ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH

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INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION

Published by Richard Bentley in 1854

In most instances, emigration is a matter of necessity, not of choice; and this is more especially true of the emigration of persons of respectable connections, or of any station or position in the world. Few educated persons, accustomed to the refinements and luxuries of European society, ever willingly relinquish those advantages, and place themselves beyond the protective influence of the wise and revered institutions of their native land, without the pressure of some urgent cause. Emigration may, indeed, generally be regarded as an act of severe duty, performed at the expense of personal enjoyment, and accompanied by the sacrifice of those local attachments which stamp the scenes amid which our childhood grew, in imperishable characters, upon the heart. Nor is it until adversity has pressed sorely upon the proud and wounded spirit of the well-educated sons and daughters of old but impoverished families, that they gird up the loins of the mind, and arm themselves with fortitude to meet and dare the heart-breaking conflict.

The ordinary motives for the emigration of such persons may be summed up in a few brief words;—the emigrant's hope of bettering his condition, and of escaping from the vulgar sarcasms too often hurled at the less-wealthy by the purse-proud, common-place people of the world. But there is a higher motive still, which has its origin in that love of independence which springs up spontaneously in the breasts of the high-souled children of a glorious land. They cannot labour in a menial capacity in the country where they were born and educated to command. They can trace no difference between themselves and the more fortunate individuals of a race whose blood warms their veins, and whose name they bear. The want of wealth alone places an impassable barrier between them and the more favoured offspring of the same parent stock; and they go forth to make for themselves a new name and to find another country, to forget the past and to live in the future, to exult in the prospect of their children being free and the land of their adoption great.

The choice of the country to which they devote their talents and energies depends less upon their pecuniary means than upon the fancy of the emigrant or the popularity of a name. From the year 1826 to 1829, Australia and the Swan River were all the rage. No other portions of the habitable globe were deemed worthy of notice. These were the El Dorados and lands of Goshen to which all respectable emigrants eagerly flocked. Disappointment, as a matter of course, followed their high-raised expectations. Many of the most sanguine of these adventurers returned to their native shores in a worse condition than when they left them. In 1830, the great tide of emigration flowed westward. Canada became the great land-mark for the rich in hope and poor in purse. Public newspapers and private letters teemed with the unheard-of advantages to be derived from a settlement in this highly-favoured region.

Its salubrious climate, its fertile soil, commercial advantages, great water privileges, its proximity to the mother country, and last, not least, its almost total exemption from taxation—that bugbear which keeps honest John Bull in a state of constant ferment—were the theme of every tongue, and lauded beyond all praise. The general interest, once excited, was industriously kept alive by pamphlets, published by interested parties, which prominently set forth all the good to be derived from a settlement in the Backwoods of Canada; while they carefully concealed the toil and hardship to be endured in order to secure these advantages. They told of lands yielding forty bushels to the acre, but they said nothing of the years when these lands, with the most careful cultivation, would barely return fifteen; when rust and smut, engendered by the vicinity of damp over-hanging woods, would blast the fruits of the poor emigrant's labour, and almost deprive him of bread. They talked of log houses to be raised in a single day, by the generous exertions of friends and neighbours, but they never ventured upon a picture of the disgusting scenes of riot and low debauchery exhibited during the raising, or upon a description of the dwellings when raised—dens of dirt and misery, which would, in many instances, be shamed by an English pig-sty. The necessaries of life were described as inestimably cheap; but they forgot to add that in remote bush settlements, often twenty miles from a market town, and some of them even that distance from the nearest dwelling, the necessaries of life which would be deemed indispensable to the European, could not be procured at all, or, if obtained, could only be so by sending a man and team through a blazed forest road,—a process far too expensive for frequent repetition.

Oh, ye dealers in wild lands—ye speculators in the folly and credulity of your fellow men—what a mass of misery, and of misrepresentation productive of that misery, have ye not to answer for! You had your acres to sell, and what to you were the worn-down frames and broken hearts of the infatuated purchasers? The public believed the plausible statements you made with such earnestness, and men of all grades rushed to hear your hired orators declaim upon the blessings to be obtained by the clearers of the wilderness.

Men who had been hopeless of supporting their families in comfort and independence at home, thought that they had only to come out to Canada to make their fortunes; almost even to realise the story told in the nursery, of the sheep and oxen that ran about the streets, ready roasted, and with knives and forks upon their backs. They were made to believe that if it did not actually rain gold, that precious metal could be obtained, as is now stated of California and Australia, by stooping to pick it up.

The infection became general. A Canada mania pervaded the middle ranks of British society; thousands and tens of thousands for the space of three or four years landed upon these shores. A large majority of the higher class were officers of the army and navy, with their families—a class perfectly unfitted by their previous habits and education for contending with the stern realities of emigrant life. The hand that has long held the sword, and been accustomed to receive implicit obedience from those under its control, is seldom adapted to wield the spade and guide the plough, or try its strength against the stubborn trees of the forest. Nor will such persons submit cheerfully to the saucy familiarity of servants, who, republicans in spirit, think themselves as good as their employers. Too many of these brave and honourable men were easy dupes to the designing land-speculators. Not having counted the cost, but only looked upon the bright side of the picture held up to their admiring gaze, they fell easily into the snares of their artful seducers.

To prove their zeal as colonists, they were induced to purchase large tracts of wild land in remote and unfavourable situations. This, while it impoverished and often proved the ruin of the unfortunate immigrant, possessed a double advantage to the seller. He obtained an exorbitant price for the land which he actually sold, while the residence of a respectable settler upon the spot greatly enhanced the value and price of all other lands in the neighbourhood.

It is not by such instruments as those I have just mentioned, that Providence works when it would reclaim the waste places of the earth, and make them subservient to the wants and happiness of its creatures. The Great Father of the souls and bodies of men knows the arm which wholesome labour from infancy has made strong, the nerves which have become iron by patient endurance, by exposure to weather, coarse fare, and rude shelter; and He chooses such, to send forth into the forest to hew out the rough paths for the advance of civilization. These men become wealthy and prosperous, and form the bones and sinews of a great and rising country. Their labour is wealth, not exhaustion; its produce independence and content, not home-sickness and despair. What the Backwoods of Canada are to the industrious and ever-to-be-honoured sons of honest poverty, and what they are to the refined and accomplished gentleman, these simple sketches will endeavour to portray. They are drawn principally from my own experience, during a sojourn of nineteen years in the colony.

In order to diversify my subject, and make it as amusing as possible, I have between the sketches introduced a few small poems, all written during my residence in Canada, and descriptive of the country.

In this pleasing task, I have been assisted by my husband, J. W. Dunbar Moodie, author of “Ten Years in South Africa.”

BELLEVILLE, UPPER CANADA

CANADA

Canada, the blest—the free!
With prophetic glance, I see
Visions of thy future glory,
Giving to the world's great story
A page, with mighty meaning fraught,
That asks a wider range of thought.
Borne onward on the wings of Time,
I trace thy future course sublime;
And feel my anxious lot grow bright,
While musing on the glorious sight;—
My heart rejoicing bounds with glee
To hail thy noble destiny!
Even now thy sons inherit
All thy British mother's spirit.
Ah! no child of bondage thou;
With her blessing on thy brow,
And her deathless, old renown
Circling thee with freedom's crown,
And her love within thy heart,
Well may'st thou perform thy part,
And to coming years proclaim
Thou art worthy of her name.
Home of the homeless!—friend to all
Who suffer on this earthly ball!
On thy bosom sickly care
Quite forgets her squalid lair;
Gaunt famine, ghastly poverty
Before thy gracious aspect fly,
And hopes long crush'd, grow bright again,
And, smiling, point to hill and plain.
By thy winter's stainless snow,
Starry heavens of purer glow,
Glorious summers, fervid, bright,
Basking in one blaze of light;
By thy fair, salubrious clime;
By thy scenery sublime;
By thy mountains, streams, and woods;
By thy everlasting floods;
If greatness dwells beneath the skies,
Thou to greatness shalt arise!
Nations old, and empires vast,
From the earth had darkly pass'd
Ere rose the fair auspicious morn
When thou, the last, not least, wast born.
Through the desert solitude
Of trackless waters, forests rude,
Thy guardian angel sent a cry
All jubilant of victory!
“Joy,” she cried, “to th' untill'd earth,
Let her joy in a mighty birth,—
Night from the land has pass'd away,
The desert basks in noon of day.
Joy, to the sullen wilderness,
I come, her gloomy shades to bless,
To bid the bear and wild-cat yield
Their savage haunts to town and field.
Joy, to stout hearts and willing hands,
That win a right to these broad lands,
And reap the fruit of honest toil,
Lords of the rich, abundant soil.
“Joy, to the sons of want, who groan
In lands that cannot feed their own;
And seek, in stern, determined mood,
Homes in the land of lake and wood,
And leave their hearts' young hopes behind,
Friends in this distant world to find;
Led by that God, who from His throne
Regards the poor man's stifled moan.
Like one awaken'd from the dead,
The peasant lifts his drooping head,
Nerves his strong heart and sunburnt hand,
To win a potion of the land,
That glooms before him far and wide
In frowning woods and surging tide
No more oppress'd, no more a slave,
Here freedom dwells beyond the wave.
“Joy, to those hardy sires who bore
The day's first heat—their toils are o'er;
Rude fathers of this rising land,
Theirs was a mission truly grand.
Brave peasants whom the Father, God,
Sent to reclaim the stubborn sod;
Well they perform'd their task, and won
Altar and hearth for the woodman's son.
Joy, to Canada's unborn heirs,
A deathless heritage is theirs;
For, sway'd by wise and holy laws,
Its voice shall aid the world's great cause,
Shall plead the rights of man, and claim
For humble worth an honest name;
Shall show the peasant-born can be,
When call'd to action, great and free.
Like fire, within the flint conceal'd,
By stern necessity reveal'd,
Kindles to life the stupid sod,
Image of perfect man and God.
“Joy, to thy unborn sons, for they
Shall hail a brighter, purer day;
When peace and Christian brotherhood
Shall form a stronger tie than blood—
And commerce, freed from tax and chain,
Shall build a bridge o'er earth and main;
And man shall prize the wealth of mind,
The greatest blessing to mankind;
True Christians, both in word and deed,
Ready in virtue's cause to bleed,
Against a world combined to stand,
And guard the honour of the land.
Joy, to the earth, when this shall be,
Time verges on eternity.”

CHAPTER I — A VISIT TO GROSSE ISLE

Alas! that man's stern spirit e'er should mar
A scene so pure—so exquisite as this.

The dreadful cholera was depopulating Quebec and Montreal when our ship cast anchor off Grosse Isle, on the 30th of August 1832, and we were boarded a few minutes after by the health-officers.

One of these gentlemen—a little, shrivelled-up Frenchman—from his solemn aspect and attenuated figure, would have made no bad representative of him who sat upon the pale horse. He was the only grave Frenchman I had ever seen, and I naturally enough regarded him as a phenomenon. His companion—a fine-looking fair-haired Scotchman—though a little consequential in his manners, looked like one who in his own person could combat and vanquish all the evils which flesh is heir to. Such was the contrast between these doctors, that they would have formed very good emblems, one, of vigorous health, the other, of hopeless decay.

Our captain, a rude, blunt north-country sailor, possessing certainly not more politeness than might be expected in a bear, received his sprucely dressed visitors on the deck, and, with very little courtesy, abruptly bade them follow him down into the cabin.

The officials were no sooner seated, than glancing hastily round the place, they commenced the following dialogue:—

“From what port, captain?”

Now, the captain had a peculiar language of his own, from which he commonly expunged all the connecting links. Small words, such as “and” and “the,” he contrived to dispense with altogether.

“Scotland—sailed from port o' Leith, bound for Quebec, Montreal— general cargo—seventy-two steerage, four cabin passengers—brig Anne, one hundred and ninety-two tons burden, crew eight hands.”

Here he produced his credentials, and handed them to the strangers. The Scotchman just glanced over the documents, and laid them on the table.

“Had you a good passage out?”

“Tedious, baffling winds, heavy fogs, detained three weeks on Banks—foul weather making Gulf—short of water, people out of provisions, steerage passengers starving.”

“Any case of sickness or death on board?”

“All sound as crickets.”

“Any births?” lisped the little Frenchman.

The captain screwed up his mouth, and after a moment's reflection he replied, “Births? Why, yes; now I think on't, gentlemen, we had one female on board, who produced three at a birth.”

“That's uncommon,” said the Scotch doctor, with an air of lively curiosity. “Are the children alive and well? I should like much to see them.” He started up, and knocked his head—for he was very tall—against the ceiling. “Confound your low cribs! I have nearly dashed out my brains.”

“A hard task, that,” looked the captain to me. He did not speak, but I knew by his sarcastic grin what was uppermost in his thoughts. “The young ones all males—fine thriving fellows. Step upon deck, Sam Frazer,” turning to his steward; “bring them down for doctors to see.” Sam vanished, with a knowing wink to his superior, and quickly returned, bearing in his arms three fat, chuckle-headed bull-terriers, the sagacious mother following close at his heels, and looked ready to give and take offence on the slightest provocation.

“Here, gentlemen, are the babies,” said Frazer, depositing his burden on the floor. “They do credit to the nursing of the brindled slut.”

The old tar laughed, chuckled, and rubbed his hands in an ecstacy of delight at the indignation and disappointment visible in the countenance of the Scotch Esculapius, who, angry as he was, wisely held his tongue. Not so the Frenchman; his rage scarcely knew bounds—he danced in a state of most ludicrous excitement, he shook his fist at our rough captain, and screamed at the top of his voice—

“Sacre, you bete! You tink us dog, ven you try to pass your puppies on us for babies?”

“Hout, man, don't be angry,” said the Scotchman, stifling a laugh; “you see 'tis only a joke!”

“Joke! me no understand such joke. Bete!” returned the angry Frenchman, bestowing a savage kick on one of the unoffending pups which was frisking about his feet. The pup yelped; the slut barked and leaped furiously at the offender, and was only kept from biting him by Sam, who could scarcely hold her back for laughing; the captain was uproarious; the offended Frenchman alone maintained a severe and dignified aspect. The dogs were at length dismissed, and peace restored.

