.
+
+The people of this county have not been behind their neighbours in
+these improvements. The first plank-road which they constructed was
+from Belleville to Canniff's Mills, a distance of three miles over
+a road which at the time was often knee-deep in mud, with a solid
+foundation of flat limestone rock, which prevented the escape of the
+water. So infamous was this road, that, on some parts of it, it was
+a matter of serious doubt whether a boat or waggon would be the
+better mode of conveyance. Notwithstanding the badness of this road,
+it was the greatest thoroughfare in the county, as it was the
+only approach to a number of mills situated on the river, and to
+Belleville, from the back country. It was, however, with the utmost
+difficulty that the warden could induce the other members of the
+county-council to sanction the construction of a plank-road at the
+expense of the county; so little was then known in Canada of the
+effects of such works.
+
+The profits yielded by this road are unusually large, amounting,
+it is said, to seventy or eighty per cent. This extraordinary
+success encouraged the people to undertake other lines, by means
+of joint-stock companies formed among the farmers. All these
+plank-roads are highly remunerative, averaging, it is stated,
+fourteen per cent. over and above all expenses of repair. More than
+thirty miles of plank-road is already constructed in the county.
+In a few years plank or gravel roads will be extended through every
+part of the country, and they will be most available as feeders to
+the great line of railway which will very soon be constructed
+through the entire length of the province, and which has been
+already commenced at Toronto and Hamilton. A single track plank-road
+costs from 375 to 425 pounds per mile, according to the value of the
+land to be purchased, or other local causes. The cost of a gravel
+road, laid twelve feet wide and nine inches deep, and twenty-two
+feet from out to out, is from 250 to 325 pounds, and it is much more
+lasting, and more easily repaired than a plank-road. Macadamised or
+gravel roads will no doubt entirely supersede the others.
+
+In the present circumstances of the colony, however, plank-roads
+will be preferred, because they are more quickly constructed, and
+with less immediate outlay of money in the payment of labourer's
+wages, as our numerous saw-mills enable the farmers to get their
+own logs sawed, and they thus pay the greater portion of their
+instalments on the stock taken in the roads. In fact, by making
+arrangements with the proprietors of saw-mills they can generally
+manage to get several months' credit, so that they will receive the
+first dividends from the road before they will be required to pay
+any money. The mode of making these roads is exceedingly simple.
+
+The space required for the road is first levelled, ditched, and
+drained, and then pieces of scantling, five or six inches square,
+are laid longitudinally on each side, at the proper distance for
+a road-way twelve feet wide, and with the ends of each piece sawn
+off diagonally, so as to rest on the end of the next piece, which
+is similarly prepared, to prevent the road from settling down
+unequally. The pieces of scantling thus connected are simply bedded
+firmly in the ground, which is levelled up to their upper edges.
+Pine planks, three inches thick, are then laid across with their
+ends resting on the scantling. The planks are closely wedged
+together like the flooring of a house, and secured here and there by
+strong wooden pins, driven into auger-holes bored through the planks
+into the scantling. The common way is to lay the plank-flooring
+at right angles with the scantling, but a much better way has
+been adopted in the county of Hastings. The planks are here laid
+diagonally, which of course requires that they should be cut several
+feet longer. This ensures greater durability, as the shoes of the
+horses cut up the planks much more when the grain of the wood
+corresponds in direction with their sharp edges. When a double track
+is required, three longitudinal courses of scantling are used, and
+the ends of the planks meet on the centre one. Very few, if any,
+iron nails are generally used.
+
+The great advantage of a plank-road is the large load it enables the
+horses to draw. Whilst on a common road a farmer can only carry
+twenty-five bushels of wheat in his waggon, a plank-road will enable
+him to carry forty or fifty bushels of the same grain with a pair of
+horses. The principal disadvantage of the plank-roads is, that they
+are found by experience to be injurious to horses, particularly when
+they are driven quickly on them. They are best adapted for a large
+load drawn at a slow pace. I shall not attempt to describe the
+country in the neighbourhood of Belleville, or the more northern
+parts of the county. It will suffice to observe, that the country
+is generally much varied in its surface, and beautiful, and the soil
+is generally excellent. Within the last ten or twelve years the
+whole country has been studded with good substantial stone or
+brick houses, or good white painted frame houses, even for thirty
+miles back, and the farms are well fenced and cultivated, showing
+undeniable signs of comfort and independence. Streams and water
+are abundant, and there are several thriving villages and hamlets
+scattered through the county,--the village of Canniff's Mills,
+three miles from Belleville, and soon destined to form a part of it,
+alone containing a population of about a thousand.
+
+In describing the progress of this county, I may be understood as
+describing that of most other counties in the Upper Province; the
+progress of all of them being rapid, though varying according to
+the advantages of situation or from causes already alluded to.
+
+From what has been said, the reader will perceive that the present
+condition of Canada generally is exceedingly prosperous, and when
+the resources of the country are fully developed by the railroads
+now in progress of construction, and by the influx of capital and
+population from Europe, no rational person can doubt that it will
+ultimately be as prosperous and opulent as any country in the world,
+ancient or modern.
+
+It may be said, "should we not then be hopeful and contented with
+our situation and prospects." And so the people are in the main, and
+the shrewd capitalists of England think so, or they would not be so
+ready to invest their money in our public works. But some deduction
+from this general state of contentment and confidence must be
+made for those little discontents and grumblings created by the
+misrepresentations of certain disappointed politicians and ambitious
+men of all parties, who expect to gain popularity by becoming
+grievance-mongers. Much has been done, and a great deal still
+remains to be done in the way of reform, here as elsewhere. But
+there never was any just cause or motive in that insane cry for
+"annexation" to the United States, which was raised some years ago,
+and by the tories, too, of all people in the world! The "annexation"
+mania can now only be regarded as indicative of the last expiring
+struggle of a domineering party--it would not be correct to call
+it a political party--which had so long obstructed the progress of
+Canada by its selfish and monopolising spirit, when it found that
+its reign had ceased for ever.
+
+Great sacrifices have been, and will be made, by men of loyalty and
+principle in support of institutions, which are justly dear to every
+Briton and to every freeman; but this feeling necessarily has its
+limits along the mass of mankind; and the loyalty of a people must
+be supported by reason and justice. They should have good reason
+to believe that their institutions are more conducive to happiness
+and prosperity than those of all other countries. Without this
+conviction, loyalty in a people who have by any means been deprived
+of the power of correcting the abuses of their government, would be
+hardly rational. Canadians now have that power to its full extent.
+Why, then, should we not be loyal to the constitution of our country
+which has stood the test of ages, purifying itself and developing
+its native energies as a vigorous constitution outgrows disease
+in the human frame. The government of Canada is practically more
+republican than that of the mother country and nearly as republican
+as that of the United States. Our government is also notoriously
+much less expensive. Our public officers are also, practically, much
+more responsible to the people, though indirectly, because they are
+appointed by a Colonial Ministry who are elected by the people, and
+whose popularity depends in a great degree on the selections they
+make and upon their watchfulness over their conduct.
