LETTER II.
My last letter left us starting from Quebec in the seven p.m. train for Montreal. Our party consisting of four people, we had a compartment to ourselves, but were some time in settling comfortably, as our old dog “Nero” had to be smuggled in and kept quiet under your sister’s waterproof-cloak, for fear the vigilant guard should consign him to the luggage-car, where he would infallibly have barked himself to death.
I noticed very little in the neighbourhood of Quebec, being too much occupied with my own sad thoughts, and regrets for those I had left behind; but I did observe that the cows, horses, and pigs all appeared very small and manifestly inferior to the cattle in England.
During this journey I could not help contrasting the mode of travelling in Canada with the same in the “old country,” and giving a decided preference to the former. It would be almost impossible for either murder, robbery, or any kind of outrage to be perpetrated where the compartments are all open, and the supervision of the guard walking up and down incessant. It is also a great alleviation to the fatigue of travelling to have the refreshment of iced water to drink, and the option of washing faces and hands. Towards night we were beguiled into “Pullman’s” sleeping-cars, little imagining how greatly it would add to the expense of the journey. Sleep, however, I found to be impossible in these close boxes, tier above tier, and towards midnight, half smothered, I made my way to the carriage we had occupied before retiring.
About this time the train came to a sudden stop, and at last I asked the guard why we were so long stationary. He told me that a train which ought to have been in before us was missing, that men had gone out with lanterns to look for it, and that for fear of being run into we must wait till it came up. A most dreary four hours we passed before we were released. We were at a small station in a barren spot of country, where nothing was to be seen in the dim light but a few miserable-looking wooden houses scattered about. It was a cheerless prospect, and we were thankful when at length we went on.
We passed the morning more agreeably, as the guard, a quiet, intelligent man, entered into conversation with us. He was telling us of a curious and erudite book about to be published at Boston, Massachusetts, compiled by one of his relations, from numerous records and papers treasured in the family, and handed down from one generation to another, beginning with the first landing of the “Pilgrim Fathers.”
His ancestor, with his family, came out in the Mayflower, and from that time to the present they had had an unbroken succession of godly ministers, who in the early times of their settlement were called, in the old Puritan phraseology, “sons of thunder.” In the spring of 1871, he had attended the annual family gathering at Boston, to which the remotest connections, if possible, came. I regret much that I did not take down his name.