After some further questioning from the officials, a Bible was required for the captain to take an oath. Mine was mislaid, and there was none at hand.

“Confound it!” muttered the old sailor, tossing over the papers in his desk; “that scoundrel, Sam, always stows my traps out of the way.” Then taking up from the table a book which I had been reading, which happened to be Voltaire's History of Charles XII., he presented it, with as grave an air as he could assume, to the Frenchman. Taking for granted that it was the volume required, the little doctor was too polite to open the book, the captain was duly sworn, and the party returned to the deck.

Here a new difficulty occurred, which nearly ended in a serious quarrel. The gentlemen requested the old sailor to give them a few feet of old planking, to repair some damage which their boat had sustained the day before. This the captain could not do. They seemed to think his refusal intentional, and took it as a personal affront. In no very gentle tones, they ordered him instantly to prepare his boats, and put his passengers on shore.

“Stiff breeze—short sea,” returned the bluff old seaman; “great risk in making land—boats heavily laden with women and children will be swamped. Not a soul goes on shore this night.”

“If you refuse to comply with our orders, we will report you to the authorities.”

“I know my duty—you stick to yours. When the wind falls off, I'll see to it. Not a life shall be risked to please you or your authorities.”

He turned upon his heel, and the medical men left the vessel in great disdain. We had every reason to be thankful for the firmness displayed by our rough commander. That same evening we saw eleven persons drowned, from another vessel close beside us while attempting to make the shore.

By daybreak all was hurry and confusion on board the Anne. I watched boat after boat depart for the island, full of people and goods, and envied them the glorious privilege of once more standing firmly on the earth, after two long months of rocking and rolling at sea. How ardently we anticipate pleasure, which often ends in positive pain! Such was my case when at last indulged in the gratification so eagerly desired. As cabin passengers, we were not included in the general order of purification, but were only obliged to send our servant, with the clothes and bedding we had used during the voyage, on shore, to be washed.

The ship was soon emptied of all her live cargo. My husband went off with the boats, to reconnoitre the island, and I was left alone with my baby in the otherwise empty vessel. Even Oscar, the Captain's Scotch terrier, who had formed a devoted attachment to me during the voyage, forgot his allegiance, became possessed of the land mania, and was away with the rest. With the most intense desire to go on shore, I was doomed to look and long and envy every boatful of emigrants that glided past. Nor was this all; the ship was out of provisions, and I was condemned to undergo a rigid fast until the return of the boat, when the captain had promised a supply of fresh butter and bread. The vessel had been nine weeks at sea; the poor steerage passengers for the two last weeks had been out of food, and the captain had been obliged to feed them from the ship's stores. The promised bread was to be obtained from a small steam-boat, which plied daily between Quebec and the island, transporting convalescent emigrants and their goods in her upward trip, and provisions for the sick on her return.

How I reckoned on once more tasting bread and butter! The very thought of the treat in store served to sharpen my appetite, and render the long fast more irksome. I could now fully realise all Mrs. Bowdich's longings for English bread and butter, after her three years' travel through the burning African deserts, with her talented husband.

“When we arrived at the hotel at Plymouth,” said she, “and were asked what refreshment we chose—'Tea, and home-made bread and butter,' was my instant reply. 'Brown bread, if you please, and plenty of it.' I never enjoyed any luxury like it. I was positively ashamed of asking the waiter to refill the plate. After the execrable messes, and the hard ship-biscuit, imagine the luxury of a good slice of English bread and butter!”

At home, I laughed heartily at the lively energy with which that charming woman of genius related this little incident in her eventful history—but off Grosse Isle, I realised it all.

As the sun rose above the horizon, all these matter-of-fact circumstances were gradually forgotten, and merged in the surpassing grandeur of the scene that rose majestically before me. The previous day had been dark and stormy, and a heavy fog had concealed the mountain chain, which forms the stupendous background to this sublime view, entirely from our sight. As the clouds rolled away from their grey, bald brows, and cast into denser shadow the vast forest belt that girdled them round, they loomed out like mighty giants—Titans of the earth, in all their rugged and awful beauty—a thrill of wonder and delight pervaded my mind. The spectacle floated dimly on my sight—my eyes were blinded with tears—blinded with the excess of beauty. I turned to the right and to the left, I looked up and down the glorious river; never had I beheld so many striking objects blended into one mighty whole! Nature had lavished all her noblest features in producing that enchanting scene.

The rocky isle in front, with its neat farm-houses at the eastern point, and its high bluff at the western extremity, crowned with the telegraph—the middle space occupied by tents and sheds for the cholera patients, and its wooded shores dotted over with motley groups—added greatly to the picturesque effect of the land scene. Then the broad, glittering river, covered with boats darting to and fro, conveying passengers from twenty-five vessels, of various size and tonnage, which rode at anchor, with their flags flying from the mast-head, gave an air of life and interest to the whole. Turning to the south side of the St. Lawrence, I was not less struck with its low fertile shores, white houses, and neat churches, whose slender spires and bright tin roofs shone like silver as they caught the first rays of the sun. As far as the eye could reach, a line of white buildings extended along the bank; their background formed by the purple hue of the dense, interminable forest. It was a scene unlike any I had ever beheld, and to which Britain contains no parallel. Mackenzie, an old Scotch dragoon, who was one of our passengers, when he rose in the morning, and saw the parish of St. Thomas for the first time, exclaimed: “Weel, it beats a'! Can thae white clouts be a' houses? They look like claes hung out to drie!” There was some truth in this odd comparison, and for some minutes, I could scarcely convince myself that the white patches scattered so thickly over the opposite shore could be the dwellings of a busy, lively population.

“What sublime views of the north side of the river those habitans of St. Thomas must enjoy,” thought I. Perhaps familiarity with the scene has rendered them indifferent to its astonishing beauty.

Eastward, the view down the St. Lawrence towards the Gulf, is the finest of all, scarcely surpassed by anything in the world. Your eye follows the long range of lofty mountains until their blue summits are blended and lost in the blue of the sky. Some of these, partially cleared round the base, are sprinkled over with neat cottages; and the green slopes that spread around them are covered with flocks and herds. The surface of the splendid river is diversified with islands of every size and shape, some in wood, others partially cleared, and adorned with orchards and white farm-houses. As the early sun streamed upon the most prominent of these, leaving the others in deep shade, the effect was strangely novel and imposing. In more remote regions, where the forest has never yet echoed to the woodman's axe, or received the impress of civilisation, the first approach to the shore inspires a melancholy awe, which becomes painful in its intensity.

Land of vast hills and mighty streams,
The lofty sun that o'er thee beams
On fairer clime sheds not his ray,
When basking in the noon of day
Thy waters dance in silver light,
And o'er them frowning, dark as night,
Thy shadowy forests, soaring high,
Stretch forth beyond the aching eye,
And blend in distance with the sky.
And silence—awful silence broods
Profoundly o'er these solitudes;
Nought but the lapsing of the floods
Breaks the deep stillness of the woods;
A sense of desolation reigns
O'er these unpeopled forest plains.
Where sounds of life ne'er wake a tone
Of cheerful praise round Nature's throne,
Man finds himself with God—alone.

My daydreams were dispelled by the return of the boat, which brought my husband and the captain from the island.

“No bread,” said the latter, shaking his head; “you must be content to starve a little longer. Provision-ship not in till four o'clock.” My husband smiled at the look of blank disappointment with which I received these unwelcome tidings, “Never mind, I have news which will comfort you. The officer who commands the station sent a note to me by an orderly, inviting us to spend the afternoon with him. He promises to show us everything worthy of notice on the island. Captain —— claims acquaintance with me; but I have not the least recollection of him. Would you like to go?”

“Oh, by all means. I long to see the lovely island. It looks a perfect paradise at this distance.”

The rough sailor-captain screwed his mouth on one side, and gave me one of his comical looks, but he said nothing until he assisted in placing me and the baby in the boat.

“Don't be too sanguine, Mrs. Moodie; many things look well at a distance which are bad enough when near.”

I scarcely regarded the old sailor's warning, so eager was I to go on shore—to put my foot upon the soil of the new world for the first time—I was in no humour to listen to any depreciation of what seemed so beautiful.

It was four o'clock when we landed on the rocks, which the rays of an intensely scorching sun had rendered so hot that I could scarcely place my foot upon them. How the people without shoes bore it, I cannot imagine. Never shall I forget the extraordinary spectacle that met our sight the moment we passed the low range of bushes which formed a screen in front of the river. A crowd of many hundred Irish emigrants had been landed during the present and former day; and all this motley crew—men, women, and children, who were not confined by sickness to the sheds (which greatly resembled cattle-pens) were employed in washing clothes, or spreading them out on the rocks and bushes to dry.

The men and boys were in the water, while the women, with their scanty garments tucked above their knees, were trampling their bedding in tubs, or in holes in the rocks, which the retiring tide had left half full of water. Those who did not possess washing-tubs, pails, or iron pots, or could not obtain access to a hole in the rocks, were running to and fro, screaming and scolding in no measured terms. The confusion of Babel was among them. All talkers and no hearers—each shouting and yelling in his or her uncouth dialect, and all accompanying their vociferations with violent and extraordinary gestures, quite incomprehensible to the uninitiated. We were literally stunned by the strife of tongues. I shrank, with feelings almost akin to fear, from the hard-featured, sun-burnt harpies, as they elbowed rudely past me.

I had heard and read much of savages, and have since seen, during my long residence in the bush, somewhat of uncivilised life; but the Indian is one of Nature's gentlemen—he never says or does a rude or vulgar thing. The vicious, uneducated barbarians who form the surplus of over-populous European countries, are far behind the wild man in delicacy of feeling or natural courtesy. The people who covered the island appeared perfectly destitute of shame, or even of a sense of common decency. Many were almost naked, still more but partially clothed. We turned in disgust from the revolting scene, but were unable to leave the spot until the captain had satisfied a noisy group of his own people, who were demanding a supply of stores.

And here I must observe that our passengers, who were chiefly honest Scotch labourers and mechanics from the vicinity of Edinburgh, and who while on board ship had conducted themselves with the greatest propriety, and appeared the most quiet, orderly set of people in the world, no sooner set foot upon the island than they became infected by the same spirit of insubordination and misrule, and were just as insolent and noisy as the rest.

While our captain was vainly endeavouring to satisfy the unreasonable demands of his rebellious people, Moodie had discovered a woodland path that led to the back of the island. Sheltered by some hazel-bushes from the intense heat of the sun, we sat down by the cool, gushing river, out of sight, but, alas! not out of hearing of the noisy, riotous crowd. Could we have shut out the profane sounds which came to us on every breeze, how deeply should we have enjoyed an hour amid the tranquil beauties of that retired and lovely spot!

The rocky banks of the island were adorned with beautiful evergreens, which sprang up spontaneously in every nook and crevice. I remarked many of our favourite garden shrubs among these wildings of nature: the fillagree, with its narrow, dark glossy-green leaves; the privet, with its modest white blossoms and purple berries; the lignum-vitae, with its strong resinous odour; the burnet-rose, and a great variety of elegant unknowns.

Here, the shores of the island and mainland, receding from each other, formed a small cove, overhung with lofty trees, clothed from the base to the summit with wild vines, that hung in graceful festoons from the topmost branches to the water's edge. The dark shadows of the mountains, thrown upon the water, as they towered to the height of some thousand feet above us, gave to the surface of the river an ebon hue. The sunbeams, dancing through the thick, quivering foliage, fell in stars of gold, or long lines of dazzling brightness, upon the deep black waters, producing the most novel and beautiful effects. It was a scene over which the spirit of peace might brood in silent adoration; but how spoiled by the discordant yells of the filthy beings who were sullying the purity of the air and water with contaminating sights and sounds!

We were now joined by the sergeant, who very kindly brought us his capful of ripe plums and hazel-nuts, the growth of the island; a joyful present, but marred by a note from Captain ——, who had found that he had been mistaken in his supposed knowledge of us, and politely apologised for not being allowed by the health-officers to receive any emigrant beyond the bounds appointed for the performance of quarantine.

I was deeply disappointed, but my husband laughingly told me that I had seen enough of the island; and turning to the good-natured soldier, remarked, that “it could be no easy task to keep such wild savages in order.”

“You may well say that, sir—but our night scenes far exceed those of the day. You would think they were incarnate devils; singing, drinking, dancing, shouting, and cutting antics that would surprise the leader of a circus. They have no shame—are under no restraint—nobody knows them here, and they think they can speak and act as they please; and they are such thieves that they rob one another of the little they possess. The healthy actually run the risk of taking the cholera by robbing the sick. If you have not hired one or two stout, honest fellows from among your fellow passengers to guard your clothes while they are drying, you will never see half of them again. They are a sad set, sir, a sad set. We could, perhaps, manage the men; but the women, sir!—the women! Oh, sir!”

Anxious as we were to return to the ship, we were obliged to remain until sun-down in our retired nook. We were hungry, tired, and out of spirits; the mosquitoes swarmed in myriads around us, tormenting the poor baby, who, not at all pleased with her first visit to the new world, filled the air with cries, when the captain came to tell us that the boat was ready. It was a welcome sound. Forcing our way once more through the still squabbling crowd, we gained the landing place. Here we encountered a boat, just landing a fresh cargo of lively savages from the Emerald Isle. One fellow, of gigantic proportions, whose long, tattered great-coat just reached below the middle of his bare red legs, and, like charity, hid the defects of his other garments, or perhaps concealed his want of them, leaped upon the rocks, and flourishing aloft his shilelagh, bounded and capered like a wild goat from his native mountains. “Whurrah! my boys!” he cried, “Shure we'll all be jintlemen!”

“Pull away, my lads!” said the captain. Then turning to me, “Well, Mrs. Moodie, I hope that you have had enough of Grosse Isle. But could you have witnessed the scenes that I did this morning—”

Here he was interrupted by the wife of the old Scotch dragoon, Mackenzie, running down to the boat and laying her hand familiarly upon his shoulder, “Captain, dinna forget.”

“Forget what?”