+
+The government of the United States is not a cheap government,
+because all officers being elective by the people, the responsibility
+of the selections to office is divided and weakened. Moreover, the
+change or prospect of the electors being the elected inclines them
+to put up with abuses and defalcations which would be considered
+intolerable under another form of government. The British Government
+now holds the best security for the continued loyalty of the people
+of Canada, in their increasing prosperity. To Great Britain they
+are bound by the strongest ties of duty and interest; and nothing
+but the basest ingratitude or absolute infatuation can ever tempt
+them to transfer their allegiance to another country.
+
+I shall conclude this chapter with a few verses written two years
+ago, and which were suggested by an indignant feeling at the cold
+manner with which the National Anthem was received by some persons
+who used to be loud in their professions of loyalty on former public
+occasions. Happily, this wayward and pettish, I will not call it
+disloyal spirit, has passed away, and most of the "Annexationists"
+are now heartily ashamed of their conduct.
+
+
+GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
+
+  God save the Queen. The time has been
+  When these charmed words, or said or sung,
+  Have through the welkin proudly rung;
+  And, heads uncovered, every tongue
+    Has echoed back--"God save the Queen!"
+                      God save the Queen!
+
+  It was not like the feeble cry
+  That slaves might raise as tyrants pass'd,
+  With trembling knees and hearts downcast,
+  While dungeoned victims breathed their last
+    In mingled groans of agony!
+                      God save the Queen!
+
+  Nor were these shouts without the will,
+  Which servile crowds oft send on high,
+  When gold and jewels meet the eye,
+  When pride looks down on poverty.
+    And makes the poor man poorer still!
+                      God save the Queen!
+
+  No!--it was like the thrilling shout--
+  The joyous sounds of price and praise
+  That patriot hearts are wont to raise,
+  'Mid cannon's roar and bonfires blaze,
+    When Britain's foes are put to rout--
+                      God save the Queen!
+
+  For 'mid those sounds, to Britons dear,
+  No dastard selfish thoughts intrude
+  To mar a nation's gratitude:
+  But one soul moves that multitude--
+    To sing in accents loud and clear--
+                      God save the Queen!
+
+  Such sounds as these in days of yore,
+  On war-ship's deck and battle plain,
+  Have rung o'er heaps of foemen slain--
+  And with God's help they'll ring again,
+    When warriors' blood shall flow no more,
+                      God save the Queen!
+
+  God save the Queen! let patriots cry;
+  And palsied be the impious hand
+  Would guide the pen, or wield the brand,
+  Against our glorious Fatherland.
+    Let shouts of freemen rend the sky,
+                      God save the Queen!--and Liberty!
+
+  Reader! my task is ended.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX A
+
+ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION
+
+Published by Richard Bentley in 1854
+
+
+In justice to Mrs. Moodie, it is right to state that being still
+resident in the far-west of Canada, she has not been able to
+superintend this work whilst passing through the press. From this
+circumstance some verbal mistakes and oversights may have occurred,
+but the greatest care has been taken to avoid them.
+
+Although well known as an authoress in Canada, and a member of a
+family which has enriched English literature with works of very
+high popularity, Mrs. Moodie is chiefly remembered in this country
+by a volume of Poems published in 1831, under her maden name of
+Susanna Strickland. During the rebellion in Canada, her loyal
+lyrics, prompted by strong affection for her native country, were
+circulated and sung throughout the colony, and produced a great
+effect in rousing an enthusiastic feeling in favour of law and
+order. Another of her lyrical compositions, the charming Sleigh
+Song, printed in the present work [at the end of chapter VII],
+has been extremely popular in Canada. The warmth of feeling
+which beams through every line, and the touching truthfulness
+of its details, won for it a reception there as universal as it
+was favourable.
+
+The glowing narrative of personal incident and suffering which
+she gives in the present work, will no doubt attract general
+attention. It would be difficult to point out delineations of
+fortitude under privation, more interesting or more pathetic
+than those contained in her second volume.
+
+London, January 22, 1852
+
+
+
+APPENDIX B
+
+CANADA: A CONTRAST
+
+Introductory Chapter to the First Canadian Edition (1871)
+
+
+In the year 1832 I landed with my husband, J.W. Dunbar Moodie,
+in Canada. Mr. Moodie was the youngest son of Major Moodie, of
+Mellsetter, in the Orkney Islands; he was a lieutenant in the
+21st Regiment of Fusileers, and had been severely wounded in
+the night-attack upon Bergen-op-Zoom, in Holland.
+
+Not being overgifted with the good things of this world--the
+younger sons of old British families seldom are--he had, after
+mature deliberation, determined to try his fortunes in Canada,
+and settle upon the grant of 400 acres of land ceded by the
+Government to officers upon half-pay.
+
+Emigration, in most cases--and ours was no exception to the general
+rule--is a matter of necessity, not of choice. It may, indeed,
+generally be regarded as an act of duty performed at the expense
+of personal enjoyment, and at the sacrifice of all those local
+attachments which stamp the scenes in which our childhood grew in
+imperishable characters upon the heart.
+
+Nor is it, until adversity has pressed hard upon the wounded spirit
+of the sons and daughters of old, but impoverished, families, that
+they can subdue their proud and rebellious feelings, and submit to
+make the trial.
+
+This was our case, and our motive for emigrating to one of the
+British colonies can be summed up in a few words.
+
+The emigrant's hope of bettering his condition, and securing a
+sufficient competence to support his family, to free himself from
+the slighting remarks too often hurled at the poor gentleman by the
+practical people of the world, which is always galling to a proud
+man, but doubly so when he knows that the want of wealth constitues
+the sole difference between him and the more favoured offspring of
+the same parent stock.
+
+In 1830 the tide of emigration flowed westward, and Canada became
+the great landmark for the rich in hope and poor in purse. Public
+newspapers and private letters teemed with the almost fabulous
+advantages to be derived from a settlement in this highly favoured
+region. Men, who had been doubtful of supporting their families in
+comfort at home, thought that they had only to land in Canada to
+realize a fortune. The infection became general. Thousands and tens
+of thousands from the middle ranks of British society, for the space
+of three or four years, landed upon these shores. A large majority
+of these emigrants were officers of the army and navy, with their
+families: a class perfectly unfitted, by their previous habits and
+standing in society, for contending with the stern realities of
+emigrant life in the backwoods. A class formed mainly from the
+younger scions of great families, naturally proud, and not only
+accustomed to command, but to recieve implicit obedience from the
+people under them, are not men adapted to the hard toil of the
+woodman's life. Nor will such persons submit cheerfully to the
+saucy familiarity of servants, who, republicans at heart, think
+themselves quite as good as their employers.
+
+Too many of these brave and honest men took up their grants of wild
+land in remote and unfavourable localities, far from churches,
+schools, and markets, and fell an easy prey to the land speculators
+that swarmed in every rising village on the boarders of civilization.
+
+It was to warn such settlers as these last mentioned, not to take
+up grants and pitch their tents in the wilderness, and by so doing
+reduce themselves and their families to hopeless poverty, that my
+work "Roughing it in the Bush" was written.
