“‘Have you dared, sir?’—roared he, frothing with passion and clenching his fist towards me—but a perfect cheer of laughter overpowered his words. Many rolled off their seats and lay panting and puffing on the ground; some, turned away half-suffocated with their struggles, while a few, more timid than the rest, endeavoured to conceal their feelings, and seemed half-alarmed at the consequences of my impertinence. When the mirth had a little subsided, it was remarked, that Hubbart was gone—no one had seen how or when—but he was no longer among us.
“‘Come, gentlemen, said I, ‘the new bowl is ready for you, and your toast is not yet drunk. All going so early? Why, it’s not eleven yet.’
“But so it was—the impulse of merriment over—the esprit du corps came back in all its force, and the man, whose feelings they had not scrupled to outrage and insult, they turned on, the very moment he had the courage to assert his honour. One by one passed out—some, with a cool nod—others, a mere look—many, never even noticed me at all; and one, the last, I believe, dropping a little behind, whispered as he went, ‘Sorry for you, faith, but all your own doing, though.’
“‘My own doing,’ said I in bitterness, as I sat me down at the door of the wigwam. ‘My own doing!’ and the words ate into my very heart’s core. Heaven knows, had any one of them who left me, but turned his head, and looked at me then, as I sat—my head buried in my hands, my frame trembling with strong passion—-he had formed a most false estimate of my feelings. In all likelihood, he would have regarded me as a man sorrowing over a lost position in society—grieved at the mistaken vanity that made him presume upon those who associated with him by grace especial, and never, on terms of equality. Nothing in the world was then farther from my heart: no, my humiliation had another source—my sorrowing penetrated into a deeper soil. I awoke to the conviction that my position was such, that even the temporary countenance they gave me by their society, was to be deemed my greatest honour, as its withdrawal should be my deepest disgrace—that these poor heartless brainless fools for whom I taxed my time, my intellect, and my means, were in the light of patrons to me. Let any man who has felt what it is to live among those on whose capacity he has looked down, while he has been obliged to pay homage to their rank—whose society he has frequented, not for pleasure nor enjoyment—not for the charm of social intercourse, or the interchange of friendly feeling, but for the mere vulgar object that he might seem to others to be in a position to which he had no claim—to be intimate, when he was only endured—to be on terms of ease, when he was barely admitted; let him sympathise with me. Now, I awoke to the full knowledge of my state, and saw myself at last in a true light. ‘My own doing!’ repeated I to myself. Would it had been so many a day since, ere I lost self-respect—ere I had felt the humiliation I now feel.”
“‘You are under arrest, sir,’ said the sergeant, as with a party of soldiers he stood prepared to accompany me to the quarters. “‘Under arrest! By whose orders?’
“‘The colonel’s orders,’ said the man briefly, and in a voice that showed I was to expect little compassion from one of a class who had long regarded me as an upstart, giving himself airs unbecoming his condition.
“My imprisonment, of which I dared not ask the reason, gave me time to meditate on my fortunes, and think over the vicisicitudes of my life,—to reflect on the errors which had rendered abortive every chance of success in whatever career I adopted; but, more than all, to consider how poor were all my hopes of happiness in the road I had chosen, while I dedicated to the amusement of others, the qualities which, if cultivated for myself, might be made sources of contentment and pleasure. If I seem prolix in all this—if I dwell on these memories, it is, first, because few men may not reap a lesson from considering them; and again, because on them hinged my whole future life.
“There, do you see that little drawing yonder? it is a sketch, a mere sketch I made from recollection, of the room I was confined in. That’s the St. Lawrence flowing beneath the window, and there, far in the distance, you see the tall cedars of the opposite bank. On that little table I laid my head the whole night long; I slept too, and soundly, and when I awoke the next day I was a changed man.
“‘You are relieved from arrest,’ said the same sergeant who conducted me to prison, ‘and the colonel desires to see you on parade.’
“As I entered the square, the regiment was formed in line, and the officers, as usual, stood in a group chatting together in the centre. A half smile, quickly subdued as I came near, ran along the party.