She whispered something confidentially in his ear.

“Oh, ho! the brandy!” he responded aloud. “I should have thought, Mrs. Mackenzie, that you had had enough of that same on yon island?”

“Aye, sic a place for decent folk,” returned the drunken body, shaking her head. “One needs a drap o' comfort, captain, to keep up one's heart ava.”

The captain set up one of his boisterous laughs as he pushed the boat from the shore. “Hollo! Sam Frazer! steer in, we have forgotten the stores.”

“I hope not, captain,” said I; “I have been starving since daybreak.”

“The bread, the butter, the beef, the onions, and potatoes are here, sir,” said honest Sam, particularizing each article.

“All right; pull for the ship. Mrs. Moodie, we will have a glorious supper, and mind you don't dream of Grosse Isle.”

In a few minutes we were again on board. Thus ended my first day's experience of the land of all our hopes.

OH! CAN YOU LEAVE YOUR NATIVE LAND?

A Canadian Song

Oh! can you leave your native land
An exile's bride to be;
Your mother's home, and cheerful hearth,
To tempt the main with me;
Across the wide and stormy sea
To trace our foaming track,
And know the wave that heaves us on
Will never bear us back?
And can you in Canadian woods
With me the harvest bind,
Nor feel one lingering, sad regret
For all you leave behind?
Can those dear hands, unused to toil,
The woodman's wants supply,
Nor shrink beneath the chilly blast
When wintry storms are nigh?
Amid the shades of forests dark,
Our loved isle will appear
An Eden, whose delicious bloom
Will make the wild more drear.
And you in solitude will weep
O'er scenes beloved in vain,
And pine away your life to view
Once more your native plain.
Then pause, dear girl! ere those fond lips
Your wanderer's fate decide;
My spirit spurns the selfish wish—
You must not be my bride.
But oh, that smile—those tearful eyes,
My firmer purpose move—
Our hearts are one, and we will dare
All perils thus to love!

(This song has been set to a beautiful plaintive air, by my husband.)

CHAPTER II — QUEBEC

Queen of the West!—upon thy rocky throne,
In solitary grandeur sternly placed;
In awful majesty thou sitt'st alone,
By Nature's master-hand supremely graced.
The world has not thy counterpart—thy dower,
Eternal beauty, strength, and matchless power.
The clouds enfold thee in their misty vest,
The lightning glances harmless round thy brow;
The loud-voiced thunder cannot shake thy nest,
Or warring waves that idly chafe below;
The storm above, the waters at thy feet—
May rage and foam, they but secure thy seat.
The mighty river, as it onward rushes
To pour its floods in ocean's dread abyss,
Checks at thy feet its fierce impetuous gushes,
And gently fawns thy rocky base to kiss.
Stern eagle of the crag! thy hold should be
The mountain home of heaven-born liberty!
True to themselves, thy children may defy
The power and malice of a world combined;
While Britain's flag, beneath thy deep blue sky,
Spreads its rich folds and wantons in the wind;
The offspring of her glorious race of old
May rest securely in their mountain hold.

On the 2nd of September, the anchor was weighed, and we bade a long farewell to Grosse Isle. As our vessel struck into mid-channel, I cast a last lingering look at the beautiful shores we were leaving. Cradled in the arms of the St. Lawrence, and basking in the bright rays of the morning sun, the island and its sister group looked like a second Eden just emerged from the waters of chaos. With what joy could I have spent the rest of the fall in exploring the romantic features of that enchanting scene! But our bark spread her white wings to the favouring breeze, and the fairy vision gradually receded from my sight, to remain for ever on the tablets of memory.

The day was warm, and the cloudless heavens of that peculiar azure tint which gives to the Canadian skies and waters a brilliancy unknown in more northern latitudes. The air was pure and elastic, the sun shone out with uncommon splendour, lighting up the changing woods with a rich mellow colouring, composed of a thousand brilliant and vivid dyes. The mighty river rolled flashing and sparkling onward, impelled by a strong breeze, that tipped its short rolling surges with a crest of snowy foam.

Had there been no other object of interest in the landscape than this majestic river, its vast magnitude, and the depth and clearness of its waters, and its great importance to the colony, would have been sufficient to have riveted the attention, and claimed the admiration of every thinking mind.

Never shall I forget that short voyage from Grosse Isle to Quebec. I love to recall, after the lapse of so many years, every object that awoke in my breast emotions of astonishment and delight. What wonderful combinations of beauty, and grandeur, and power, at every winding of that noble river! How the mind expands with the sublimity of the spectacle, and soars upward in gratitude and adoration to the Author of all being, to thank Him for having made this lower world so wondrously fair—a living temple, heaven-arched, and capable of receiving the homage of all worshippers.

Every perception of my mind became absorbed into the one sense of seeing, when, upon rounding Point Levi, we cast anchor before Quebec. What a scene!—Can the world produce such another? Edinburgh had been the beau ideal to me of all that was beautiful in Nature—a vision of the northern Highlands had haunted my dreams across the Atlantic; but all these past recollections faded before the present of Quebec.

Nature has lavished all her grandest elements to form this astonishing panorama. There frowns the cloud-capped mountain, and below, the cataract foams and thunders; wood, and rock, and river combine to lend their aid in making the picture perfect, and worthy of its Divine Originator.

The precipitous bank upon which the city lies piled, reflected in the still deep waters at its base, greatly enhances the romantic beauty of the situation. The mellow and serene glow of the autumnal day harmonised so perfectly with the solemn grandeur of the scene around me, and sank so silently and deeply into my soul, that my spirit fell prostrate before it, and I melted involuntarily into tears. Yes, regardless of the eager crowds around me, I leant upon the side of the vessel and cried like a child—not tears of sorrow, but a gush from the heart of pure and unalloyed delight. I heard not the many voices murmuring in my ears—I saw not the anxious beings that thronged our narrow deck—my soul at that moment was alone with God. The shadow of His glory rested visibly on the stupendous objects that composed that magnificent scene; words are perfectly inadequate to describe the impression it made upon my mind—the emotions it produced. The only homage I was capable of offering at such a shrine was tears—tears the most heartfelt and sincere that ever flowed from human eyes. I never before felt so overpoweringly my own insignificance, and the boundless might and majesty of the Eternal.

Canadians, rejoice in your beautiful city! Rejoice and be worthy of her—for few, very few, of the sons of men can point to such a spot as Quebec—and exclaim, “She is ours!—God gave her to us, in her beauty and strength!—We will live for her glory—we will die to defend her liberty and rights—to raise her majestic brow high above the nations!”

Look at the situation of Quebec!—the city founded on the rock that proudly holds the height of the hill. The queen sitting enthroned above the waters, that curb their swiftness and their strength to kiss and fawn around her lovely feet.

Canadians!—as long as you remain true to yourselves and her, what foreign invader could ever dare to plant a hostile flag upon that rock-defended height, or set his foot upon a fortress rendered impregnable by the hand of Nature? United in friendship, loyalty, and love, what wonders may you not achieve? to what an enormous altitude of wealth and importance may you not arrive? Look at the St. Lawrence, that king of streams, that great artery flowing from the heart of the world, through the length and breadth of the land, carrying wealth and fertility in its course, and transporting from town to town along its beautiful shores the riches and produce of a thousand distant climes. What elements of future greatness and prosperity encircle you on every side! Never yield up these solid advantages to become an humble dependent on the great republic—wait patiently, loyally, lovingly, upon the illustrious parent from whom you sprang, and by whom you have been fostered into life and political importance; in the fulness of time she will proclaim your childhood past, and bid you stand up in your own strength, a free Canadian people!

British mothers of Canadian sons!—learn to feel for their country the same enthusiasm which fills your hearts when thinking of the glory of your own. Teach them to love Canada—to look upon her as the first, the happiest, the most independent country in the world! Exhort them to be worthy of her—to have faith in her present prosperity, in her future greatness, and to devote all their talents, when they themselves are men, to accomplish this noble object. Make your children proud of the land of their birth, the land which has given them bread—the land in which you have found an altar and a home; do this, and you will soon cease to lament your separation from the mother country, and the loss of those luxuries which you could not, in honor to yourself, enjoy; you will soon learn to love Canada as I now love it, who once viewed it with a hatred so intense that I longed to die, that death might effectually separate us for ever.

But, oh! beware of drawing disparaging contrasts between the colony and its illustrious parent. All such comparisons are cruel and unjust;—you cannot exalt the one at the expense of the other without committing an act of treason against both.

But I have wandered away from my subject into the regions of thought, and must again descend to common work-a-day realities.

The pleasure we experienced upon our first glance at Quebec was greatly damped by the sad conviction that the cholera-plague raged within her walls, while the almost ceaseless tolling of bells proclaimed a mournful tale of woe and death. Scarcely a person visited the vessel who was not in black, or who spoke not in tones of subdued grief. They advised us not to go on shore if we valued our lives, as strangers most commonly fell the first victims to the fatal malady. This was to me a severe disappointment, who felt an intense desire to climb to the crown of the rock, and survey the noble landscape at my feet. I yielded at last to the wishes of my husband, who did not himself resist the temptation in his own person, and endeavored to content myself with the means of enjoyment placed within my reach. My eyes were never tired of wandering over the scene before me.

It is curious to observe how differently the objects which call forth intense admiration in some minds will affect others. The Scotch dragoon, Mackenzie, seeing me look long and intently at the distant Falls of Montmorency, drily observed,—

“It may be a' vera fine; but it looks na' better to my thinken than hanks o' white woo' hung out o're the bushes.”

“Weel,” cried another, “thae fa's are just bonnie; 'tis a braw land, nae doubt; but no' just so braw as auld Scotland.”

“Hout man! hauld your clavers, we shall a' be lairds here,” said a third; “and ye maun wait a muckle time before they wad think aucht of you at hame.”

I was not a little amused at the extravagant expectations entertained by some of our steerage passengers. The sight of the Canadian shores had changed them into persons of great consequence. The poorest and the worst-dressed, the least-deserving and the most repulsive in mind and morals, exhibited most disgusting traits of self-importance. Vanity and presumption seemed to possess them altogether. They talked loudly of the rank and wealth of their connexions at home, and lamented the great sacrifices they had made in order to join brothers and cousins who had foolishly settled in this beggarly wooden country.

Girls, who were scarcely able to wash a floor decently, talked of service with contempt, unless tempted to change their resolution by the offer of twelve dollars a month. To endeavour to undeceive them was a useless and ungracious task. After having tried it with several without success, I left it to time and bitter experience to restore them to their sober senses. In spite of the remonstrances of the captain, and the dread of the cholera, they all rushed on shore to inspect the land of Goshen, and to endeavour to realise their absurd anticipations.

We were favoured, a few minutes after our arrival, with another visit from the health-officers; but in this instance both the gentlemen were Canadians. Grave, melancholy-looking men, who talked much and ominously of the prevailing disorder, and the impossibility of strangers escaping from its fearful ravages. This was not very consoling, and served to depress the cheerful tone of mind which, after all, is one of the best antidotes against this awful scourge. The cabin seemed to lighten, and the air to circulate more freely, after the departure of these professional ravens. The captain, as if by instinct, took an additional glass of grog, to shake off the sepulchral gloom their presence had inspired.

The visit of the doctors was followed by that of two of the officials of the Customs—vulgar, illiterate men, who, seating themselves at the cabin table, with a familiar nod to the captain, and a blank stare at us, commenced the following dialogue:—

Custom-house officer (after making inquiries as to the general cargo of the vessel): “Any good brandy on board, captain?”

Captain (gruffly): “Yes.”

Officer: “Best remedy for the cholera known. The only one the doctors can depend upon.”

Captain (taking the hint): “Gentlemen, I'll send you up a dozen bottles this afternoon.”

Officer: “Oh, thank you. We are sure to get it genuine from you. Any Edinburgh ale in your freight?”

Captain (with a slight shrug): “A few hundreds in cases. I'll send you a dozen with the brandy.”

Both: “Capital!”

First officer: “Any short, large-bowled, Scotch pipes, with metallic lids?”

Captain (quite impatiently): “Yes, yes; I'll send you some to smoke, with the brandy. What else?”

Officer: “We will now proceed to business.”

My readers would have laughed, as I did, could they have seen how doggedly the old man shook his fist after these worthies as they left the vessel. “Scoundrels!” he muttered to himself; and then turning to me, “They rob us in this barefaced manner, and we dare not resist or complain, for fear of the trouble they can put us to. If I had those villains at sea, I'd give them a taste of brandy and ale that they would not relish.”

The day wore away, and the lengthened shadows of the mountains fell upon the waters, when the Horsley Hill, a large three-masted vessel from Waterford, that we had left at the quarantine station, cast anchor a little above us. She was quickly boarded by the health-officers, and ordered round to take up her station below the castle. To accomplish this object she had to heave her anchor; when lo! a great pine-tree, which had been sunk in the river, became entangled in the chains. Uproarious was the mirth to which the incident gave rise among the crowds that thronged the decks of the many vessels then at anchor in the river. Speaking-trumpets resounded on every side; and my readers may be assured that the sea-serpent was not forgotten in the multitude of jokes which followed.

Laughter resounded on all sides; and in the midst of the noise and confusion, the captain of the Horsley Hill hoisted his colours downwards, as if making signals of distress, a mistake which provoked renewed and long-continued mirth.

I laughed until my sides ached; little thinking how the Horsley Hill would pay us off for our mistimed hilarity.

Towards night, most of the steerage passengers returned, greatly dissatisfied with their first visit to the city, which they declared to be a filthy hole, that looked a great deal better from the ship's side than it did on shore. This, I have often been told, is literally the case. Here, as elsewhere, man has marred the magnificent creation of his Maker.

A dark and starless night closed in, accompanied by cold winds and drizzling rain. We seemed to have made a sudden leap from the torrid to the frigid zone. Two hours before, my light summer clothing was almost insupportable, and now a heavy and well-lined plaid formed but an inefficient screen from the inclemency of the weather. After watching for some time the singular effect produced by the lights in the town reflected in the water, and weary with a long day of anticipation and excitement, I made up my mind to leave the deck and retire to rest. I had just settled down my baby in her berth, when the vessel struck, with a sudden crash that sent a shiver through her whole frame. Alarmed, but not aware of the real danger that hung over us, I groped my way to the cabin, and thence ascended to the deck.