+
+I gave the experience of the first seven years we passed in the
+woods, attempting to clear a bush farm, as a warning to others, and
+the number of persons who have since told me, that my book "told the
+history" of their own life in the woods, ought to be the best proof
+to every candid mind that I spoke the truth. It it not by such feeble
+instruments as the above that Providence works when it seeks to
+reclaim the waste places of the earth, and make them subservient to
+the wants and happiness of its creatures. The great Father of the
+souls and bodies of men knows the arm which wholesome labour from the
+infancy has made strong, the nerves that have become iron by patient
+endurance, and He chooses such to send forth into the forest to hew
+out the rough paths for the advance of civilization.
+
+These men became wealthy and prosperous, and are the bones and
+sinews of a great and rising country. Their labour is wealth, not
+exhaustion; it produces content, not home-sickness and despair.
+
+What the backwoods of Canada are to the industrious and
+ever-to-be-honoured sons of honest poverty, and what they are
+to the refined and polished gentleman, these sketches have
+endeavoured to show.
+
+The poor man is in his native element; the poor gentleman totally
+unfitted, by his previous habits and education, to be a hewer of the
+forest and a tiller of the soil. What money he brought out with him
+is lavishly expended during the first two years in paying for labour
+to clear and fence lands which, from his ignorance of agricultural
+pursuits, will never make him the least profitable return and barely
+find coarse food for his family. Of clothing we say nothing. Bare
+feet and rags are too common in the bush.
+
+Now, had the same means and the same labour been employed in the
+cultivation of a leased farm, or one purchased for a few hundred
+dollars, near a village, how different would have been the results,
+not only to the settler, but it would have added greatly to the
+wealth and social improvement of the country.
+
+I am well aware that a great and, I must think, a most unjust
+prejudice has been felt against my book in Canada because I dared to
+give my opinion freely on a subject which had engrossed a great deal
+of my attention; nor do I believe that the account of our failure in
+the bush ever deterred a single emigrant from coming to the country,
+as the only circulation it ever had in the colony was chiefly through
+the volumes that often formed a portion of their baggage. The many
+who have condemned the work without reading it will be surprised to
+find that not one word has been said to prejudice intending emigrants
+from making Canada their home. Unless, indeed, they ascribe the
+regret expressed at having to leave my native land, so natural in
+the painful home-sickness which, for several months, preys upon the
+health and spirits of the dejected exile, to a deep-rooted dislike
+to the country.
+
+So far from this being the case, my love for the country has steadily
+increased from year to year, and my attachment to Canada is now
+so strong that I cannot imagine any inducement, short of absolute
+necessity, which could induce me to leave the colony where as a wife
+and mother, some of the happiest years of my life have been spent.
+
+Contrasting the first years of my life in the bush with Canada as
+she now is, my mind is filled with wonder and gratitude at the rapid
+strides she has made towards the fulfilment of a great and glorious
+destiny.
+
+What important events have been brought to pass within the narrow
+circle of less than forty years! What a difference since NOW and
+THEN. The country is the same only in name. Its aspect is wholly
+changed. The rough has become smooth, the crooked has been made
+straight, the forests have been converted into fruitful fields, the
+rude log cabin of the woodsman has been replaced by the handsome,
+well-appointed homestead, and large populous cities have pushed the
+small clap-boarded village into the shade.
+
+The solitary stroke of the axe that once broke the uniform silence of
+the vast woods is only heard in remote districts, and is superseded
+by the thundering tread of the iron horse and the ceaseless panting of
+the steam-engine in our sawmills and factories.
+
+Canada is no longer a child, sleeping in the arms of nature,
+dependant for her very existence on the fostering care of her
+illustrious mother. She has outstepped infancy, and is in the full
+enjoyment of a strong and vigorous youth. What may not we hope for
+her maturity ere another forty summers have glided down the stream
+of time! Already she holds in her hand the crown of one of the
+mightiest empires that the world has seen, or is yet to see.
+
+Look at her vast resources--her fine healthy climate--her fruitful
+soil--the inexhaustible wealth of her pine forests--the untold
+treasures hidden in her unexplored mines. What other country
+possesses such an internal navigation for transporting its products
+from distant Manitoba to the sea, and from thence to every port in
+the world!
+
+If an excellent Government, defended by wise laws, a loyal people,
+and a free Church, can make people happy and proud of their country,
+surely we have every reason to rejoice in our new Dominion.
+
+When we first came to the country it was a mere struggle for bread to
+the many, while all the offices of emolument and power were held by a
+favoured few. The country was rent to pieces by political factions,
+and a fierce hostility existed between the native born Canadians--the
+first pioneers of the forest--and the British emigrants, who looked
+upon each other as mutual enemies, who were seeking to appropriate
+the larger share of the new country.
+
+Those who had settled down in the woods were happily unconscious
+that these quarrels threatened to destroy the peace of the colony.
+
+The insurrection of 1837 came upon them like a thunder clap; they
+could hardly believe such an incredible tale. Intensely loyal, the
+emigrant officers rose to a man to defend the British flag and
+chastise the rebels and their rash leader.
+
+In their zeal to uphold British authority, they made no excuse for
+the wrongs that the dominant party had heaped upon a clever and
+high-spirited man. To them he was a traitor, and, as such, a public
+enemy. Yet the blow struck by that injured man, weak as it was,
+without money, arms, or the necessary munitions of war, and defeated
+and broken in its first effort, gave freedom to Canada, and laid
+the foundation of the excellent constitution that we now enjoy. It
+drew the attention of the Home Government to the many abuses then
+practised in the colony, and made them aware of its vast importance
+in a political point of view, and ultimately led to all our great
+national improvements.
+
+The settlement of the long-vexed clergy reserves question, and the
+establishment of common schools was a great boon to the colony. The
+opening up of new townships, the making of roads, the establishments
+of municipal councils in all the old districts, leaving to the
+citizens the free choice of their own members in the council for
+the management of their affairs, followed in rapid succession.
+
+These changes of course took some years to accomplish, and led to
+others equally important. The Provincial Exhibitions have done much
+to improve the agricultural interests, and have led to better and
+more productive methods of cultivation than were formerly practiced
+in the Province. The farmer gradually became a wealthy and
+intelligent landowner, proud of his improved flocks and herds, of
+his fine horses and handsome homestead. He was able to send his sons
+to college and his daughters to boarding school, and not uncommonly
+became an honourable member of the Legislative Council.
+
+While the sons of poor gentlemen have generally lost caste and sunk
+into useless sots, the children of these honest tillers of the soil
+have steadily risen to the highest class, and have given to Canada
+some of her best and wisest legislators.
+
+Men who rest satisfied with the mere accident of birth for their
+claims to distinction, without energy and industry to maintain
+their position in society, are sadly at discount in a country which
+amply rewards the worker, but leaves the indolent loafer to die in
+indigence and obscurity.
+
+Honest poverty is encouraged, not despised, in Canada. Few of her
+prosperous men have risen from obscurity to affluence without going
+through the mill, and therefore have a fellow-feeling for those who
+are struggling to gain the first rung on the ladder.
+
+Men are allowed in this country a freedom enjoyed by few of the more
+polished countries in Europe--freedom in religion, politics, and
+speech; freedom to select their own friends and to visit with whom
+they please without consulting the Mrs. Grundys of society--and they
+can lead a more independent social life than in the mother country,
+because less restricted by the conventional prejudices that govern
+older communities.
