'And you say that I would make an independence if I emigrated?' asked the latter, fidgeting nervously with a piece of paper.
'Any man would who has pluck and perseverance. You would have to work hard, though;' and his eyes fell on the white irresolute hands, dubious as to the requisite qualities being there indicated. 'You'd want a strong constitution if you're for the backwoods.'
'The freedom of a settler's life, surrounded by all the beauties of nature, would have great charms for me,' observed the other.
'Yes,' replied the American, rather drily; 'but I reckon you wouldn't see many beauties till you had a log shanty up, at all events. Now that young man'—he had caught Robert Wynn's eye on him again—'is the very build for emigration. Strong, active, healthy, wide awake: no offence, young gentleman, but such as you are badly wanted in Canada West.'
From this began a conversation which need not be minutely detailed. It was curious to see what a change was produced in Robert's sentiments towards the settler, by learning that he was a Canadian, and not a United States man: 'the national swagger' became little more than a dignified assertion of independence, quite suitable to a British subject; the accent he had disliked became an interesting local characteristic. Mr. Hiram Holt was the son of an English settler, who had fixed himself on the left bank of the Ottawa, amid what was then primeval forest, and was now a flourishing township, covered with prosperous farms and villages. Here had the sturdy Saxon struggled with, and finally conquered, adverse circumstances, leaving his eldest son possessed of a small freehold estate, and his other children portioned comfortably, so that much of the neighbourhood was peopled by his descendants. And this, Hiram's first visit to the mother country—for he was Canadian born—was on colonial business, being deputed from his section of the province, along with others, to give evidence, as a landed proprietor, before the Secretary of State, whose gate-lodge his father would have been proud to keep when he was a poor Suffolk labourer.
'Now there's an injustice,' quoth Mr. Holt, diverging into politics. 'England has forty-three colonies, and but one man to oversee them all—a man that's jerked in and out of office with every successive Ministry, and is almost necessarily more intent on party manœuvres than on the welfare of the young nations he rules. Our colony alone—the two Canadas—is bigger than Great Britain and Ireland three times over. Take in all along Vancouver's Island, and it's as big as Europe. There's a pretty considerable slice of the globe for one man to manage! But forty-two other colonies have to be managed as well; and I guess a nursery of forty-three children of all ages left to one care-taker would run pretty wild, I do.'
'Yet we never hear of mismanagement,' observed Robert, in an unlucky moment; for Mr. Hiram Holt retained all the Briton's prerogative of grumbling, and in five minutes had rehearsed a whole catalogue of colonial grievances very energetically.
'Then I suppose you'll be for joining the stars and stripes?' said the young man.
'Never!' exclaimed the settler. 'Never, while there's a rag of the union jack to run up. But it's getting late;' and as he rose to his feet with a tremendous yawn, Robert perceived his great length, hitherto concealed by the table on which he leaned. 'This life would kill me in six months. In my own place I'm about the farm at sunrise in summer. Never knew what it was to be sick, young man.' And so the party separated; Robert admiring the stalwart muscular frame of the Canadian as he strode before him up the stairs towards their sleeping-rooms. As he passed Mr. Holt's door, he caught a glimpse of bare floor, whence all the carpets had been rolled off into a corner, every vestige of curtain tucked away, and the window sashes open to their widest. Subsequently he learned that to such domestic softnesses as carpets and curtains the sturdy settler had invincible objections, regarding them as symptoms of effeminacy not suitable to his character, though admitting that for women they were well enough.
Robert was all night felling pines, building log-huts, and wandering amid interminable forests; and when his shaving water and boots awoke him at eight, he was a little surprised to find himself a denizen of a London hotel. Mr. Holt had gone out hours before. After a hasty breakfast Mr. Wynn ordered a cab, and proceeded to the residence of the hon. member for C—— county.