Here a scene of confusion prevailed that baffles description. By some strange fatality, the Horsley Hill had changed her position, and run foul of us in the dark. The Anne was a small brig, and her unlucky neighbour a heavy three-masted vessel, with three hundred Irish emigrants on board; and as her bowspirit was directly across the bows of the Anne, and she anchored, and unable to free herself from the deadly embrace, there was no small danger of the poor brig going down in the unequal struggle.

Unable to comprehend what was going on, I raised my head above my companion ladder, just at the critical moment when the vessels were grappled together. The shrieks of the women, the shouts and oaths of the men, and the barking of the dogs in either ship, aided the dense darkness of the night in producing a most awful and stunning effect.

“What is the matter?” I gasped out. “What is the reason of this dreadful confusion?”

The captain was raging like a chafed bull, in the grasp of several frantic women, who were clinging, shrieking, to his knees.

With great difficulty I persuaded the women to accompany me below. The mate hurried off with the cabin light upon the deck, and we were left in total darkness to await the result.

A deep, strange silence fell upon my heart. It was not exactly fear, but a sort of nerving of my spirit to meet the worst. The cowardly behaviour of my companions inspired me with courage. I was ashamed of their pusillanimity and want of faith in the Divine Providence. I sat down, and calmly begged them to follow my example.

An old woman, called Williamson, a sad reprobate, in attempting to do so, set her foot within the fender, which the captain had converted into a repository for empty glass bottles; the smash that ensued was echoed by a shriek from the whole party.

“God guide us,” cried the ancient dame; “but we are going into eternity. I shall be lost; my sins are more in number than the hairs of my head.” This confession was followed by oaths and imprecations too blasphemous to repeat.

Shocked and disgusted at her profanity, I bade her pray, and not waste the few moments that might be hers in using oaths and bad language.

“Did you not hear the crash?” said she.

“I did; it was of your own making. Sit down and be quiet.”

Here followed another shock, that made the vessel heave and tremble; and the dragging of the anchor increased the uneasy motion which began to fill the boldest of us with alarm.

“Mrs. Moodie, we are lost,” said Margaret Williamson, the youngest daughter of the old woman, a pretty girl, who had been the belle of the ship, flinging herself on her knees before me, and grasping both my hands in hers. “Oh, pray for me! pray for me! I cannot, I dare not, pray for myself; I was never taught a prayer.” Her voice was choked with convulsive sobs, and scalding tears fell in torrents from her eyes over my hands. I never witnessed such an agony of despair. Before I could say one word to comfort her, another shock seemed to lift the vessel upwards. I felt my own blood run cold, expecting instantly to go down; and thoughts of death, and the unknown eternity at our feet, flitted vaguely through my mind.

“If we stay here, we shall perish,” cried the girl, springing to her feet. “Let us go on deck, mother, and take our chance with the rest.”

“Stay,” I said; “you are safer here. British sailors never leave women to perish. You have fathers, husbands, brothers on board, who will not forget you. I beseech you to remain patiently here until the danger is past.” I might as well have preached to the winds. The headstrong creatures would no longer be controlled. They rushed simultaneously upon deck, just as the Horsley Hill swung off, carrying with her part of the outer frame of our deck and the larger portion of our stern. When tranquillity was restored, fatigued both in mind and body, I sunk into a profound sleep, and did not awake until the sun had risen high above the wave-encircled fortress of Quebec.

The stormy clouds had all dispersed during the night; the air was clear and balmy; the giant hills were robed in a blue, soft mist, which rolled around them in fleecy volumes. As the beams of the sun penetrated their shadowy folds, they gradually drew up like a curtain, and dissolved like wreaths of smoke into the clear air.

The moment I came on deck, my old friend Oscar greeted me with his usual joyous bark, and with the sagacity peculiar to his species, proceeded to shew me all the damage done to the vessel during the night. It was laughable to watch the motions of the poor brute, as he ran from place to place, stopping before, or jumping upon, every fractured portion of the deck, and barking out his indignation at the ruinous condition in which he found his marine home. Oscar had made eleven voyages in the Anne, and had twice saved the life of the captain. He was an ugly specimen of the Scotch terrier, and greatly resembled a bundle of old rope-yarn; but a more faithful or attached creature I never saw. The captain was not a little jealous of Oscar's friendship for me. I was the only person the dog had ever deigned to notice, and his master regarded it as an act of treason on the part of his four-footed favourite. When my arms were tired with nursing, I had only to lay my baby on my cloak on deck, and tell Oscar to watch her, and the good dog would lie down by her, and suffer her to tangle his long curls in her little hands, and pull his tail and ears in the most approved baby fashion, without offering the least opposition; but if any one dared to approach his charge, he was alive on the instant, placing his paws over the child, and growling furiously. He would have been a bold man who had approached the child to do her injury. Oscar was the best plaything, and as sure a protector, as Katie had.

During the day, many of our passengers took their departure; tired of the close confinement of the ship, and the long voyage, they were too impatient to remain on board until we reached Montreal. The mechanics obtained instant employment, and the girls who were old enough to work, procured situations as servants in the city. Before night, our numbers were greatly reduced. The old dragoon and his family, two Scotch fiddlers of the name of Duncan, a Highlander called Tam Grant, and his wife and little son, and our own party, were all that remained of the seventy-two passengers that left the Port of Leith in the brig Anne.

In spite of the earnest entreaties of his young wife, the said Tam Grant, who was the most mercurial fellow in the world, would insist upon going on shore to see all the lions of the place. “Ah, Tam! Tam! ye will die o' the cholera,” cried the weeping Maggie. “My heart will brak if ye dinna bide wi' me an' the bairnie.” Tam was deaf as Ailsa Craig. Regardless of tears and entreaties, he jumped into the boat, like a wilful man as he was, and my husband went with him. Fortunately for me, the latter returned safe to the vessel, in time to proceed with her to Montreal, in tow of the noble steamer, British America; but Tam, the volatile Tam was missing. During the reign of the cholera, what at another time would have appeared but a trifling incident, was now invested with doubt and terror. The distress of the poor wife knew no bounds. I think I see her now, as I saw her then, sitting upon the floor of the deck, her head buried between her knees, rocking herself to and fro, and weeping in the utter abandonment of her grief. “He is dead! he is dead! My dear, dear Tam! The pestilence has seized upon him; and I and the puir bairn are left alone in the strange land.” All attempts at consolation were useless; she obstinately refused to listen to probabilities, or to be comforted. All through the night I heard her deep and bitter sobs, and the oft-repeated name of him that she had lost.

The sun was sinking over the plague-stricken city, gilding the changing woods and mountain peaks with ruddy light; the river mirrored back the gorgeous sky, and moved in billows of liquid gold; the very air seemed lighted up with heavenly fires, and sparkled with myriads of luminous particles, as I gazed my last upon that beautiful scene.

The tow-line was now attached from our ship to the British America, and in company with two other vessels, we followed fast in her foaming wake. Day lingered on the horizon just long enough to enable me to examine, with deep interest, the rocky heights of Abraham, the scene of our immortal Wolfe's victory and death; and when the twilight faded into night, the moon arose in solemn beauty, and cast mysterious gleams upon the strange stern landscape. The wide river, flowing rapidly between its rugged banks, rolled in inky blackness beneath the overshadowing crags; while the waves in mid-channel flashed along in dazzling light, rendered more intense by the surrounding darkness. In this luminous track the huge steamer glided majestically forward, flinging showers of red earth-stars from the funnel into the clear air, and looking like some fiery demon of the night enveloped in smoke and flame.

The lofty groves of pine frowned down in hearse-like gloom upon the mighty river, and the deep stillness of the night, broken alone by its hoarse wailings, filled my mind with sad forebodings—alas! too prophetic of the future. Keenly, for the first time, I felt that I was a stranger in a strange land; my heart yearned intensely for my absent home. Home! the word had ceased to belong to my present—it was doomed to live for ever in the past; for what emigrant ever regarded the country of his exile as his home? To the land he has left, that name belongs for ever, and in no instance does he bestow it upon another. “I have got a letter from home!” “I have seen a friend from home!” “I dreamt last night that I was at home!” are expressions of everyday occurrence, to prove that the heart acknowledges no other home than the land of its birth.

From these sad reveries I was roused by the hoarse notes of the bagpipe. That well-known sound brought every Scotchman upon deck, and set every limb in motion on the decks of the other vessels. Determined not to be outdone, our fiddlers took up the strain, and a lively contest ensued between the rival musicians, which continued during the greater part of the night. The shouts of noisy revelry were in no way congenial to my feelings. Nothing tends so much to increase our melancholy as merry music when the heart is sad; and I left the scene with eyes brimful of tears, and my mind painfully agitated by sorrowful recollections and vain regrets.

The strains we hear in foreign lands,
No echo from the heart can claim;
The chords are swept by strangers' hands,
And kindle in the breast no flame,
Sweet though they be.
No fond remembrance wakes to fling
Its hallowed influence o'er the chords;
As if a spirit touch'd the string,
Breathing, in soft harmonious words,
Deep melody.
The music of our native shore
A thousand lovely scenes endears;
In magic tones it murmurs o'er
The visions of our early years;—
The hopes of youth;
It wreathes again the flowers we wreathed
In childhood's bright, unclouded day;
It breathes again the vows we breathed,
At beauty's shrine, when hearts were gay
And whisper'd truth;
It calls before our mental sight
Dear forms whose tuneful lips are mute,
Bright, sunny eyes long closed in night,
Warm hearts now silent as the lute
That charm'd our ears;
It thrills the breast with feelings deep,
Too deep for language to impart;
And bids the spirit joy and weep,
In tones that sink into the heart,
And melt in tears.

CHAPTER III — OUR JOURNEY UP THE COUNTRY

Fly this plague-stricken spot! The hot, foul air
Is rank with pestilence—the crowded marts
And public ways, once populous with life,
Are still and noisome as a churchyard vault;
Aghast and shuddering, Nature holds her breath
In abject fear, and feels at her strong heart
The deadly pangs of death.

Of Montreal I can say but little. The cholera was at its height, and the fear of infection, which increased the nearer we approached its shores, cast a gloom over the scene, and prevented us from exploring its infected streets. That the feelings of all on board very nearly resembled our own might be read in the anxious faces of both passengers and crew. Our captain, who had never before hinted that he entertained any apprehensions on the subject, now confided to us his conviction that he should never quit the city alive: “This cursed cholera! Left it in Russia—found it on my return to Leith—meets me again in Canada. No escape the third time.” If the captain's prediction proved true in his case, it was not so in ours. We left the cholera in England, we met it again in Scotland, and, under the providence of God, we escaped its fatal visitation in Canada.

Yet the fear and the dread of it on that first day caused me to throw many an anxious glance on my husband and my child. I had been very ill during the three weeks that our vessel was becalmed upon the Banks of Newfoundland, and to this circumstance I attribute my deliverance from the pestilence. I was weak and nervous when the vessel arrived at Quebec, but the voyage up the St. Lawrence, the fresh air and beautiful scenery were rapidly restoring me to health.

Montreal from the river wears a pleasing aspect, but it lacks the grandeur, the stern sublimity of Quebec. The fine mountain that forms the background to the city, the Island of St. Helens in front, and the junction of the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa—which run side by side, their respective boundaries only marked by a long ripple of white foam, and the darker blue tint of the former river—constitute the most remarkable features in the landscape.

The town itself was, at that period, dirty and ill-paved; and the opening of all the sewers, in order to purify the place and stop the ravages of the pestilence, rendered the public thoroughfares almost impassable, and loaded the air with intolerable effluvia, more likely to produce than stay the course of the plague, the violence of which had, in all probability, been increased by these long-neglected receptacles of uncleanliness.

The dismal stories told us by the excise-officer who came to inspect the unloading of the vessel, of the frightful ravages of the cholera, by no means increased our desire to go on shore.

“It will be a miracle if you escape,” he said. “Hundreds of emigrants die daily; and if Stephen Ayres had not providentally come among us, not a soul would have been alive at this moment in Montreal.”

“And who is Stephen Ayres?” said I.

“God only knows,” was the grave reply. “There was a man sent from heaven, and his name was John.”

“But I thought this man was called Stephen?”

“Ay, so he calls himself; but 'tis certain that he is not of the earth. Flesh and blood could never do what he has done—the hand of God is in it. Besides, no one knows who he is, or whence he comes. When the cholera was at the worst, and the hearts of all men stood still with fear, and our doctors could do nothing to stop its progress, this man, or angel, or saint, suddenly made his appearance in our streets. He came in great humility, seated in an ox-cart, and drawn by two lean oxen and a rope harness. Only think of that! Such a man in an old ox-cart, drawn by rope harness! The thing itself was a miracle. He made no parade about what he could do, but only fixed up a plain pasteboard notice, informing the public that he possessed an infallible remedy for the cholera, and would engage to cure all who sent for him.”

“And was he successful?”

“Successful! It beats all belief; and his remedy so simple! For some days we all took him for a quack, and would have no faith in him at all, although he performed some wonderful cures upon poor folks, who could not afford to send for the doctor. The Indian village was attacked by the disease, and he went out to them, and restored upward of a hundred of the Indians to perfect health. They took the old lean oxen out of the cart, and drew him back to Montreal in triumph. This 'stablished him at once, and in a few days' time he made a fortune. The very doctors sent for him to cure them; and it is to be hoped that in a few days he will banish the cholera from the city.”

“Do you know his famous remedy?”

“Do I not?—Did he not cure me when I was at the last gasp? Why, he makes no secret of it. It is all drawn from the maple-tree. First he rubs the patient all over with an ointment, made of hog's lard and maple-sugar and ashes, from the maple-tree; and he gives him a hot draught of maple-sugar and ley, which throws him into a violent perspiration. In about an hour the cramps subside; he falls into a quiet sleep, and when he awakes he is perfectly restored to health.” Such were our first tidings of Stephen Ayres, the cholera doctor, who is universally believed to have effected some wonderful cures. He obtained a wide celebrity throughout the colony.(1)

(1) A friend of mine, in this town, has an original portrait of this notable empiric—this man sent from heaven. The face is rather handsome, but has a keen, designing expression, and is evidently that of an American, from its complexion and features.