+
+Few people who have lived many years in Canada and return to England
+to spend the remainder of their days, accomplish the fact. They
+almost invariably come back, and why? They feel more independent and
+happier here; they have no idea what a blessed country it is to live
+in until they go back and realize the want of social freedom. I have
+heard this from so many educated people, persons of taste and
+refinement, that I cannot doubt the truth of their statements.
+
+Forty years has accomplished as great a change in the habits and
+tastes of the Canadian people as it has in the architecture of their
+fine cities and the appearance of the country. A young Canadian
+gentleman is as well educated as any of his compeers across the
+big water, and contrasts very favourably with them. Social and
+unaffected, he puts on no airs of offensive superiority, but meets a
+stranger with the courtesy and frankness best calculated to shorten
+the distance between them and to make his guest feel perfectly at
+home.
+
+Few countries possess a more beautiful female population. The women
+are elegant in their tastes, graceful in their manners, and naturally
+kind and affectionate in their dispositions. Good housekeepers,
+sociable neighbours, and lively and active in speech and movement,
+they are capital companions and make excellent wives and mothers. Of
+course there must be exceptions to every rule; but cases of divorce,
+or desertion of their homes, are so rare an occurrence that it speaks
+volumes for their domestic worth. Numbers of British officers have
+chosen their wives in Canada, and I never heard that they had cause
+to repent of their choice. In common with our American neighbours, we
+find that the worst members of our community are not Canadian born,
+but importations from other countries.
+
+The Dominion and Local Governments are now doing much to open up
+the resources of Canada by the Intercolonial and projected Pacific
+Railways and other Public Works, which, in time, will make a vast
+tract of land available for cultivation, and furnish homes for
+multitudes of the starving populations of Europe.
+
+And again, the Government of the flourishing Province of Ontario--of
+which the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald is premier--has done wonders
+during the last four years by means of its Immigration policy, which
+has been most successfully carried out by the Hon. John Carling, the
+Commissioner, and greatly tended to the development of the country.
+By this policy liberal provision is made for free grants of land to
+actual settlers, for general education, and for the encouragement of
+the industrial Arts and Agriculture; by the construction of public
+roads and the improvement of the internal navigable waters of the
+province; and by the assistance now given to an economical system of
+railways connecting these interior waters with the leading railroads
+and ports on the frontier; and not only are free grants of land given
+in the districts extending from the eastern to the western extremity
+of the Province, but one of the best of the new townships has been
+selected in which the Government is now making roads, and upon each
+lot is clearing five acres and erecting thereon a small house, which
+will be granted to heads of families, who, by six annual instalments,
+will be required to pay back to the Government the cost of these
+improvements--not exceeding $200, or 40 pounds sterling--when a free
+patent (or deed) of the land will be given, without any charge
+whatever, under a protective Homestead Act. This wise and liberal
+policy would have astonished the Colonial Legislature of 1832, but
+will, no doubt, speedily give to the Province a noble and progressive
+back country, and add much to its strength and prosperity.
+
+Our busy factories and foundries--our copper, silver, and plumbago
+mines--our salt and petroleum--the increasing exports of native
+produce--speak volumes for the prosperity of the Dominion and for the
+government of those who are at the head of affairs. It only requires
+the loyal co-operation of an intelligent and enlightened people to
+render this beautiful and free country the greatest and the happiest
+upon the face of the earth.
+
+When we contrast forest life in Canada forty years ago with the
+present state of the country, my book will not be without interest
+and significance. We may truly say, old things have passed away,
+all things have become new.
+
+What an advance in the arts and sciences and in the literature of
+the country has been made during the last few years. Canada can
+boast of many good and even distinguished authors, and the love of
+books and booklore is daily increasing.
+
+Institues and literary associations for the encouragement of
+learning are now to be found in all the cities and large towns in
+the Dominion. We are no longer dependent upon the States for the
+reproduction of the works of celebrated authors; our own publishers,
+both in Toronto and Montreal, are furnishing our handsome bookstores
+with volumes that rival, in cheapness and typographical excellence,
+the best issues from the large printing establishments in America.
+We have no lack of native talent or books, or of intelligent readers
+to appreciate them.
+
+Our print shops are full of the well-educated designs of native
+artists. And the grand scenery of our lakes and forests, transferred
+to canvas, adorns the homes of our wealthy citizens.
+
+We must not omit in this slight sketch to refer to the number of fine
+public buildings which meet us at every turn, most of which have been
+designed and executed by native architects. Montreal can point to her
+Victoria Bridge, and challenge the world to produce its equal. This
+prodigy of mechanical skill should be a sufficient inducement to
+strangers from other lands to visit our shores, and though designed
+by the son of the immortal George Stephenson, it was Canadian hands
+that helped him to execute his great project--to raise that glorious
+monument to his fame, which we hope, will outlast a thousand years.
+
+Our new Houses of Parliment, our churches, banks, public halls,
+asylums for the insane, the blind, and the deaf and dumb are
+buildings which must attract the attention of every intelligent
+traveller; and when we consider the few brief years that have
+elapsed since the Upper Province was reclaimed from the wilderness,
+our progress in mechanical arts, and all the comforts which pertain
+to modern civilization, is unprecedented in the history of older
+nations.
+
+If the Canadian people will honestly unite in carrying out measures
+proposed by the Government for the good of the country, irrespective
+of self-interest and party prejudices, they must, before the close
+of the present century, become a great and prosperous nationality.
+May the blessing of God rest upon Canada and the Canadian people!
+
+Susanna Moodie
+
+Belleville, 1871
+
+
+
+APPENDIX C
+
+JEANIE BURNS
+
+[This chapter was originally intended by Mrs. Moodie for inclusion
+in the first edition of Roughing it in the Bush but was instead
+published in the periodical Bentley's Miscellany, in August 1852.
+It was later revised and included in the book Life in the Clearings
+versus the Bush by the same author.]
+
+  "Ah, human hearts are strangely cast,
+    Time softens grief and pain;
+  Like reeds that shiver in the blast,
+    They bend to rise again.
+
+  "But she in silence bowed her head,
+    To none her sorrow would impart;
+  Earth's faithful arms enclose the dead,
+    And hide for aye her broken heart!"
+
+
+Our man James came to me to request the loan of one of the horses,
+to attend a funeral. M--- was absent on business, and the horses
+and the man's time were both greatly needed to prepare the land for
+the fall crops. I demurred; James looked anxious and disappointed;
+and the loan of the horse was at length granted, but not without a
+strict injunction that he should return to his work the moment the
+funeral was over. He did not come back until late that evening. I
+had just finished my tea, and was nursing my wrath at his staying
+out the whole day, when the door of the room (we had but one,
+and that was shared in common with the servants) opened, and the
+delinquent at last appeared. He hung up the new English saddle,
+and sat down by the blazing hearth without speaking a word.
+
+"What detained you so long, James? You ought to have had half an
+acre of land, at least, ploughed to-day."
+
+"Verra true, mistress. It was nae fau't o' mine. I had mista'en the
+hour. The funeral didna' come in afore sun-down, and I cam' awa'
+directly it was ower."
