Yes! ere the rising of to-morrow's sun,
The bitter grief that brought him to this pass
Will be forgotten in the sleep of death."
S.M.
We left Kingston at three o'clock, P.M., in the "Passport," for Toronto. From her commander, Captain Towhy, a fine British heart of oak, we received the kindest attention; his intelligent conversation, and interesting descriptions of the many lands he had visited during a long acquaintance with the sea, greatly lightening the tedium of the voyage.
When once fairly afloat on the broad blue inland sea of Ontario, you soon lose sight of the shores, and could imagine yourself sailing on a calm day on the wide ocean. There is something, however, wanting to complete the deception,--the invigorating freshness--the peculiar smell of the salt water, that is so exhilarating, and which produces a sensation of freedom and power that is never experienced on these fresh-water lakes. They want the depth, the fulness, the grandeur of the ocean, though the wide expanse of water and sky are, in all other respects, the same.
The boat seldom touches at any place before she reaches Cobourg, which is generally at night. We stopped a short time at the wharf to put passengers and freight on shore, and to receive fresh passengers and freight in return. The sight of this town, which I had not seen for many years, recalled forcibly to my mind a melancholy scene in which I chanced to be an actor. I will relate it here.
When we first arrived in Canada, in 1832, we remained for three weeks at an hotel in this town, though, at that period, it was a place of much less importance than it is at present, deserving little more than the name of a pretty rising village, pleasantly situated on the shores of Lake Ontario. The rapid improvement of the country has converted Cobourg into a thriving, populous town, and it has trebled its population during the lapse of twenty years. A residence in a house of public entertainment, to those who have been accustomed to the quiet and retirement of a country life, is always unpleasant, and to strangers as we were, in a foreign land, it was doubly repugnant to our feelings. In spite of all my wise resolutions not to give way to despondency, but to battle bravely against the change in my circumstances, I found myself daily yielding up my whole heart and soul to that worst of all maladies, home-sickness.
It was during these hours of loneliness and dejection, while my husband was absent examining farms in the neighbourhoods that I had the good fortune to form an quaintance with Mrs. C---, a Canadian lady, who boarded with her husband in the same hotel. My new friend was a young woman agreeable in person, and perfectly unaffected in her manners, which were remarkably frank and kind. Hers was the first friendly face I had seen in the colony, and it will ever be remembered by me with affection and respect.
One afternoon while alone in my chamber, getting my baby, a little girl of six months old, to sleep, and thinking many sad thoughts, and shedding some bitter tears for the loss of the dear country and friends I had left for ever, a slight tap at the door roused me from my painful reveries, and Mrs. C--- entered the room. Like most of the Canadian women, my friend was small of stature, slight and delicately formed, and dressed with the smartness and neatness so characteristic of the females of this continent, who, if they lack some of the accomplishments of English women, far surpass them in their taste in dress, their choice of colours, and the graceful and becoming manner in which they wear their clothes. If my young friend had a weakness, it was on this point; but as her husband was engaged in a lucrative mercantile business, and they had no family, it was certainly excusable. At this moment her pretty neat little figure was a welcome and interesting object to the home-sick emigrant.