I remonstrated with him on the impropriety of bandying words with our servants. “You see,” I said, “the disrespect with which they treat you; and if they presume upon your familiarity, to speak to our guest in this contemptuous manner, they will soon extend the same conduct to us.”
“But, Mrs. Moodie, you should reprove them.”
“I cannot, sir, while you continue, by taking liberties with the girl, and swearing at the man, to provoke them to retaliation.”
“Swearing! What harm is there in swearing? A sailor cannot live without oaths.”
“But a gentleman might. Mr. Malcolm. I should be sorry to consider you in any other light.”
“Ah, you are such a prude—so methodistical—you make no allowance for circumstances! Surely, in the woods we may dispense with the hypocritical, conventional forms of society, and speak and act as we please.”
“So you seem to think; but you see the result.”
“I have never been used to the society of ladies, and cannot fashion my words to please them; and I won't, that's more!” he muttered to himself, as he strode off to Moodie in the field. I wished from my very heart that he was once more on the deck of his piratical South American craft.
One night he insisted on going out in the canoe to spear muskinongé with Moodie. The evening turned out very chill and foggy, and, before twelve, they returned, with only one fish, and half frozen with cold. Malcolm had got twinges of rheumatism, and he fussed, and sulked, and swore, and quarrelled with every body and every thing, until Moodie, who was highly amused by his petulance, advised him to go to his bed, and pray for the happy restoration of his temper.
“Temper!” he cried, “I don't believe there's a good-tempered person in the world. It's all hypocrisy! I never had a good temper! My mother was an ill-tempered woman, and ruled my father, who was a confoundedly severe, domineering man. I was born in an ill temper. I was an ill-tempered child; I grew up an ill-tempered man. I feel worse than ill tempered now, and when I die it will be in an ill temper.”