+
+"Was it any relation of yours?"
+
+"Na, na, jist a freend, an auld acquaintance, but nane o' mine ain
+kin. I never felt sare sad in a' my life, as I ha' dune this day.
+I ha' seen the clods piled on mony a heid, and never felt the saut
+tear in my e'en. But, puir Jeanie! puir lass. It was a sair sight
+to see them thrown doon upon her."
+
+My curiosity was excited; I pushed the tea-things from me, and told
+Bell to give James his supper.
+
+"Naething for me the night, Bell--I canna' eat--my thoughts will a'
+rin on that puir lass. Sae young--sae bonnie, an' a few months ago
+as blythe as a lark, an' now a clod o' the earth. Hout we maun all
+dee when our ain time comes; but, somehow, I canna' think that
+Jeanie ought to ha' gane sae sune."
+
+"Who is Jeanie Burns? Tell me, James, something about her."
+
+In compliance with my request, the man gave me the following story.
+I wish I could convey it in his own words, but though I can
+perfectly understand the Scotch dialect when spoken, I could not
+write it in its charming simplicity: that honest, truthful brevity,
+which is so characteristic of this noble people. The smooth tones
+of the blarney may flatter our vanity, and please us for the
+moment; but who places any confidence in those by whom it is
+employed. We know that it is only uttered to cajole and decieve,
+and when the novelty wears off, the repetition awakens indignation
+and disgust; but who mistrusts the blunt, straightforward speech of
+the land of Burns--for good or ill, it strikes home to the heart.
+
+"Jeanie Burns was the daughter of a respectable shoemaker, who
+gained a comfortable living by his trade in a small town in
+Ayrshire. Her father, like herself, was an only child, and followed
+the same vocation, and rought under the same roof that his father
+had done before him. The elder Burns had met with many reverses,
+and now helpless and blind, was entirely dependent upon the charity
+of his son. Honest Jock had not married until late in life, that he
+might more comfortably provide for the wants of his aged parent.
+His mother had been dead for some years. She was a meek, pious
+woman, and Jock quaintly affirmed, 'That it had pleased the Lord
+to provide a better inheritance for his dear auld mither than his
+arm could win, proud and happy as he would have been to have
+supported her when she was no longer able to work for him.'
+
+"Jock's paternal love was repaid at last; chance threw in his way
+a cannie young lass, baith guid and bonnie: they were united, and
+Jeanie was the sole fruit of this marriage. But Jeanie proved a
+host in herself, and grew up the best natured, the prettiest,
+and the most industrious lass in the village, and was a general
+favourite both with young and old. She helped her mother in the
+house, bound shoes for her father, and attended to all the wants of
+her dear old grandfather, Saunders Burns; who was so much attached
+to his little handmaid, that he was never happy when she was absent.
+
+"Happiness is not a flower of long growth in this world; it requires
+the dew and sunlight of heaven to nourish it, and it soon withers,
+removed from its native skies. The cholera visited the remote
+village. It smote the strong man in the pride of his strength, and
+the matron in the beauty of her prime; while it spared the helpless
+and the aged, the infant of a few days, and the parent of many
+years. Both Jeanie's parents fell victims to the fatal disease,
+and the old blind Saunders and the young Jeanie were left to fight
+alone a hard battle with poverty and grief. The truly deserving are
+never entirely forsaken. God may afflict them with many trials, but
+he watches over them still, and often provides for their wants in a
+manner truly miraculous. Sympathizing friends gathered round the
+orphan girl in her hour of need, and obtained for her sufficient
+employment to enable her to support her old grandfather and
+herself, and provide for them the common necessaries of life.
+
+"Jeannie was an excellent sempstress, and what between making
+waistcoats and trousers for the tailors and binding shoes for the
+shoemakers, a business that she thoroughly understood, she soon
+had her little hired room neatly furnished, and her grandfather
+as clean and spruce as ever. When she led him into the kirk of a
+Sabbath morning, all the neighbours greeted the dutiful daughter
+with an approving smile, and the old man looked so serene and
+happy that Jeanie was fully repaid for her labours of love.
+
+"Her industry and piety often formed the theme of conversation to
+the young lads of the village. 'What a guid wife Jeanie Burns will
+mak',' cried one. 'Aye,' said another, 'he need na complain of
+ill-fortin, who has the luck to get the like o' her.'
+
+"'An' she's sae bonnie,' would Willie Robertson add with a sigh.
+'I would na' covet the wealth o' the hale world an she were mine.'
+
+"Willie was a fine active young man, who bore an excellent
+character, and his comrades thought it very likely that Willie was
+to be the fortunate man.
+
+"Robertson was the youngest son of a farmer in the neighbourhood.
+He had no land of his own, and he was one of a very large family.
+From a boy he had assisted his father in working the farm for their
+common maintenance; but after he took to looking at Jeanie Burns at
+kirk, instead of minding his prayers, he began to wish that he had
+a homestead of his own, which he could ask Jeanie and her
+grandfather to share. "He made his wishes known to his father.
+The old man was prudent. A marriage with Jeanie Burns offered no
+advantages in a pecuniary view. But the girl was a good honest
+girl, of whom any man might be proud. He had himself married for
+love, and had enjoyed great comfort in his wife.
+
+"'Willie, my lad,' he said, 'I canna' gi'e ye a share o' the farm.
+It is ower sma' for the mony mouths it has to feed. I ha'e laid by
+a little siller for a rainy day, an' this I will gi'e ye to win a
+farm for yersel' in the woods o' Canada. There is plenty o' room
+there, an' industry brings its ain reward. If Jeanie Burns lo'es
+you, as weel as yer dear mither did me, she will be fain to follow
+you there.'
+
+"Willie grasped his father's hand, for he was too much elated to
+speak, and he ran away to tell his tale of love to the girl of his
+heart. Jeanie had long loved Robertson in secret, and they were not
+long in settling the matter. They forgot in their first moments of
+joy that old Saunders had to be consulted, for they had determined
+to take the old man with them. But here an obstacle occurred of
+which they had not dreamed. Old age is selfish, and Saunders
+obstinately refused to comply with their wishes. The grave that
+held the remains of his wife and son was dearer to him than all
+the comforts promised to him by the impatient lovers in that far
+foreign land. Jeanie wept--but Saunders, deaf and blind, neither
+heard nor saw her grief, and, like a dutiful child, she breathed
+no complaint to him, but promised to remain with him until his
+head rested upon the same pillow with the dead.
+
+"This was a sore and great trial to Willie Robertson, but he
+consoled himself for his disappointment with the thought that
+Saunders could not live long, and that he would go and prepare a
+place for his Jean, and have everything ready for her reception
+against the old man died.
+
+"'I was a cousin of Willie's,' continued James, 'by the mither's
+side, and he persuaded me to accompany him to Canada. We set sail
+the first day of May, and were here in time to chop a small fallow
+for a fall crop. Willie Robertson had more of this world's gear
+than I, for his father had provided him with sufficient funds to
+purchase a good lot of wild land, which he did in the township of
+M---, and I was to work with him on shares. We were one of the
+first settlers in that place, and we found the work before us rough
+and hard to our heart's content. But Willie had a strong motive for
+exertion--and never did man work harder than he did that first year
+on his bush-farm, for the love of Jeanie Burns.'