The day of our arrival in the port of Montreal was spent in packing and preparing for our long journey up the country. At sunset, I went upon deck to enjoy the refreshing breeze that swept from the river. The evening was delightful; the white tents of the soldiers on the Island of St. Helens glittered in the beams of the sun, and the bugle-call, wafted over the waters, sounded so cheery and inspiring, that it banished all fears of the cholera, and, with fear, the heavy gloom that had clouded my mind since we left Quebec. I could once more hold sweet converse with nature, and enjoy the soft loveliness of the rich and harmonious scene.

A loud cry from one of the crew startled me; I turned to the river, and beheld a man struggling in the water a short distance from our vessel. He was a young sailor, who had fallen from the bowsprit of a ship near us.

There is something terribly exciting in beholding a fellow-creature in imminent peril, without having the power to help him. To witness his death-struggles—to feel in your own person all the dreadful alternations of hope and fear—and, finally, to see him die, with scarcely an effort made for his preservation. This was our case.

At the moment he fell into the water, a boat with three men was within a few yards of the spot, and actually sailed over the spot where he sank. Cries of “Shame!” from the crowd collected upon the bank of the river, had no effect in rousing these people to attempt the rescue of a perishing fellow-creature. The boat passed on. The drowning man again rose to the surface, the convulsive motion of his hands and feet visible above the water, but it was evident that the struggle would be his last.

“Is it possible that they will let a human being perish, and so near the shore, when an oar held out would save his life?” was the agonising question at my heart, as I gazed, half-maddened by excitement, on the fearful spectacle. The eyes of a multitude were fixed upon the same object—but not a hand stirred. Every one seemed to expect from his fellow an effort which he was incapable of attempting himself.

At this moment—splash! a sailor plunged into the water from the deck of a neighbouring vessel, and dived after the drowning man. A deep “Thank God!” burst from my heart. I drew a freer breath as the brave fellow's head appeared above the water. He called to the man in the boat to throw him an oar, or the drowning man would be the death of them both. Slowly they put back the boat—the oar was handed; but it came too late! The sailor, whose name was Cook, had been obliged to shake off the hold of the dying man to save his own life. He dived again to the bottom, and succeeded in bringing to shore the body of the unfortunate being he had vainly endeavoured to succour. Shortly after, he came on board our vessel, foaming with passion at the barbarous indifference manifested by the men in the boat.

“Had they given me the oar in time, I could have saved him. I knew him well—he was an excellent fellow, and a good seaman. He has left a wife and three children in Liverpool. Poor Jane!—how can I tell her that I could not save her husband?”

He wept bitterly, and it was impossible for any of us to witness his emotion without joining in his grief.

From the mate I learned that this same young man had saved the lives of three women and a child when the boat was swamped at Grosse Isle, in attempting to land the passengers from the Horsley Hill.

Such acts of heroism are common in the lower walks of life. Thus, the purest gems are often encased in the rudest crust; and the finest feelings of the human heart are fostered in the chilling atmosphere of poverty.

While this sad event occupied all our thoughts, and gave rise to many painful reflections, an exclamation of unqualified delight at once changed the current of our thoughts, and filled us with surprise and pleasure. Maggie Grant had fainted in the arms of her husband.

Yes, there was Tam—her dear, reckless Tam, after all her tears and lamentations, pressing his young wife to his heart, and calling her by a thousand endearing pet names.

He had met with some countrymen at Quebec, had taken too much whiskey on the joyful occasion, and lost his passage in the Anne, but had followed, a few hours later, in another steam-boat; and he assured the now happy Maggie, as he kissed the infant Tam, whom she held up to his admiring gaze, that he never would be guilty of the like again. Perhaps he kept his word; but I much fear that the first temptation would make the lively laddie forget his promise.

Our luggage having been removed to the Custom-house, including our bedding, the captain collected all the ship's flags for our accommodation, of which we formed a tolerably comfortable bed; and if our dreams were of England, could it be otherwise, with her glorious flag wrapped around us, and our heads resting upon the Union Jack?

In the morning we were obliged to visit the city to make the necessary arrangements for our upward journey.

The day was intensely hot. A bank of thunderclouds lowered heavily above the mountain, and the close, dusty streets were silent, and nearly deserted. Here and there might be seen a group of anxious-looking, care-worn, sickly emigrants, seated against a wall among their packages, and sadly ruminating upon their future prospects.

The sullen toll of the death-bell, the exposure of ready-made coffins in the undertakers' windows, and the oft-recurring notice placarded on the walls, of funerals furnished at such and such a place, at cheapest rate and shortest notice, painfully reminded us, at every turning of the street, that death was everywhere—perhaps lurking in our very path; we felt no desire to examine the beauties of the place. With this ominous feeling pervading our minds, public buildings possessed few attractions, and we determined to make our stay as short as possible.

Compared with the infected city, our ship appeared an ark of safety, and we returned to it with joy and confidence, too soon to be destroyed. We had scarcely re-entered our cabin, when tidings were brought to us that the cholera had made its appearance: a brother of the captain had been attacked.

It was advisable that we should leave the vessel immediately, before the intelligence could reach the health-officers. A few minutes sufficed to make the necessary preparations; and in less than half an hour we found ourselves occupying comfortable apartments in Goodenough's hotel, and our passage taken in the stage for the following morning.

The transition was like a dream. The change from the close, rank ship, to large, airy, well-furnished rooms and clean attendants, was a luxury we should have enjoyed had not the dread of cholera involved all things around us in gloom and apprehension. No one spoke upon the subject; and yet it was evident that it was uppermost in the thoughts of all. Several emigrants had died of the terrible disorder during the week, beneath the very roof that sheltered us, and its ravages, we were told, had extended up the country as far as Kingston; so that it was still to be the phantom of our coming journey, if we were fortunate enough to escape from its head-quarters.

At six o'clock the following morning, we took our places in the coach for Lachine, and our fears of the plague greatly diminished as we left the spires of Montreal in the distance. The journey from Montreal westward has been so well described by many gifted pens, that I shall say little about it. The banks of the St. Lawrence are picturesque and beautiful, particularly in those spots where there is a good view of the American side. The neat farm-houses looked to me, whose eyes had been so long accustomed to the watery waste, homes of beauty and happiness; and the splendid orchards, the trees at that season of the year being loaded with ripening fruit of all hues, were refreshing and delicious.

My partiality for the apples was regarded by a fellow-traveller with a species of horror. “Touch them not, if you value your life.” Every draught of fresh air and water inspired me with renewed health and spirits, and I disregarded the well-meant advice; the gentlemen who gave it had just recovered from the terrible disease. He was a middle-aged man, a farmer from the Upper Province, Canadian born. He had visited Montreal on business for the first time. “Well, sir,” he said, in answer to some questions put to him by my husband respecting the disease, “I can tell you what it is: a man smitten with the cholera stares death right in the face; and the torment he is suffering is so great that he would gladly die to get rid of it.”

“You were fortunate, C——, to escape,” said a backwood settler, who occupied the opposite seat; “many a younger man has died of it.”

“Ay; but I believe I never should have taken it had it not been for some things they gave me for supper at the hotel; oysters, they called them, oysters; they were alive! I was once persuaded by a friend to eat them, and I liked them well enough at the time. But I declare to you that I felt them crawling over one another in my stomach all night. The next morning I was seized with the cholera.”

“Did you swallow them whole, C——?” said the former spokesman, who seemed highly tickled by the evil doings of the oysters.

“To be sure. I tell you, the creatures are alive. You put them on your tongue, and I'll be bound you'll be glad to let them slip down as fast as you can.”

“No wonder you had the cholera,” said the backwoodsman, “you deserved it for your barbarity. If I had a good plate of oysters here, I'd teach you the way to eat them.”

Our journey during the first day was performed partly by coach, partly by steam. It was nine o'clock in the evening when we landed at Cornwell, and took coach for Prescott. The country through which we passed appeared beautiful in the clear light of the moon; but the air was cold, and slightly sharpened by frost. This seemed strange to me in the early part of September, but it is very common in Canada. Nine passengers were closely packed into our narrow vehicle, but the sides being of canvas, and the open space allowed for windows unglazed, I shivered with cold, which amounted to a state of suffering, when the day broke, and we approached the little village of Matilda. It was unanimously voted by all hands that we should stop and breakfast at a small inn by the road-side, and warm ourselves before proceeding to Prescott.

The people in the tavern were not stirring, and it was some time before an old white-headed man unclosed the door, and showed us into a room, redolent with fumes of tobacco, and darkened by paper blinds. I asked him if he would allow me to take my infant into a room with a fire.

“I guess it was a pretty considerable cold night for the like of her,” said he. “Come, I'll show you to the kitchen; there's always a fire there.” I cheerfully followed, accompanied by our servant.

Our entrance was unexpected, and by no means agreeable to the persons we found there. A half-clothed, red-haired Irish servant was upon her knees, kindling up the fire; and a long, thin woman, with a sharp face, and an eye like a black snake, was just emerging from a bed in the corner. We soon discovered this apparition to be the mistress of the house.

“The people can't come in here!” she screamed in a shrill voice, darting daggers at the poor old man.

“Sure there's a baby, and the two women critters are perished with cold,” pleaded the good old man.

“What's that to me? They have no business in my kitchen.”

“Now, Almira, do hold on. It's the coach has stopped to breakfast with us; and you know we don't often get the chance.”

All this time the fair Almira was dressing as fast as she could, and eyeing her unwelcome female guests, as we stood shivering over the fire.

“Breakfast!” she muttered, “what can we give them to eat? They pass our door a thousand times without any one alighting; and now, when we are out of everything, they must stop and order breakfast at such an unreasonable hour. How many are there of you?” turning fiercely to me.

“Nine,” I answered, laconically, continuing to chafe the cold hands and feet of the child.

“Nine! That bit of beef will be nothing, cut into steaks for nine. What's to be done, Joe?” (to the old man.)

“Eggs and ham, summat of that dried venison, and pumpkin pie,” responded the aide-de-camp, thoughtfully. “I don't know of any other fixings.”

“Bestir yourself, then, and lay out the table, for the coach can't stay long,” cried the virago, seizing a frying-pan from the wall, and preparing it for the reception of eggs and ham. “I must have the fire to myself. People can't come crowding here, when I have to fix breakfast for nine; particularly when there is a good room elsewhere provided for their accommodation.” I took the hint, and retreated to the parlour, where I found the rest of the passengers walking to and fro, and impatiently awaiting the advent of breakfast.

To do Almira justice, she prepared from her scanty materials a very substantial breakfast in an incredibly short time, for which she charged us a quarter of a dollar per head.

At Prescott we embarked on board a fine new steam-boat, William IV., crowded with Irish emigrants, proceeding to Cobourg and Toronto.

While pacing the deck, my husband was greatly struck by the appearance of a middle-aged man and his wife, who sat apart from the rest, and seemed struggling with intense grief, which, in spite of all their efforts at concealment, was strongly impressed upon their features. Some time after, I fell into conversation with the woman, from whom I learned their little history. The husband was factor to a Scotch gentleman, of large landed property, who had employed him to visit Canada, and report the capabilities of the country, prior to his investing a large sum of money in wild lands. The expenses of their voyage had been paid, and everything up to that morning had prospered them. They had been blessed with a speedy passage, and were greatly pleased with the country and the people; but of what avail was all this? Their only son, a fine lad of fourteen, had died that day of the cholera, and all their hopes for the future were buried in his grave. For his sake they had sought a home in this far land; and here, at the very onset of their new career, the fell disease had taken him from them for ever—here, where, in such a crowd, the poor heart-broken mother could not even indulge her natural grief!

“Ah, for a place where I might greet!” she said; “it would relieve the burning weight at my heart. But with sae many strange eyes glowering upon me, I tak' shame to mysel' to greet.”

“Ah, Jeannie, my puir woman,” said the husband, grasping her hand, “ye maun bear up; 'tis God's will; an sinfu' creatures like us mauna repine. But oh, madam,” turning to me, “we have sair hearts the day!”

Poor bereaved creatures, how deeply I commiserated their grief—how I respected the poor father, in the stern efforts he made to conceal from indifferent spectators the anguish that weighed upon his mind! Tears are the best balm that can be applied to the anguish of the heart. Religion teaches man to bear his sorrows with becoming fortitude, but tears contribute largely both to soften and to heal the wounds from whence they flow.

At Brockville we took in a party of ladies, which somewhat relieved the monotony of the cabin, and I was amused by listening to their lively prattle, and the little gossip with which they strove to wile away the tedium of the voyage. The day was too stormy to go upon deck—thunder and lightening, accompanied with torrents of rain. Amid the confusion of the elements, I tried to get a peep at the Lake of the Thousand Isles; but the driving storm blended all objects into one, and I returned wet and disappointed to my berth. We passed Kingston at midnight, and lost all our lady passengers but two. The gale continued until daybreak, and noise and confusion prevailed all night, which were greatly increased by the uproarious conduct of a wild Irish emigrant, who thought fit to make his bed upon the mat before the cabin door. He sang, he shouted, and harangued his countrymen on the political state of the Emerald Isle, in a style which was loud if not eloquent. Sleep was impossible, whilst his stentorian lungs continued to pour forth torrents of unmeaning sound.

Our Dutch stewardess was highly enraged. His conduct, she said, “was perfectly ondacent.” She opened the door, and bestowing upon him several kicks, bade him get away “out of that,” or she would complain to the captain.

In answer to this remonstrance, he caught her by the foot, and pulled her down. Then waving the tattered remains of his straw hat in the air, he shouted with an air of triumph, “Git out wid you, you ould witch! Shure the ladies, the purty darlints, never sent you wid that ugly message to Pat, who loves them so intirely that he manes to kape watch over them through the blessed night.” Then making us a ludicrous bow, he continued, “Ladies, I'm at yer sarvice; I only wish I could get a dispensation from the Pope, and I'd marry yeas all.” The stewardess bolted the door, and the mad fellow kept up such a racket that we all wished him at the bottom of the Ontario.

