Quitting, for a while, the sad catalogue of her woes, Mrs Moodie launches forth into an episode which fills one of the most characteristic chapters of her work. In the midst of these hard times, an Englishman—with whom Captain Moodie had once travelled in the mail to Toronto, and whom he had invited to call on him, should he come into his part of the country—dropped in upon them one evening, proposing to remain for the night. He was their inmate for nine months. Mrs Moodie disliked him, from the very first day, for he was a surly, discontented, reckless scamp, but somehow there was no getting rid of him. He grumbled over his first meal of salt pork, dandelion coffee, and heavy bread; and he grumbled almost daily, until the happy morning when he left them for good and all. Malcolm (as Mrs Moodie chooses to call him) told his host that he was in hiding from the sheriff's officers, and should esteem it a great favour to be allowed to remain a few weeks at his house. The captain was far too good-natured and hospitable to refuse his request. "To tell you the truth, Malcolm," said he, "we are so badly off that we can scarcely find food for ourselves and the children. It is out of our power to make you comfortable, or to keep an additional hand, without he is willing to render some little help on the farm. If you can do this, I will endeavour to get a few necessaries on credit, to make your stay more agreeable." The proposition suited Malcolm to a hair. By working for his keep, he got rid of the obligation, and acquired a right to grumble. As to the work he did, it was really not worth speaking of. Mrs Moodie had a sort of rude bedstead made for him out of two large chests, and put up in a corner of the parlour. Upon that he lay, during the first fortnight of his stay, reading, smoking, and drinking whisky and water from morning till night. There was a mystery about the fellow which he did not care fully to clear up, but portions of his history oozed out.
"He was the son of an officer in the navy, who had not only attained a very high rank in the service, but, for his gallant conduct, had been made a Knight-Companion of the Bath. He had himself served his time as a midshipman on board his father's flag-ship, but had left the navy, and accepted a commission in the Buenos-Ayrean Service during the political struggles in that province. He had commanded a sort of privateer under the government, to whom, by his own account, he had rendered many very signal services. Why he left South America, and came to Canada, he kept a profound secret. He had indulged in very vicious and dissipated courses since he came to the province, and by his own account had spent upwards of four thousand pounds in a manner not over-creditable to him.... He was now considerably in debt. Money he had none; and, beyond the dirty fearnought blue seaman's jacket which he wore, a pair of trousers of the coarse cloth of the country, an old black vest that had seen better days, and two blue-checked shirts, clothes he had none. He shaved but once a week, never combed his hair, and never washed himself. A dirtier or more slovenly creature never before was dignified by the title of a gentleman. He was, however, a man of good education, of excellent abilities, and possessed a bitter sarcastic knowledge of the world; but he was selfish and unprincipled in the highest degree."
This piratical sea-bear quarrelled with Mrs Moodie's servants, disgusted and offended her by his ungentlemanly habit of swearing, and behaved altogether so outrageously that any one less forbearing and good-tempered than Captain Moodie would have turned him out of the house before he had been a month in it. But the captain, who lacked not spirit on occasion, had Highland notions of hospitality; and, moreover, he pitied the unhappy scapegrace—whose vile temper was his own greatest curse—and bore with his infirmities. Malcolm got the ague, and poor Mrs Moodie nursed him.
"During the cold fit, he did nothing but swear at the cold, and wished himself roasting; and, during the fever, he swore at the heat, and wished that he was sitting in no other garment than his shirt on the north side of an iceberg."
The only trait that somewhat reconciled Mrs Moodie to her rude guest was his affection for one of her children, a merry golden-haired little boy. When left alone with her in the house, he almost frightened her by his strange, sullen stare, and told her stories about wild deeds of bloodshed committed in his privateering days, and was very anxious to read her a manuscript work on South America, for which Murray, he said, had offered him a sum of money, but to which she preferred not listening. At last he got so indolent and insolent that Captain Moodie was roused to anger, sharply reproved him, and ordered him to be gone. But it was not a trifle in the way of rebuke that would drive Malcolm from free bed and board. He walked away for a few hours, and then returned and joined the family party, as if nothing had happened. One day, however, a nickname applied to him by Mrs Moodie's eldest girl put him in a furious passion, and he took himself off for ever, as his entertainers hoped. They were mistaken.
"Two months after, we were taking tea with a neighbour, who lived a mile below us on the small lake. Who should walk in but Mr Malcolm? He greeted us with great warmth, for him; and when we rose to take leave, he rose and walked home by our side. 'Surely the little stumpy man (the name Katie had given him) is not returning to his old quarters?' I am still a babe in the affairs of men. Human nature has more strange varieties than any one menagerie can contain, and Malcolm was one of the oddest of her odd species. That night he slept in his old bed below the parlour window, and for three months afterwards he stuck to us like a beaver."
The manner of this strange being's final departure was as eccentric as that of his first coming. On Christmas eve he started after breakfast to walk into Peterborough to fetch raisins for next day's pudding. He never came back, but left Peterborough the same day with a stranger in a waggon. It was afterwards said that he had gone to Texas, and been killed at San Antonio de Bexar. Whatever became of him, he never again was seen in that part of Canada. Mrs Moodie's account of his residence in her house is full of character, and admirable for its quietness and truth to nature. "Firing the Fallow," and "Our Logging Bee," are also, apart from their connection with the emigrant's fortunes, striking and interesting sketches of Canadian forest life. We are unable to dwell upon or extract from them, and must hasten to conclude our notice of this really fascinating book.
Rebellion broke out in Canada. Captain Moodie, although suffering from a severe accident he had met with whilst ploughing, felt his loyalty and soldiership irresistibly appealed to by the Queen's proclamation, calling upon all loyal gentlemen to join in suppressing the insurrection. Toronto was threatened by the insurgents, and armed bands were gathering on all sides for its relief. So Captain Moodie marched to the front. Regiments of militia were formed, and in one of them he received command of a company. He left in January, and Mrs Moodie remained alone with her children and Jenny—a faithful old Irish servant—to take care of the house. It was a dull and cheerless time. And yet her husband's appointment was a great boon and relief. His full pay as captain enabled him to remit money home, and to liquidate debts. His wife, on her side, was not inactive.
"Just at this period," she says, "I received a letter from a gentleman, requesting me to write for a magazine (the Literary Garland) just started in Montreal, with promise to remunerate me for my labours. Such an application was like a gleam of light springing up in the darkness."
When the day's toils—which were not trifling—were over, she robbed herself of sleep—which she greatly needed—to labour with her pen; writing by the light of what Irish Jenny called "sluts"—twisted rags, dipped in lard, and stuck in a bottle. Jenny viewed these literary pursuits with huge discontent.