+
+"We built a comfortable log-house, in which we were assisted by
+the few neighbours we had, who likewise lent a hand in clearing
+ten acres we had chopped for fall crop.
+
+"All this time Willie kept up a constant correspondence with Jeanie
+Burns, and he used to talk to me of her coming out, and his future
+plans, every night when our work was done. If I had not loved and
+respected the girl mysel' I should have got unco' tired o' the
+subject.
+
+"We had just put in our first crop of wheat, when a letter came
+from Jeanie bringing us the news of her grandfather's death. Weel
+I ken the word that Willie spak' to me when he closed that letter.
+'Jamie, the auld man is gane at last--an', God forgi'e me, I feel
+too gladsome to greet. Jeanie is willin' to come whenever I ha'e
+the means to bring her out, an', hout man, I'm jist thinkin' that
+she winna' ha'e to wait lang.'
+
+"Good workmen were getting very high wages just then, and Willie
+left the care of the place to me, and hired for three months with
+auld Squire Jones. He was an excellent teamster, and could put his
+hand to any sort of work. When his term of service expired he sent
+Jeanie forty dollars to pay her passage out, which he hoped she
+would not delay longer than the spring.
+
+"He got an answer from Jeanie full of love and gratitude, but she
+thought that her voyage might be delayed until the fall. The good
+woman, with whom she had lodged since her parent's died, had just
+lost her husband, and was in a bad state of health, and she begged
+Jeanie to stay with her until her daughter could leave her service
+in Edinburgh and come to take charge of the house. This person had
+been a kind and steadfast friend to Jeanie in all her troubles, and
+had helped her nurse the old man in his dying illness. I am sure it
+was just like Jeanie to act as she did. She had all her life looked
+more to the comforts of others than to her ain. But Robertson was
+an angry man when he got that letter, and he said, 'If that was a'
+the lo'e that Jeanie Burns had for him, to prefer an auld woman's
+comfort, who was naething to her, to her betrothed husband, she
+might bide awa' as lang as she pleased, he would never trouble
+himsel' to write to her again.'
+
+"I did na' think that the man was in earnest, an' I remonstrated
+with him on his folly an' injustice. This ended in a sharp quarrel
+atween us, and I left him to gang his ain gate, an' went to live
+with my uncle, who kept a blacksmith's forge in the village.
+
+"After a while, we heard that Willie Robertson was married to a
+Canadian woman--neither young nor good-looking, and very much his
+inferior in every way, but she had a good lot of land in the rear of
+his farm. Of course I thought that it was all broken off with puir
+Jeanie, and I wondered what she would spier at the marriage.
+
+"It was early in June, and our Canadian woods were in their first
+flush o' green--an' how green an' lightsome they be in their spring
+dress--when Jeanie Burns landed in Canada. She travelled her lane
+up the country, wondering why Willie was not at Montreal to meet her
+as he had promised in the last letter he sent her. It was late in
+the afternoon when the steam-boat brought her to C---, and, without
+waiting to ask any questions respecting him, she hired a man and
+cart to take her and her luggage to M---. The road through the bush
+was very heavy, and it was night before they reached Robertson's
+clearing, and with some difficulty the driver found his way among
+the logs to the cabin-door.
+
+"Hearing the sound of wheels, the wife, a coarse ill-dressed
+slattern, came out to see what could bring strangers to such an
+out-o'-the-way place at that late hour. "Puir Jeanie! I can weel
+imagine the fluttering o' her heart when she spier'd of the woman
+for ane Willie Robertson, and asked if he was at hame?'
+
+"'Yes,' answered the wife gruffly. 'But he is not in from the fallow
+yet--you may see him up yonder tending the blazing logs.'
+
+"While Jeanie was striving to look in the direction which the woman
+pointed out, and could na' see through the tears that blinded her
+e'e, the driver jumped down from the cart, and asked the puir girl
+where he should leave her trunks, as it was getting late, and he must
+be off?
+
+"'You need not bring these big chests in here,' said Mrs. Robertson,
+'I have no room in my house for strangers and their luggage.'
+
+"'Your house!' gasped Jeanie, catching her arm. 'Did ye na' tell me
+that _he_ lived here?--and wherever Willie Robertson bides Jeanie
+Burns sud be a welcome guest. Tell him,' she continued, trembling
+all ower, for she told me afterwards that there was something in the
+woman's look and tone that made the cold chills run to her heart,
+'that an auld friend from Scotland has jist come off a lang
+wearisome journey to see him.'
+
+"'You may speak for yourself!' cried the woman angrily, 'for my
+husband is now coming down the clearing.'
+
+"The word husband was scarcely out o' her mouth than puir Jeanie
+fell as ane dead across the door-step.
+
+"The driver lifted up the unfortunate girl, carried her into the
+cabin, and placed her in a chair, regardless of the opposition of
+Mrs. Robertson, whose jealousy was now fairly aroused, and who
+declared that the bold huzzie should not enter her doors.
+
+"It was a long time before the driver succeeded in bringing Jeanie
+to herself, and she had only just unclosed her eyes when Willie
+came in.
+
+"'Wife,' he said, 'whose cart is this standing at the door, and what
+do these people want here?'
+
+"'You know best,' cried the angry woman, bursting into tears; 'that
+creature is no acquaintance of mine, and if she is suffered to
+remain here, I will leave the house at once.'
+
+"'Forgi'e me, gude woman, for having unwittingly offended ye,' said
+Jeanie, rising. 'But, merciful Father! how sud I ken that Willie
+Robertson, my ain Willie, had a wife? Oh, Willie!' she cried,
+covering her face in her hands to hide all the agony that was in
+her heart. 'I ha' come a lang way, an' a weary to see ye, an' ye
+might ha' spared me the grief--the burning shame o' this. Farewell,
+Willie Robertson, I will never mair trouble ye nor her wi' my
+presence, but this cruel deed of yours has broken my heart!'
+
+"She went away weeping, and he had not the courage to detain her,
+or say one word to comfort her, or account for his strange conduct;
+yet, if I know him right, that must ha' been the most sorrowfu'
+moment in his life.
+
+"Jeanie was a distant connexion of my uncle's, and she found us out
+that night, on her return to the village, and told us all her
+grief. My aunt, who was a kind good woman, was indignant at the
+treatment she had recieved; and loved and cherished her as if she
+had been her own child.
+
+"For two whole weeks she kept her bed, and was so ill that the
+doctor despaired of her life; and when she did come again among us,
+the colour had faded from her cheeks, and the light from her sweet
+blue eyes, and she spoke in a low subdued voice, but she never
+spoke of _him_ as the cause of her grief.