The following day was wet and gloomy. The storm had protracted the length of our voyage for several hours, and it was midnight when we landed at Cobourg.

THERE'S REST

(Written at midnight on the river St. Lawrence)

There's rest when eve, with dewy fingers,
Draws the curtains of repose
Round the west, where light still lingers,
And the day's last glory glows;
There's rest in heaven's unclouded blue,
When twinkling stars steal one by one,
So softly on the gazer's view,
As if they sought his glance to shun.
There's rest when o'er the silent meads
The deepening shades of night advance;
And sighing through their fringe of reeds,
The mighty stream's clear waters glance.
There's rest when all above is bright,
And gently o'er these summer isles
The full moon pours her mellow light,
And heaven on earth serenely smiles.
There's rest when angry storms are o'er,
And fear no longer vigil keeps;
When winds are heard to rave no more,
And ocean's troubled spirit sleeps;
There's rest when to the pebbly strand,
The lapsing billows slowly glide;
And, pillow'd on the golden sand,
Breathes soft and low the slumbering tide.
There's rest, deep rest, at this still hour—
A holy calm,—a pause profound;
Whose soothing spell and dreamy power
Lulls into slumber all around.
There's rest for labour's hardy child,
For Nature's tribes of earth and air,—
Whose sacred balm and influence mild,
Save guilt and sorrow, all may share.
There's rest beneath the quiet sod,
When life and all its sorrows cease,
And in the bosom of his God
The Christian finds eternal peace,—
That peace the world cannot bestow,
The rest a Saviour's death-pangs bought,
To bid the weary pilgrim know
A rest surpassing human thought.

CHAPTER IV — TOM WILSON'S EMIGRATION

“Of all odd fellows, this fellow was the oddest. I have seen
many strange fish in my days, but I never met with his equal.”

About a month previous to our emigration to Canada, my husband said to me, “You need not expect me home to dinner to-day; I am going with my friend Wilson to Y——, to hear Mr. C—— lecture upon emigration to Canada. He has just returned from the North American provinces, and his lectures are attended by vast numbers of persons who are anxious to obtain information on the subject. I got a note from your friend B—— this morning, begging me to come over and listen to his palaver; and as Wilson thinks of emigrating in the spring, he will be my walking companion.”

“Tom Wilson going to Canada!” said I, as the door closed on my better-half. “What a backwoodsman he will make! What a loss to the single ladies of S——! What will they do without him at their balls and picnics?”

One of my sisters, who was writing at a table near me, was highly amused at this unexpected announcement. She fell back in her chair and indulged in a long and hearty laugh. I am certain that most of my readers would have joined in her laugh had they known the object which provoked her mirth. “Poor Tom is such a dreamer,” said my sister, “it would be an act of charity in Moodie to persuade him from undertaking such a wild-goose chase; only that I fancy my good brother is possessed with the same mania.”

“Nay, God forbid!” said I. “I hope this Mr. ——, with the unpronounceable name, will disgust them with his eloquence; for B—— writes me word, in his droll way, that he is a coarse, vulgar fellow, and lacks the dignity of a bear. Oh! I am certain they will return quite sickened with the Canadian project.” Thus I laid the flattering unction to my soul, little dreaming that I and mine should share in the strange adventures of this oddest of all odd creatures.

It might be made a subject of curious inquiry to those who delight in human absurdities, if ever there were a character drawn in works of fiction so extravagantly ridiculous as some which daily experience presents to our view. We have encountered people in the broad thoroughfares of life more eccentric than ever we read of in books; people who, if all their foolish sayings and doings were duly recorded, would vie with the drollest creations of Hood, or George Colman, and put to shame the flights of Baron Munchausen. Not that Tom Wilson was a romancer; oh no! He was the very prose of prose, a man in a mist, who seemed afraid of moving about for fear of knocking his head against a tree, and finding a halter suspended to its branches—a man as helpless and as indolent as a baby.

Mr. Thomas, or Tom Wilson, as he was familiarly called by all his friends and acquaintances, was the son of a gentleman, who once possessed a large landed property in the neighbourhood; but an extravagant and profligate expenditure of the income which he derived from a fine estate which had descended from father to son through many generations, had greatly reduced the circumstances of the elder Wilson. Still, his family held a certain rank and standing in their native county, of which his evil courses, bad as they were, could not wholly deprive them. The young people—and a very large family they made of sons and daughters, twelve in number—were objects of interest and commiseration to all who knew them, while the worthless father was justly held in contempt and detestation. Our hero was the youngest of the six sons; and from his childhood he was famous for his nothing-to-doishness. He was too indolent to engage heart and soul in the manly sports of his comrades; and he never thought it necessary to commence learning his lessons until the school had been in an hour. As he grew up to man's estate, he might be seen dawdling about in a black frock-coat, jean trousers, and white kid gloves, making lazy bows to the pretty girls of his acquaintance; or dressed in a green shooting-jacket, with a gun across his shoulder, sauntering down the wooded lanes, with a brown spaniel dodging at his heels, and looking as sleepy and indolent as his master.

The slowness of all Tom's movements was strangely contrasted with his slight, and symmetrical figure; that looked as if it only awaited the will of the owner to be the most active piece of human machinery that ever responded to the impulses of youth and health. But then, his face! What pencil could faithfully delineate features at once so comical and lugubrious—features that one moment expressed the most solemn seriousness, and the next, the most grotesque and absurd abandonment to mirth? In him, all extremes appeared to meet; the man was a contradiction to himself. Tom was a person of few words, and so intensely lazy that it required a strong effort of will to enable him to answer the questions of inquiring friends; and when at length aroused to exercise his colloquial powers, he performed the task in so original a manner that it never failed to upset the gravity of the interrogator. When he raised his large, prominent, leaden-coloured eyes from the ground, and looked the inquirer steadily in the face, the effect was irresistible; the laugh would come—do your best to resist it.

Poor Tom took this mistimed merriment in very good part, generally answering with a ghastly contortion which he meant for a smile, or, if he did trouble himself to find words, with, “Well, that's funny! What makes you laugh? At me, I suppose? I don't wonder at it; I often laugh at myself.”

Tom would have been a treasure to an undertaker. He would have been celebrated as a mute; he looked as if he had been born in a shroud, and rocked in a coffin. The gravity with which he could answer a ridiculous or impertinent question completely disarmed and turned the shafts of malice back upon his opponent. If Tom was himself an object of ridicule to many, he had a way of quietly ridiculing others that bade defiance to all competition. He could quiz with a smile, and put down insolence with an incredulous stare. A grave wink from those dreamy eyes would destroy the veracity of a travelled dandy for ever.

Tom was not without use in his day and generation; queer and awkward as he was, he was the soul of truth and honour. You might suspect his sanity—a matter always doubtful—but his honesty of heart and purpose, never.

When you met Tom in the streets, he was dressed with such neatness and care (to be sure it took him half the day to make his toilet), that it led many persons to imagine that this very ugly young man considered himself an Adonis; and I must confess that I rather inclined to this opinion. He always paced the public streets with a slow, deliberate tread, and with his eyes fixed intently on the ground—like a man who had lost his ideas, and was diligently employed in searching for them. I chanced to meet him one day in this dreamy mood.

“How do you do, Mr. Wilson?” He stared at me for several minutes, as if doubtful of my presence or identity.

“What was that you said?”

I repeated the question; and he answered, with one of his incredulous smiles—

“Was it to me you spoke? Oh, I am quite well, or I should not be walking here. By the way, did you see my dog?”

“How should I know your dog?”

“They say he resembles me. He's a queer dog, too; but I never could find out the likeness. Good night!”

This was at noonday; but Tom had a habit of taking light for darkness, and darkness for light, in all he did or said. He must have had different eyes and ears, and a different way of seeing, hearing, and comprehending, than is possessed by the generality of his species; and to such a length did he carry this abstraction of soul and sense, that he would often leave you abruptly in the middle of a sentence; and if you chanced to meet him some weeks after, he would resume the conversation with the very word at which he had cut short the thread of your discourse.

A lady once told him in jest that her youngest brother, a lad of twelve years old, had called his donkey Braham, in honour of the great singer of that name. Tom made no answer, but started abruptly away. Three months after, she happened to encounter him on the same spot, when he accosted her, without any previous salutation,

“You were telling me about a donkey, Miss ——, a donkey of your brother's—Braham, I think you called him—yes, Braham; a strange name for an ass! I wonder what the great Mr. Braham would say to that. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Your memory must be excellent, Mr. Wilson, to enable you to remember such a trifling circumstance all this time.”

“Trifling, do you call it? Why, I have thought of nothing else ever since.”

From traits such as these my readers will be tempted to imagine him brother to the animal who had dwelt so long in his thoughts; but there were times when he surmounted this strange absence of mind, and could talk and act as sensibly as other folks.

On the death of his father, he emigrated to New South Wales, where he contrived to doze away seven years of his valueless existence, suffering his convict servants to rob him of everything, and finally to burn his dwelling. He returned to his native village, dressed as an Italian mendicant, with a monkey perched upon his shoulder, and playing airs of his own composition upon a hurdy-gurdy. In this disguise he sought the dwelling of an old bachelor uncle, and solicited his charity. But who that had once seen our friend Tom could ever forget him? Nature had no counterpart of one who in mind and form was alike original. The good-natured old soldier, at a glance, discovered his hopeful nephew, received him into his house with kindness, and had afforded him an asylum ever since.

One little anecdote of him at this period will illustrate the quiet love of mischief with which he was imbued. Travelling from W—— to London in the stage-coach (railways were not invented in those days), he entered into conversation with an intelligent farmer who sat next to him; New South Wales, and his residence in that colony, forming the leading topic. A dissenting minister who happened to be his vis-a-vis, and who had annoyed him by making several impertinent remarks, suddenly asked him, with a sneer, how many years he had been there.

“Seven,” returned Tom, in a solemn tone, without deigning a glance at his companion.

“I thought so,” responded the other, thrusting his hands into his breeches pockets. “And pray, sir, what were you sent there for?”

“Stealing pigs,” returned the incorrigible Tom, with the gravity of a judge. The words were scarcely pronounced when the questioner called the coachman to stop, preferring a ride outside in the rain to a seat within with a thief. Tom greatly enjoyed the hoax, which he used to tell with the merriest of all grave faces.

Besides being a devoted admirer of the fair sex, and always imagining himself in love with some unattainable beauty, he had a passionate craze for music, and played upon the violin and flute with considerable taste and execution. The sound of a favourite melody operated upon the breathing automaton like magic, his frozen faculties experienced a sudden thaw, and the stream of life leaped and gambolled for a while with uncontrollable vivacity. He laughed, danced, sang, and made love in a breath, committing a thousand mad vagaries to make you acquainted with his existence.

My husband had a remarkably sweet-toned flute, and this flute Tom regarded with a species of idolatry.

“I break the Tenth Commandment, Moodie, whenever I hear you play upon that flute. Take care of your black wife,” (a name he had bestowed upon the coveted treasure), “or I shall certainly run off with her.”

“I am half afraid of you, Tom. I am sure if I were to die, and leave you my black wife as a legacy, you would be too much overjoyed to lament my death.”

Such was the strange, helpless, whimsical being who now contemplated an emigration to Canada. How he succeeded in the speculation the sequel will show.

It was late in the evening before my husband and his friend Tom Wilson returned from Y——. I had provided a hot supper and a cup of coffee after their long walk, and they did ample justice to my care.

Tom was in unusually high spirits, and appeared wholly bent upon his Canadian expedition.

“Mr. C—— must have been very eloquent, Mr. Wilson,” said I, “to engage your attention for so many hours.”

“Perhaps he was,” returned Tom, after a pause of some minutes, during which he seemed to be groping for words in the salt-cellar, having deliberately turned out its contents upon the tablecloth. “We were hungry after our long walk, and he gave us an excellent dinner.”

“But that had nothing to do with the substance of his lecture.”

“It was the substance, after all,” said Moodie, laughing; “and his audience seemed to think so, by the attention they paid to it during the discussion. But, come, Wilson, give my wife some account of the intellectual part of the entertainment.”

“What! I—I—I—I give an account of the lecture? Why, my dear fellow, I never listened to one word of it!”

“I thought you went to Y—— on purpose to obtain information on the subject of emigration to Canada?”

“Well, and so I did; but when the fellow pulled out his pamphlet, and said that it contained the substance of his lecture, and would only cost a shilling, I thought that it was better to secure the substance than endeavour to catch the shadow—so I bought the book, and spared myself the pain of listening to the oratory of the writer. Mrs. Moodie! he had a shocking delivery, a drawling, vulgar voice; and he spoke with such a nasal twang that I could not bear to look at him, or listen to him. He made such grammatical blunders, that my sides ached with laughing at him. Oh, I wish you could have seen the wretch! But here is the document, written in the same style in which it was spoken. Read it; you have a rich treat in store.”

I took the pamphlet, not a little amused at his description of Mr. C——, for whom I felt an uncharitable dislike.

“And how did you contrive to entertain yourself, Mr. Wilson, during his long address?”

“By thinking how many fools were collected together, to listen to one greater than the rest. By the way, Moodie, did you notice farmer Flitch?”

“No; where did he sit?”

“At the foot of the table. You must have seen him, he was too big to be overlooked. What a delightful squint he had! What a ridiculous likeness there was between him and the roast pig he was carving! I was wondering all dinner-time how that man contrived to cut up that pig; for one eye was fixed upon the ceiling, and the other leering very affectionately at me. It was very droll; was it not?”

“And what do you intend doing with yourself when you arrive in Canada?” said I.

“Find out some large hollow tree, and live like Bruin in winter by sucking my paws. In the summer there will be plenty of mast and acorns to satisfy the wants of an abstemious fellow.”

“But, joking apart, my dear fellow,” said my husband, anxious to induce him to abandon a scheme so hopeless, “do you think that you are at all qualified for a life of toil and hardship?”

