There was, in all the poor woman's manner, an unobtrusiveness and reserve uncommon in a person of her humble degree, and it interested Mrs. Sackville more than any solicitation could have done. She ascertained that Mrs. Barton was on her way to Quebec, where she hoped to find her husband.
“And have you the means of getting there?” asked Mrs. Sackville. “It is a great distance, my friend, and you cannot get across Ontario and down the St. Lawrence for a trifle.”
“I know that, madam; but I have some money; and if I find my own country people as kind to me as the people in the States have been, I shall do very well. Every body feels pitiful to a lone woman with little children. If it please God to mend my little girl, I shall go on with good courage.”
Mrs. Sackville commended the poor woman's resolution, and busied herself putting up some medicines for the child, and giving directions about them, and was so occupied with her benevolent duty, that she gave little heed to Edward's continued exclamations. “Oh, mother! how beautiful the colour of the water of the Niagara is!” “Mother, does not it give you sublime feelings to think you are on the Niagara?” “Mother, does not Lake Erie look grand from here?” &c. &c. &c. Suddenly his attention was diverted, and he was attracted to the extremity of the boat, where Tristy, the little “Flibbertigibbet” we have before mentioned, was exhibiting various feats for the amusement of the passengers. He was a little, pale, wizened-face fellow, with a bleared and blood-shot eye, his hair black, strait, and matted to his head, his mouth defiled with tobacco, and in short his whole appearance indicating the depravity of one experienced in vice. He dislocated the joints of his fingers, stood firmly on his head, and performed some of the difficult exploits of a tumbler; and when he had done all this, “Come, gentlemen,” said he, “shall I sing you a song, or pray you a prayer? I'll suit your fancy with either for a sixpence.”
“No, no; none of your prayers, you little son of the old one,” said one of the men; “we shall have your master with the cloven foot after us before we get to the shore: you may sing us a song, though, only let it be a decent one.”
“Oh, well gentlemen, suit yourselves—I am a Jack at all trades, you know—that is to say, at any of the trades my father, that is dead and gone, followed before me.”
“Trades! your father followed no trade, but the trade of the light-fingered gentry.”
“I beg your pardon, sir; my dad was a noted man in his day:—a carpenter, joiner, tooth-drawer, barber, gardener, studying-master, dancing-master, whipping-master, fiddling-master, school-master, music-master, play-actor, &c. &c.—all of which I am yours gentlemen to command. Now for the song:—there is Erie, and my song is Perry's glorious victory.” He then half sung, half recited, a ballad recounting Perry's gallant exploits on the lake.
It was impossible for a compassionate being to see the little outcast without an emotion of pity; or not to be affected by the weak and almost infantine tones of his voice.
“How old are you, child?” asked Mr. Sackville, as the boy concluded his song, and opened his mouth to catch the sixpence that was tossed to him.