+
+"One day she called me aside and said--
+
+"'Jamie, you know how I lo'ed an' trusted _him,_ an' obeyed his ain
+wishes in comin' out to this strange country to be his wife. But
+'tis all over now,' and she pressed her sma' hands tightly over her
+breast to keep doon the swelling o' her heart. 'Jamie, I know now
+that it is a' for the best; I lo'ed him too weel--mair than ony
+creature sud lo'e a perishing thing o' earth. But I thought that he
+wud be sae glad an' sae proud to see his ain Jeanie sae sune. But,
+oh!--ah, weel!--I maun na think o' that; what I wud jist say is
+this,' an' she took a sma' packet fra' her breast, while the tears
+streamed down her pale cheeks. 'He sent me forty dollars to bring
+me ower the sea to him--God bless him for that, I ken he worked
+hard to earn it, for he lo'ed me then--I was na' idle during his
+absence. I had saved enough to bury my dear auld grandfather, and
+to pay my ain expenses out, and I thought, like the gude servant
+in the parable, I wud return Willie his ain with interest; an' I
+hoped to see him smile at my diligence, an' ca' me his bonnie gude
+lassie. Jamie, I canna' keep this siller, it lies like a weight o'
+lead on my heart. Tak' it back to him, an' tell him fra' me, that
+I forgi'e him a' his cruel deceit, an' pray to God to grant him
+prosperity, and restore to him that peace o' mind o' which he has
+robbed me for ever.'
+
+"I did as she bade me. Willie looked stupified when I delivered her
+message. The only remark he made, when I gave him back the money,
+was, 'I maun be gratefu', man, that she did na' curse me.' The wife
+came in, and he hid away the packet and slunk off. The man looked
+degraded in his own eyes, and so wretched, that I pitied him from
+my very heart.
+
+"When I came home, Jeanie met me at my uncle's gate. 'Tell me,' she
+said in a low anxious voice, 'tell me, cousin Jamie, what passed
+atween ye. Had he nae word for me?'
+
+"'Naething, Jeanie, the man is lost to himsel', to a' who ance
+wished him weel. He is not worth a decent body's thought.'
+
+"She sighed deeply, for I saw that her heart craved after some word
+fra' him, but she said nae mair, but pale an' sorrowfu', the very
+ghaist o' her former sel', went back into the house.
+
+"From that hour she never breathed his name to ony of us; but we all
+ken'd that it was her love for him that was preying upon her life.
+The grief that has nae voice, like the canker-worm, always lies
+ne'est to the heart. Puir Jeanie! she held out during the simmer,
+but when the fall came, she just withered awa' like a flower, nipped
+by the early frost, and this day we laid her in the earth.
+
+"After the funeral was ower, and the mourners were all gone, I stood
+beside her grave, thinking ower the days of my boyhood, when she and
+I were happy weans, an' used to pu' the gowans together on the
+heathery hills o' dear auld Scotland. An' I tried in vain to
+understan' the mysterious providence o' God, who had stricken her,
+who seemed sae gude and pure, an' spared the like o' me, who was mair
+deservin' o' his wrath, when I heard a deep groan, an' I saw Willie
+Robertson standing near me beside the grave.
+
+"'Ye may as weel spare your grief noo,' said I, for I felt hard
+towards him, 'an' rejoice that the weary is at rest.'
+
+"'It was I murdered her,' said he, 'an' the thought will haunt me to
+my last day. Did she remember me on her death bed?'
+
+"'Her thoughts were only ken'd by Him who reads the secrets of a'
+hearts, Willie. Her end was peace, an' her Saviour's blessed name
+was the last sound upon her lips. But if ever woman died fra' a
+broken heart, there she lies.'
+
+"'Oh, Jeanie!' he cried, 'mine ain darling Jeanie! my blessed
+lammie! I was na' worthy o' yer love--my heart, too, is breaking.
+To bring ye back aince mair, I wad lay me down an' dee.'
+
+"An' he flung himsel' upon the grave and embraced the fresh clods,
+and greeted like a child.
+
+"When he grew more calm, we had a long conversation about the past,
+and truly I believe that the man was not in his right senses when he
+married yon wife; at ony rate, he is not lang for this warld; he has
+fretted the flesh aff his banes, an' before many months are ower,
+his heid will lie as low as puir Jeanie Burns's."
+
+While I was pondering this sad story in my mind, Mrs. H--- came in.
+
+"You have heard the news, Mrs. M---?"
+
+I looked inquiringly.
+
+"One of Clark's little boys that were lost last Wednesday in the
+woods has been found."
+
+"This is the first I have heard about it. How were they lost?"
+
+"Oh, 'tis a thing of very common occurrence here. New settlers, who
+are ignorant of the danger of going astray in the forest, are always
+having their children lost. This is not the first instance by many
+that I have known, having myself lived for many years in the bush.
+I only wonder that it does not more frequently happen.
+
+"These little fellows are the sons of a poor man who came out this
+summer, and who has taken up some wild land about a mile back of us,
+towards the plains. Clark is busy logging up a small fallow for fall
+wheat, on which his family must depend for bread during the ensuing
+year; and he is so anxious to get it ready in time, that he will not
+allow himself an hour at noon to go home to his dinner, which his
+wife generally sends in a basket to the woods by his eldest
+daughter.
+
+"Last Wednesday the girl had been sent on an errand by her mother,
+who thought, in her absence, that she might venture to trust the two
+boys to take the dinner to their father. The boys were from seven
+to five years old, and very smart and knowing for their age. They
+promised to mind all her directions, and went off quite proud of
+the task, carrying the basket between them.
+
+"How they came to ramble away into the woods, the younger child
+is too much stupified to tell; and perhaps he is too young to
+remember. At night the father returned, and scolded the wife for
+not sending his dinner as usual; but the poor woman (who all day
+had quieted her fears with the belief that the children had stayed
+with their father), instead of paying any regard to his angry
+words, demanded, in a tone of agony, what had become of her
+children?
+
+"Tired and hungry as Clark was, in a moment he comprehended their
+danger, and started off in pursuit of the boys. The shrieks of the
+distracted woman soon called the neighbours together, who instantly
+joined in the search.
+
+"It was not until this afternoon that any trace could be obtained
+of the lost children, when Brian, the hunter, found the youngest
+boy, Johnnie, lying fast asleep upon the trunk of a fallen tree,
+fifteen miles back in the bush."
+
+"And the other boy?"
+
+"Will never, I fear, be heard of again," said she. "They have
+searched for him in all directions and have not discovered him. The
+story little Johnnie tells is to this effect. During the first two
+days of their absence, the food they had brought in the basket for
+their father's dinner, sustained life; but to-day it seems that the
+little Johnnie grew very hungry, and cried continually for bread.
+William, the elder boy, he says, promised him bread if he would try
+and walk further; but his feet were bleeding and sore, and he could
+not stir another step. William told him to sit down upon the log on
+which he was found, and not stir from the place until he came back,
+and he would run on until he found a house and brought him
+something to eat. He then wiped his eyes, and bade him not to be
+frightened or to cry, and kissed him and went away.
+
+"This is all the little fellow knows about his brother; and it is
+very probable the generous-hearted boy has been eaten by the
+wolves. The Indians traced him for more than a mile along the banks
+of a stream, when they lost his trail altogether. If he had fallen
+into the water, they would have discovered his body, but they say
+that he has been dragged into some hole in the bank among the
+tangled cedars and devoured.