“Are you?” returned Tom, raising his large, bushy, black eyebrows to the top of his forehead, and fixing his leaden eyes steadfastly upon his interrogator, with an air of such absurd gravity that we burst into a hearty laugh.

“Now what do you laugh for? I am sure I asked you a very serious question.”

“But your method of putting it is so unusual that you must excuse us for laughing.”

“I don't want you to weep,” said Tom; “but as to our qualifications, Moodie, I think them pretty equal. I know you think otherwise, but I will explain. Let me see; what was I going to say?—ah, I have it! You go with the intention of clearing land, and working for yourself, and doing a great deal. I have tried that before in New South Wales, and I know that it won't answer. Gentlemen can't work like labourers, and if they could, they won't—it is not in them, and that you will find out. You expect, by going to Canada, to make your fortune, or at least secure a comfortable independence. I anticipate no such results; yet I mean to go, partly out of a whim, partly to satisfy my curiosity whether it is a better country than New South Wales; and lastly, in the hope of bettering my condition in a small way, which at present is so bad that it can scarcely be worse. I mean to purchase a farm with the three hundred pounds I received last week from the sale of my father's property; and if the Canadian soil yields only half what Mr. C—— says it does, I need not starve. But the refined habits in which you have been brought up, and your unfortunate literary propensities—(I say unfortunate, because you will seldom meet people in a colony who can or will sympathise with you in these pursuits)—they will make you an object of mistrust and envy to those who cannot appreciate them, and will be a source of constant mortification and disappointment to yourself. Thank God! I have no literary propensities; but in spite of the latter advantage, in all probability I shall make no exertion at all; so that your energy, damped by disgust and disappointment, and my laziness, will end in the same thing, and we shall both return like bad pennies to our native shores. But, as I have neither wife nor child to involve in my failure, I think, without much self-flattery, that my prospects are better than yours.”

This was the longest speech I ever heard Tom utter; and, evidently astonished at himself, he sprang abruptly from the table, overset a cup of coffee into my lap, and wishing us good day (it was eleven o'clock at night), he ran out of the house.

There was more truth in poor Tom's words than at that moment we were willing to allow; for youth and hope were on our side in those days, and we were most ready to believe the suggestions of the latter.

My husband finally determined to emigrate to Canada, and in the hurry and bustle of a sudden preparation to depart, Tom and his affairs for a while were forgotten.

How dark and heavily did that frightful anticipation weigh upon my heart! As the time for our departure drew near, the thought of leaving my friends and native land became so intensely painful that it haunted me even in sleep. I seldom awoke without finding my pillow wet with tears. The glory of May was upon the earth—of an English May. The woods were bursting into leaf, the meadows and hedge-rows were flushed with flowers, and every grove and copsewood echoed to the warblings of birds and the humming of bees. To leave England at all was dreadful—to leave her at such a season was doubly so. I went to take a last look at the old Hall, the beloved home of my childhood and youth; to wander once more beneath the shade of its venerable oaks—to rest once more upon the velvet sward that carpeted their roots. It was while reposing beneath those noble trees that I had first indulged in those delicious dreams which are a foretaste of the enjoyments of the spirit-land. In them the soul breathes forth its aspirations in a language unknown to common minds; and that language is Poetry. Here annually, from year to year, I had renewed my friendship with the first primroses and violets, and listened with the untiring ear of love to the spring roundelay of the blackbird, whistled from among his bower of May blossoms. Here, I had discoursed sweet words to the tinkling brook, and learned from the melody of waters the music of natural sounds. In these beloved solitudes all the holy emotions which stir the human heart in its depths had been freely poured forth, and found a response in the harmonious voice of Nature, bearing aloft the choral song of earth to the throne of the Creator.

How hard it was to tear myself from scenes endeared to me by the most beautiful and sorrowful recollections, let those who have loved and suffered as I did, say. However the world had frowned upon me, Nature, arrayed in her green loveliness, had ever smiled upon me like an indulgent mother, holding out her loving arms to enfold to her bosom her erring but devoted child.

Dear, dear England! why was I forced by a stern necessity to leave you? What heinous crime had I committed, that I, who adored you, should be torn from your sacred bosom, to pine out my joyless existence in a foreign clime? Oh, that I might be permitted to return and die upon your wave-encircled shores, and rest my weary head and heart beneath your daisy-covered sod at last! Ah, these are vain outbursts of feeling—melancholy relapses of the spring home-sickness! Canada! thou art a noble, free, and rising country—the great fostering mother of the orphans of civilisation. The offspring of Britain, thou must be great, and I will and do love thee, land of my adoption, and of my children's birth; and, oh, dearer still to a mother's heart-land of their graves!

* * * * * *

Whilst talking over our coming separation with my sister C——, we observed Tom Wilson walking slowly up the path that led to the house. He was dressed in a new shooting-jacket, with his gun lying carelessly across his shoulder, and an ugly pointer dog following at a little distance.

“Well, Mrs. Moodie, I am off,” said Tom, shaking hands with my sister instead of me. “I suppose I shall see Moodie in London. What do you think of my dog?” patting him affectionately.

“I think him an ugly beast,” said C——. “Do you mean to take him with you?”

“An ugly beast!—Duchess a beast? Why she is a perfect beauty!—Beauty and the beast! Ha, ha, ha! I gave two guineas for her last night.” (I thought of the old adage.) “Mrs. Moodie, your sister is no judge of a dog.”

“Very likely,” returned C——, laughing. “And you go to town to-night, Mr. Wilson? I thought as you came up to the house that you were equipped for shooting.”

“To be sure; there is capital shooting in Canada.”

“So I have heard—plenty of bears and wolves. I suppose you take out your dog and gun in anticipation?”

“True,” said Tom.

“But you surely are not going to take that dog with you?”

“Indeed I am. She is a most valuable brute. The very best venture I could take. My brother Charles has engaged our passage in the same vessel.”

“It would be a pity to part you,” said I. “May you prove as lucky a pair as Whittington and his cat.”

“Whittington! Whittington!” said Tom, staring at my sister, and beginning to dream, which he invariably did in the company of women. “Who was the gentleman?”

“A very old friend of mine, one whom I have known since I was a very little girl,” said my sister; “but I have not time to tell you more about him now. If you so to St. Paul's Churchyard, and inquire for Sir Richard Whittington and his cat, you will get his history for a mere trifle.”

“Do not mind her, Mr. Wilson, she is quizzing you,” quoth I; “I wish you a safe voyage across the Atlantic; I wish I could add a happy meeting with your friends. But where shall we find friends in a strange land?”

“All in good time,” said Tom. “I hope to have the pleasure of meeting you in the backwoods of Canada before three months are over. What adventures we shall have to tell one another! It will be capital. Good-bye.”

* * * * * *

“Tom has sailed,” said Captain Charles Wilson, stepping into my little parlour a few days after his eccentric brother's last visit. “I saw him and Duchess safe on board. Odd as he is, I parted with him with a full heart; I felt as if we never should meet again. Poor Tom! he is the only brother left me now that I can love. Robert and I never agreed very well, and there is little chance of our meeting in this world. He is married, and settled down for life in New South Wales; and the rest—John, Richard, George, are all gone—all!”

“Was Tom in good spirits when you parted?”

“Yes. He is a perfect contradiction. He always laughs and cries in the wrong place. 'Charles,' he said, with a loud laugh, 'tell the girls to get some new music against I return: and, hark ye! if I never come back, I leave them my Kangaroo Waltz as a legacy.'”

“What a strange creature!”

“Strange, indeed; you don't know half his oddities. He has very little money to take out with him, but he actually paid for two berths in the ship, that he might not chance to have a person who snored sleep near him. Thirty pounds thrown away upon the mere chance of a snoring companion! 'Besides, Charles,' quoth he, 'I cannot endure to share my little cabin with others; they will use my towels, and combs, and brushes, like that confounded rascal who slept in the same berth with me coming from New South Wales, who had the impudence to clean his teeth with my toothbrush. Here I shall be all alone, happy and comfortable as a prince, and Duchess shall sleep in the after-berth, and be my queen.' And so we parted,” continued Captain Charles. “May God take care of him, for he never could take care of himself.”

“That puts me in mind of the reason he gave for not going with us. He was afraid that my baby would keep him awake of a night. He hates children, and says that he never will marry on that account.”

* * * * * *

We left the British shores on the 1st of July, and cast anchor, as I have already shown, under the Castle of St. Louis, at Quebec, on the 2nd of September, 1832. Tom Wilson sailed the 1st of May, and had a speedy passage, and was, as we heard from his friends, comfortably settled in the bush, had bought a farm, and meant to commence operations in the fall. All this was good news, and as he was settled near my brother's location, we congratulated ourselves that our eccentric friend had found a home in the wilderness at last, and that we should soon see him again.

On the 9th of September, the steam-boat William IV. landed us at the then small but rising town of ——, on Lake Ontario. The night was dark and rainy; the boat was crowded with emigrants; and when we arrived at the inn, we learnt that there was no room for us—not a bed to be had; nor was it likely, owing to the number of strangers that had arrived for several weeks, that we could obtain one by searching farther. Moodie requested the use of a sofa for me during the night; but even that produced a demur from the landlord. Whilst I awaited the result in a passage, crowded with strange faces, a pair of eyes glanced upon me through the throng. Was it possible?—could it be Tom Wilson? Did any other human being possess such eyes, or use them in such an eccentric manner? In another second he had pushed his way to my side, whispering in my ear, “We met, 'twas in a crowd.”

“Tom Wilson, is that you?”

“Do you doubt it? I flatter myself that there is no likeness of such a handsome fellow to be found in the world. It is I, I swear!—although very little of me is left to swear by. The best part of me I have left to fatten the mosquitoes and black flies in that infernal bush. But where is Moodie?”

“There he is—trying to induce Mr. S——, for love or money, to let me have a bed for the night.”

“You shall have mine,” said Tom. “I can sleep upon the floor of the parlour in a blanket, Indian fashion. It's a bargain—I'll go and settle it with the Yankee directly; he's the best fellow in the world! In the meanwhile here is a little parlour, which is a joint-stock affair between some of us young hopefuls for the time being. Step in here, and I will go for Moodie; I long to tell him what I think of this confounded country. But you will find it out all in good time;” and, rubbing his hands together with a most lively and mischievous expression, he shouldered his way through trunks, and boxes, and anxious faces, to communicate to my husband the arrangement he had so kindly made for us.

“Accept this gentleman's offer, sir, till to-morrow,” said Mr. S——, “I can then make more comfortable arrangements for your family; but we are crowded—crowded to excess. My wife and daughters are obliged to sleep in a little chamber over the stable, to give our guests more room. Hard that, I guess, for decent people to locate over the horses.”

These matters settled, Moodie returned with Tom Wilson to the little parlour, in which I had already made myself at home.

“Well, now, is it not funny that I should be the first to welcome you to Canada?” said Tom.

“But what are you doing here, my dear fellow?”

“Shaking every day with the ague. But I could laugh in spite of my teeth to hear them make such a confounded rattling; you would think they were all quarrelling which should first get out of my mouth. This shaking mania forms one of the chief attractions of this new country.”

“I fear,” said I, remarking how thin and pale he had become, “that this climate cannot agree with you.”

“Nor I with the climate. Well, we shall soon be quits, for, to let you into a secret, I am now on my way to England.”

“Impossible!”

“It is true.”

“And the farm—what have you done with it?”

“Sold it.”

“And your outfit?”

“Sold that too.”

“To whom?”

“To one who will take better care of both than I did. Ah! such a country!—such people!—such rogues! It beats Australia hollow; you know your customers there—but here you have to find them out. Such a take-in!—God forgive them! I never could take care of money; and, one way or other, they have cheated me out of all mine. I have scarcely enough left to pay my passage home. But, to provide against the worst, I have bought a young bear, a splendid fellow, to make my peace with my uncle. You must see him; he is close by in the stable.”

“To-morrow we will pay a visit to Bruin; but tonight do tell us something about yourself, and your residence in the bush.”

“You will know enough about the bush by-and-by. I am a bad historian,” he continued, stretching out his legs and yawning horribly, “a worse biographer. I never can find words to relate facts. But I will try what I can do; mind, don't laugh at my blunders.”

We promised to be serious—no easy matter while looking at and listening to Tom Wilson, and he gave us, at detached intervals, the following account of himself:—

“My troubles began at sea. We had a fair voyage, and all that; but my poor dog, my beautiful Duchess!—that beauty in the beast—died. I wanted to read the funeral service over her, but the captain interfered—the brute!—and threatened to throw me into the sea along with the dead bitch, as the unmannerly ruffian persisted in calling my canine friend. I never spoke to him again during the rest of the voyage. Nothing happened worth relating until I got to this place, where I chanced to meet a friend who knew your brother, and I went up with him to the woods. Most of the wise men of Gotham we met on the road were bound to the woods; so I felt happy that I was, at least, in the fashion. Mr. —— was very kind, and spoke in raptures of the woods, which formed the theme of conversation during our journey—their beauty, their vastness, the comfort and independence enjoyed by those who had settled in them; and he so inspired me with the subject that I did nothing all day but sing as we rode along—

'A life in the woods for me;'

until we came to the woods, and then I soon learned to sing that same, as the Irishman says, on the other side of my mouth.”

Here succeeded a long pause, during which friend Tom seemed mightily tickled with his reminiscences, for he leaned back in his chair, and from time to time gave way to loud, hollow bursts of laughter.

“Tom, Tom! are you going mad?” said my husband, shaking him.

“I never was sane, that I know of,” returned he. “You know that it runs in the family. But do let me have my laugh out. The woods! Ha! ha! When I used to be roaming through those woods, shooting—though not a thing could I ever find to shoot, for birds and beasts are not such fools as our English emigrants—and I chanced to think of you coming to spend the rest of your lives in the woods—I used to stop, and hold my sides, and laugh until the woods rang again. It was the only consolation I had.”

“Good Heavens!” said I, “let us never go to the woods.”

