Flora felt that with him she could be happy anywhere; that paradise would be a prison, if his presence did not enliven and give interest to the scene.
Few of the emigrants had found their way to the deck at that early hour; and for some time Flora enjoyed a charming tête-à-tête with her husband. Gradually the deck grew more populous; and men were seen lounging against the bulwarks, smoking their pipes, or performing their ablutions, a wooden tub and canvass bucket serving them for hand-basin and water-jug.
Tom afterwards commenced the great business of cooking the morning meal; and Hannibal, the black lord of the caboose, was beset by a host of scolding, jabbering women, all fighting and quarrelling for the first chance at the stove. He took their abuse very coolly, settling the dispute by making the auld wives draw lots for precedence. They consented to this arrangement with a very bad grace. Not more than four kettles could occupy the fire at one time, and though some clubbed, and made their mess of porridge together in one large pot, the rest grumbled and squabbled during the whole operation, elbowing and crowding for more room, and trying to push each other's coffee and teapots into the fire. And then all in a breath, at the very top of their shrill voices, appealed to Hannibal to act as umpire among them, and establish their claims to the best side of the fire. His answer was brief and to the point—
"Dere be dis fire. You hab him so long. Him wait for no one. Your time up. You take off pot, or I pitch pot into sea. Others must eat as well as you; so keep your breath to cool your porridge; and if that no suit you, fight it out—fight it out!"
Here he flourished over their heads his iron ladle, full of some scalding liquor, which silenced the combatants for one while, until a new set of applicants emerging from the gangway, made them rush more vigorously than ever to the charge.
As Flora continued pacing the deck, and watching the noisy group round the cooking-stove, she felt no small degree of curiosity respecting them. They were her fellow-voyagers to that unknown land to which all their hopes and fears instinctively turned; and she could scarcely regard with indifference those whom Providence had thrown together in pursuit of the same object. She wanted to know something about them from their own lips—what their past lives had been, what were their future prospects, and the causes that had led them to emigrate to Canada.
Perhaps something of the same feeling is experienced by most persons suddenly thrown together and confined for some weeks in such a narrow space as the interior of a small brig, for the Anne contained more passengers for her size and tonnage than many large three-masted vessels. During the long voyage her curiosity was amply gratified, and she learned something of the history and characters of most of these people. First, there was an old highland soldier, who had served during the greater part of the Peninsular war, and had seen a great deal of hard service, and received a number of hard knocks in the way of wounds and broken bones, of which (now the pain and danger was over) he was not a little proud, as they formed a never-ending theme of boasting and self-exaltation; and had honest Donald Macdonald charged his fellow-passengers a penny a peep at the scars on his legs, breast, and arms, he might have made enough to pay the expenses of his passage out. "His wounds," he said, "were all in the right place. He was too well bred to turn his back to an enemy."
Macdonald was one of the many unfortunate old pensioners, who had been induced to part with a certain provision for his old age, to try his fortunes in the backwoods of Canada. He knew as little of hard labour as any officer in his regiment, still less of agricultural pursuits; and perhaps could barely have told the difference between one sort of grain and another, having entered the army a mere boy, quite raw and inexperienced, from his native hills.
He had a wife, and five rude, brawny, coarse children—the three eldest girls from seven to fourteen years of age. "They were not of the right sort," he said; "but they were strong enough for boys, and would make fine mothers for dragoons to serve in case of war."
But as Canada is not at all a warlike country, these qualifications in his bouncing, red haired lassies, were no recommendation. The two spoilt boys were still in short coats, and could afford little help to their veteran father for many years to come.