+
+"Since I have been in the country," continued Mrs. H---, "I have
+known many cases of children, and even of grown persons, being lost
+in the woods, who were never heard of again. It is a frightful
+calamity to happen to any one, and mothers cannot be too careful
+in guarding their children against rambling alone into the bush.
+Persons, when once they lose sight of the beaten track, get
+frightened and bewildered and lose all presence of mind; and
+instead of remaining where they are, which is their only chance
+of being discovered, they plunge desperately on, running hither
+and thither, in the hope of getting out, while they only involve
+themselves more deeply among the mazes of the interminable forest.
+
+"Two winters ago, the daughter of a settler in the remote township
+of Dummer, where my husband took up his grant of wild land, went
+with her father to the mill, which was four miles from their log
+shanty and the road lay entirely through the bush. For a while the
+girl, who was about twelve years of age, kept up with her father,
+who walked briskly ahead with his bag of corn on his back, for, as
+their path lay through a tangled swamp, he was anxious to get home
+before night. After a time Sarah grew tired, and lagged a long way
+behind. The man felt not the least apprehensive when he lost sight
+of her, expecting that she would soon come up with him again.
+Once or twice he stopped and shouted, and she answered, 'Coming,
+father;' and he did not turn to look after her again. He reached the
+mill--saw the grist ground, resumed his burthen and took the road
+home, expecting to meet Sarah by the way. He trod the path alone,
+but still thought that the girl, tired of the long walk, had turned
+back, and that he should find her safe at home.
+
+"You may imagine, Mrs. M---, his consternation and that of the
+family, when they found that the girl was lost.
+
+"It was now dark, and all search for her was given up for the night
+as hopeless. By day-break the next morning, the whole settlement,
+which was then confined to a few lonely log tenements inhabited
+by Cornish miners, were roused from their sleep to assist in the
+search.
+
+"The men turned out with guns and arms, and parties started in
+different directions. Those who first discovered the girl were to
+fire their guns, which was to be the signal to guide the rest to
+the spot. It was not long before they found the object of their
+search seated under a tree, about half a mile from the path she had
+lost on the preceding day.
+
+"She had been tempted by the beauty of some wild berries to leave
+the road, and when once in the bush she grew bewildered and could
+not find her way back. At first she ran to and fro in an agony of
+terror at finding herself in the woods all alone, and uttered loud
+and frantic cries, but her father had by this time reached the mill
+and was out of hearing.
+
+"With a sagacity beyond her years and not very common to her class,
+instead of wandering further into the labyrinth which surrounded
+her, she sat down under a large tree, covered her face with her
+apron, said the Lord's Prayer--the only one she knew--and hoped that
+God would send her father back to find her the moment he discovered
+that she was lost.
+
+"When night came down upon the dark forest (and oh how dark night is
+in the woods!), the poor girl said, that she felt horribly afraid of
+being eaten by the wolves which abound in those dreary swamps. But
+she did not cry, for fear they should hear her. Simple girl! she did
+not know that the scent of a wolf is far keener that his ear, but
+that was her notion, and she lay down close to the ground and never
+once raised her head, for fear of seeing something dreadful standing
+beside her, until overcome by terror and fatigue she fell fast
+asleep, and did not awake until roused by the shrill braying of the
+horns and the shouts of the party who were seeking her."
+
+"What a dreadful situation! I am sure that I should not have had the
+courage of this poor girl, but should have died with fear."
+
+"We don't know how much we can bear, Mrs. M---, until we are tried.
+This girl was more fortunate than a boy of the same age, who was
+lost in the same township, just as the winter set in. The lad was
+sent by his father, an English settler, in company with two boys of
+his own age, to be measured for a pair of shoes. George Desne, who
+followed the double employment of farmer and shoemaker, lived about
+three miles from the clearing known by the name of the English
+line. After the lads left the clearing, their road lay entirely
+through the bush. But it was a path they had often travelled both
+alone and with their parents, and they felt no fear.
+
+"There had been a slight fall of snow, just enough to cover the
+ground, and the day was clear and frosty. The boys in this country
+always hail with delight the first fall of snow, and they ran races
+and slid over all the shallow pools until they reached George
+Desne's cabin.
+
+"He measured young Brown for a strong pair of winter boots, and the
+boys went on their homeward way, shouting and laughing in the glee
+of their hearts.
+
+"About halfway they suddenly missed their companion, and ran back
+nearly a mile to find him. Not succeeding in this, they
+thought that he had hidden behind some of the trees, and pretended
+to be lost, in order to frighten them, and after shouting at the top
+of their voices, and receiving no answer, they determined to go
+home without him. They knew that he was well acquainted with the
+road, and that it was still broad day, and that he could easily
+find his way home alone. When his father inquired for George, they
+said that he was coming, and went to their respective homes.
+
+"Night came, and the lad did not return, and his parents began to
+be alarmed at his absence. Mr. Brown went over to the neighbouring
+cabins, and made the lads tell him all they knew about his son.
+They described the place where they first missed him; but they
+concluded that he had either run home before them, or gone back to
+spend the night with the young Desnes, who had been very urgent
+for him to stay. This account pacified the anxious father. Early
+the next morning he went to Desne's himself to bring home the boy,
+but the lad had not been there.
+
+"His mysterious disappearance gave rise to a thousand strange
+surmises. The whole settlement turned out in search of the boy.
+His steps were traced from the road a few yards into the bush, and
+entirely disappeared at the foot of a large tree. The moss was
+rubbed from the trunk of the tree, but the tree was lofty, and the
+branches so far from the ground, that it was almost impossible for
+any boy, unassisted, to have raised himself to such a height. There
+was no track of any animal all around in the unbroken snow, no
+shred of garment or stain of blood,--that boy's fate will ever
+remain a great mystery, for he was never found."
+
+"He must have been carried up that tree by a bear, and dragged down
+into the hollow trunk," said I.
+
+"If that had been the case, there would have been the print of the
+bear's feet in the snow. It does not, however, follow that the boy
+is dead, though it is more than probable. I knew of a case where
+two boys and a girl were sent into the woods by their mother to
+fetch home the cows. The children were lost; the parents mourned
+them for dead, for all search for them proved fruitless, and after
+seven years the eldest son returned. They had been overtaken
+and carried off by a party of Indians, who belonged to a tribe
+inhabiting the islands in Lake Huron, several hundred miles away
+from their forest-home. The girl, as she grew into woman, married
+one of the tribe; the boys followed the occupation of hunters and
+fishers, and from their dress and appearance might have passed for
+the red sons of the forest. The eldest boy, however, never forgot
+the name of his parent, and the manner in which he had been lost,
+and took the first opportunity of making his escape, and travelling
+back to the home of his childhood.
+
+"When he made himself known to his mother, who was a widow, but
+still resided upon the same spot, he was so dark and Indian-like,
+that she could not believe that he was her son, until he brought to
+her mind a little incident, that, forgotten by her, had never left
+his memory.
+
+"Mother, don't you remember saying to me on that afternoon, 'Ned,
+you need not look for the cows in the swamp, they went off towards
+the big hill.'
+
+"The delighted mother clapsed him in her arms, exclaiming, 'You say
+truly,--you are indeed my own, my long lost son!'"
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Roughing it in the Bush, by Susanna Moodie
+
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