“‘Ain’t I,’ said I, ‘are you sure?’
“‘Why look here,’ said she, throwin’ down the clothes and pullin’ my coat over my head till she nearly strangled me.
“‘Well, I shouldn’t wonder if I hadn’t stripped,’ sais I. ‘When a feller is so peskilly sleepy as I be, I suppose he is glad to turn in any way.’
“She never spoke another word, but I saw a storm was brewin, and I heard her mutter to herself, ‘Creation! what a spot of work! I’ll have no teaching of ‘mother tongue’ here.’ Next morning she sent me to Boston of an errand, and when I returned, two days after, Flora was gone to live with sister Sally. I have never forgiven myself for that folly; but really it all came of our being so artless and so innocent. There was no craft in either of us. She forgot to remove the chair from the chimbley corner, poor simple-minded thing, and I forgot to keep my coat sleeve covered. Yes, yes, it all came of our being too innocent; but that’s the way, ladies, I learned Gaelic.”
[CHAPTER VI.]
THE WOUNDS OF THE HEART.
When I took leave of the family I returned to the room where I had left Peter and the doctor, but they had both retired. And as my chamber adjoined it, I sat by the fire, lighted a cigar, and fell into one of my rambling meditations.
Here, said I to myself, is another phase of life. Peter is at once a Highlander, a Canadian, a trapper, a backwoodsman, and a coaster. His daughters are half Scotch and half Indian, and have many of the peculiarities of both races. There is even between these sisters a wide difference in intellect, appearance, and innate refinement. The doctor has apparently abandoned his profession for the study of nature, and quit the busy haunts of men for the solitude of the forest. He seems to think and act differently from any one else in the country. Here too we have had Cutler, who is a scholar and a skilful navigator, filling the berth of a master of a fishing craft. He began life with nothing but good principles and good spirits, and is now about entering on a career, which in a few years will lead to a great fortune. He is as much out of place where he is, as a salmon would be in a horse pond. And here am I, Squire, your humble servant, Sam Slick the Clockmaker, not an eccentric man, I hope, for I detest them, they are either mad, or wish to be thought so, because madness they suppose to be an evidence of genius; but a specimen of a class not uncommon in the States, though no other country in the world but Yankeedoodledum produces it.
This is a combination these colonies often exhibit, and what a fool a man must be when character is written in such large print, if he can’t read it even as he travels on horseback.
Of all the party assembled here to-night, the Scotch lasses alone, who came in during the evening, are what you call everyday galls. They are strong, hearty, intelligent, and good-natured, full of fun and industry, can milk, churn, make butter and cheese, card, spin, and weave, and will make capital wives for farmers of their own station in life. As such, they are favourable representatives of their class, and to my mind, far, far above those that look down upon them, who ape, but can’t copy, and have the folly, because they sail in the wake of larger craft, to suppose they can be mistaken for anything else than tenders. Putting three masts into a coaster may make her an object of ridicule, but can never give her the appearance of a ship. They know this in England, they have got to learn it yet in the Provinces.
Well, this miscellaneous collection of people affords a wide field for speculation. Jessie is a remarkable woman, I must ask the doctor about her history. I see there is a depth of feeling about her, a simplicity of character, a singular sensitiveness, and a shade of melancholy. Is it constitutional, or does it arise from her peculiar position? I wonder how she reasons, and what she thinks, and how she would talk, if she would say what she thinks. Has she ability to build up a theory of her own, or does she, like half the women in the world, only think of a thing as it occurs? Does she live in instances or in generalities, I’ll draw her out and see. Every order, where there are orders, and every class (and no place is without them where women are), have a way of judging in common with their order or class. What is her station I wonder in her own opinion? What are her expectations? What are her notions of wedlock? All girls regard marriage as an enviable lot, or a necessary evil. If they tell us they don’t, it’s because the right man hante come. And therefore I never mind what they say on this subject. I have no doubt they mean it; but they don’t know what they are a talking about.