“You will repent if you do,” continued Tom. “But let me proceed on my journey. My bones were well-nigh dislocated before we got to D——. The roads for the last twelve miles were nothing but a succession of mud-holes, covered with the most ingenious invention ever thought of for racking the limbs, called corduroy bridges; not breeches, mind you,—for I thought, whilst jolting up and down over them, that I should arrive at my destination minus that indispensable covering. It was night when we got to Mr. ——'s place. I was tired and hungry, my face disfigured and blistered by the unremitting attentions of the blackflies that rose in swarms from the river. I thought to get a private room to wash and dress in, but there is no such thing as privacy in this country. In the bush, all things are in common; you cannot even get a bed without having to share it with a companion. A bed on the floor in a public sleeping-room! Think of that; a public sleeping-room!—men, women, and children, only divided by a paltry curtain. Oh, ye gods! think of the snoring, squalling, grumbling, puffing; think of the kicking, elbowing, and crowding; the suffocating heat, the mosquitoes, with their infernal buzzing—and you will form some idea of the misery I endured the first night of my arrival in the bush.

“But these are not half the evils with which you have to contend. You are pestered with nocturnal visitants far more disagreeable than even the mosquitoes, and must put up with annoyances more disgusting than the crowded, close room. And then, to appease the cravings of hunger, fat pork is served to you three times a day. No wonder that the Jews eschewed the vile animal; they were people of taste. Pork, morning, noon, and night, swimming in its own grease! The bishop who complained of partridges every day should have been condemned to three months' feeding upon pork in the bush; and he would have become an anchorite, to escape the horrid sight of swine's flesh for ever spread before him. No wonder I am thin; I have been starved—starved upon pritters and port, and that disgusting specimen of unleavened bread, yclept cakes in the pan.

“I had such a horror of the pork diet, that whenever I saw the dinner in progress I fled to the canoe, in the hope of drowning upon the waters all reminiscences of the hateful banquet; but even here the very fowls of the air and the reptiles of the deep lifted up their voices, and shouted, 'Pork, pork, pork!'”

M—— remonstrated with his friend for deserting the country for such minor evils as these, which, after all, he said, could easily be borne.

“Easily borne!” exclaimed the indignant Wilson. “Go and try them; and then tell me that. I did try to bear them with a good grace, but it would not do. I offended everybody with my grumbling. I was constantly reminded by the ladies of the house that gentlemen should not come to this country without they were able to put up with a little inconvenience; that I should make as good a settler as a butterfly in a beehive; that it was impossible to be nice about food and dress in the Bush; that people must learn to eat what they could get, and be content to be shabby and dirty, like their neighbours in the Bush,—until that horrid word Bushbecame synonymous with all that was hateful and revolting in my mind.

“It was impossible to keep anything to myself. The children pulled my books to pieces to look at the pictures; and an impudent, bare-legged Irish servant-girl took my towels to wipe the dishes with, and my clothes-brush to black the shoes—an operation which she performed with a mixture of soot and grease. I thought I should be better off in a place of my own, so I bought a wild farm that was recommended to me, and paid for it double what it was worth. When I came to examine my estate, I found there was no house upon it, and I should have to wait until the fall to get one put up, and a few acres cleared for cultivation. I was glad to return to my old quarters.

“Finding nothing to shoot in the woods, I determined to amuse myself with fishing; but Mr. —— could not always lend his canoe, and there was no other to be had. To pass away the time, I set about making one. I bought an axe, and went to the forest to select a tree. About a mile from the lake, I found the largest pine I ever saw. I did not much like to try my maiden hand upon it, for it was the first and the last tree I ever cut down. But to it I went; and I blessed God that it reached the ground without killing me in its way thither. When I was about it, I thought I might as well make the canoe big enough; but the bulk of the tree deceived me in the length of my vessel, and I forgot to measure the one that belonged to Mr. ——. It took me six weeks hollowing it out, and when it was finished, it was as long as a sloop-of-war, and too unwieldy for all the oxen in the township to draw it to the water. After all my labour, my combats with those wood-demons the black-flies, sand-flies, and mosquitoes, my boat remains a useless monument of my industry. And worse than this, the fatigue I had endured while working at it late and early, brought on the ague; which so disgusted me with the country that I sold my farm and all my traps for an old song; purchased Bruin to bear me company on my voyage home; and the moment I am able to get rid of this tormenting fever, I am off.”

Argument and remonstrance were alike in vain, he could not be dissuaded from his purpose. Tom was as obstinate as his bear.

The next morning he conducted us to the stable to see Bruin. The young denizen of the forest was tied to the manger, quietly masticating a cob of Indian corn, which he held in his paw, and looked half human as he sat upon his haunches, regarding us with a solemn, melancholy air. There was an extraordinary likeness, quite ludicrous, between Tom and the bear. We said nothing, but exchanged glances. Tom read our thoughts.

“Yes,” said he, “there is a strong resemblance; I saw it when I bought him. Perhaps we are brothers;” and taking in his hand the chain that held the bear, he bestowed upon him sundry fraternal caresses, which the ungrateful Bruin returned with low and savage growls.

“He can't flatter. He's all truth and sincerity. A child of nature, and worthy to be my friend; the only Canadian I ever mean to acknowledge as such.”

About an hour after this, poor Tom was shaking with ague, which in a few days reduced him so low that I began to think he never would see his native shores again. He bore the affliction very philosophically, and all his well days he spent with us.

One day my husband was absent, having accompanied Mr. S—— to inspect a farm, which he afterwards purchased, and I had to get through the long day at the inn in the best manner I could. The local papers were soon exhausted. At that period they possessed little or no interest for me. I was astonished and disgusted at the abusive manner in which they were written, the freedom of the press being enjoyed to an extent in this province unknown in more civilised communities.

Men, in Canada, may call one another rogues and miscreants, in the most approved Billingsgate, through the medium of the newspapers, which are a sort of safety-valve to let off all the bad feelings and malignant passions floating through the country, without any dread of the horsewhip. Hence it is the commonest thing in the world to hear one editor abusing, like a pickpocket, an opposition brother; calling him a reptile—a crawling thing—a calumniator—a hired vendor of lies; and his paper a smut-machine—a vile engine of corruption, as base and degraded as the proprietor, &c. Of this description was the paper I now held in my hand, which had the impudence to style itself the Reformer—not of morals or manners, certainly, if one might judge by the vulgar abuse that defiled every page of the precious document. I soon flung it from me, thinking it worthy of the fate of many a better production in the olden times, that of being burned by the common hangman; but, happily, the office of hangman has become obsolete in Canada, and the editors of these refined journals may go on abusing their betters with impunity.

Books I had none, and I wished that Tom would make his appearance, and amuse me with his oddities; but he had suffered so much from the ague the day before that when he did enter the room to lead me to dinner, he looked like a walking corpse—the dead among the living! so dark, so livid, so melancholy, it was really painful to look upon him.

“I hope the ladies who frequent the ordinary won't fall in love with me,” said he, grinning at himself in the miserable looking-glass that formed the case of the Yankee clock, and was ostentatiously displayed on a side table; “I look quite killing to-day. What a comfort it is, Mrs. M——, to be above all rivalry.”

In the middle of dinner, the company was disturbed by the entrance of a person who had the appearance of a gentleman, but who was evidently much flustered with drinking. He thrust his chair in between two gentlemen who sat near the head of the table, and in a loud voice demanded fish.

“Fish, sir?” said the obsequious waiter, a great favourite with all persons who frequented the hotel; “there is no fish, sir. There was a fine salmon, sir, had you come sooner; but 'tis all eaten, sir.”

“Then fetch me some.”

“I'll see what I can do, sir,” said the obliging Tim, hurrying out.

Tom Wilson was at the head of the table, carving a roast pig, and was in the act of helping a lady, when the rude fellow thrust his fork into the pig, calling out as he did so—

“Hold, sir! give me some of that pig! You have eaten among you all the fish, and now you are going to appropriate the best parts of the pig.”

Tom raised his eyebrows, and stared at the stranger in his peculiar manner, then very coolly placed the whole of the pig on his plate. “I have heard,” he said, “of dog eating dog, but I never before saw pig eating pig.”

“Sir! do you mean to insult me?” cried the stranger, his face crimsoning with anger.

“Only to tell you, sir, that you are no gentleman. Here, Tim,” turning to the waiter, “go to the stable and bring in my bear; we will place him at the table to teach this man how to behave himself in the presence of ladies.”

A general uproar ensued; the women left the table, while the entrance of the bear threw the gentlemen present into convulsions of laughter. It was too much for the human biped; he was forced to leave the room, and succumb to the bear.

My husband concluded his purchase of the farm, and invited Wilson to go with us into the country and try if change of air would be beneficial to him; for in his then weak state it was impossible for him to return to England. His funds were getting very low, and Tom thankfully accepted the offer. Leaving Bruin in the charge of Tim (who delighted in the oddities of the strange English gentleman), Tom made one of our party to ——.

THE LAMENT OF A CANADIAN EMIGRANT

Though distant, in spirit still present to me,
My best thoughts, my country, still linger with thee;
My fond heart beats quick, and my dim eyes run o'er,
When I muse on the last glance I gave to thy shore.
The chill mists of night round thy white cliffs were curl'd,
But I felt there was no spot like thee in the world—
No home to which memory so fondly would turn,
No thought that within me so madly would burn.
But one stood beside me whose presence repress'd
The deep pang of sorrow that troubled my breast;
And the babe on my bosom so calmly reclining,
Check'd the tears as they rose, and all useless repining.
Hard indeed was the struggle, from thee forced to roam;
But for their sakes I quitted both country and home.
Bless'd Isle of the Free! I must view thee no more;
My fortunes are cast on this far-distant shore;
In the depths of dark forests my soul droops her wings;
In tall boughs above me no merry bird sings;
The sigh of the wild winds—the rush of the floods—
Is the only sad music that wakens the woods.
In dreams, lovely England! my spirit still hails
Thy soft waving woodlands, thy green, daisied vales.
When my heart shall grow cold to the mother that bore me,
When my soul, dearest Nature! shall cease to adore thee,
And beauty and virtue no longer impart
Delight to my bosom, and warmth to my heart,
Then the love I have cherish'd, my country, for thee,
In the breast of thy daughter extinguish'd shall be.

CHAPTER V — OUR FIRST SETTLEMENT, AND THE BORROWING SYSTEM

To lend, or not to lend—is that the question?

“Those who go a-borrowing, go a-sorrowing,” saith the old adage; and a wiser saw never came out of the mouth of experience. I have tested the truth of this proverb since my settlement in Canada, many, many times, to my cost; and what emigrant has not? So averse have I ever been to this practice, that I would at all times rather quietly submit to a temporary inconvenience than obtain anything I wanted in this manner. I verily believe that a demon of mischief presides over borrowed goods, and takes a wicked pleasure in playing off a thousand malicious pranks upon you the moment he enters your dwelling. Plates and dishes, that had been the pride and ornament of their own cupboard for years, no sooner enter upon foreign service than they are broken; wine-glasses and tumblers, that have been handled by a hundred careless wenches in safety, scarcely pass into the hands of your servants when they are sure to tumble upon the floor, and the accident turns out a compound fracture. If you borrow a garment of any kind, be sure that you will tear it; a watch, that you will break it; a jewel, that you will lose it; a book, that it will be stolen from you. There is no end to the trouble and vexation arising out of this evil habit. If you borrow a horse, and he has the reputation of being the best-behaved animal in the district, you no sooner become responsible for his conduct than he loses his character. The moment that you attempt to drive him, he shows that he has a will of his own, by taking the reins into his own management, and running away in a contrary direction to the road that you wished him to travel. He never gives over his eccentric capers until he has broken his own knees, and the borrowed carriage and harness. So anxious are you about his safety, that you have not a moment to bestow upon your own. And why?—the beast is borrowed, and you are expected to return him in as good condition as he came to you.

But of all evils, to borrow money is perhaps the worst. If of a friend, he ceases to be one the moment you feel that you are bound to him by the heavy clog of obligation. If of a usurer, the interest, in this country, soon doubles the original sum, and you owe an increasing debt, which in time swallows up all you possess.

When we first came to the colony, nothing surprised me more than the extent to which this pernicious custom was carried, both by the native Canadians, the European settlers, and the lower order of Americans. Many of the latter had spied out the goodness of the land, and borrowed various portions of it, without so much as asking leave of the absentee owners. Unfortunately, our new home was surrounded by these odious squatters, whom we found as ignorant as savages, without their courtesy and kindness.

The place we first occupied was purchased of Mr. B——, a merchant, who took it in payment of sundry large debts which the owner, a New England loyalist, had been unable to settle. Old Joe R——, the present occupant, had promised to quit it with his family, at the commencement of sleighing; and as the bargain was concluded in the month of September, and we were anxious to plough for fall wheat, it was necessary to be upon the spot. No house was to be found in the immediate neighbourhood, save a small dilapidated log tenement, on an adjoining farm (which was scarcely reclaimed from the bush) that had been some months without an owner. The merchant assured is that this could be made very comfortable until such time as it suited R—— to remove, and the owner was willing to let us have it for the moderate sum of four dollars a month.

Trusting to Mr. B——'s word, and being strangers in the land, we never took the precaution to examine this delightful summer residence before entering upon it, but thought ourselves very fortunate in obtaining a temporary home so near our own property, the distance not exceeding half a mile. The agreement was drawn up, and we were told that we could take possession whenever it suited us.

The few weeks that I had sojourned in the country had by no means prepossessed me in its favour. The home-sickness was sore upon me, and all my solitary hours were spent in tears. My whole soul yielded itself up to a strong and overpowering grief. One simple word dwelt for ever in my heart, and swelled it to bursting—“Home!” I repeated it waking a thousand times a day, and my last prayer before I sank to sleep was still “Home! Oh, that I could return, if only to die at home!” And nightly I did return; my feet again trod the daisied meadows of England; the song of her birds was in my ears; I wept with delight to find myself once more wandering beneath the fragrant shade of her green hedge-rows; and I awoke to weep in earnest when I found it but a dream. But this is all digression, and has nothing to do with our unseen dwelling. The reader must bear with me in my fits of melancholy, and take me as I am.

It was the 22nd September that we left the Steam-boat Hotel, to take possession of our new abode. During the three weeks we had sojourned at ——, I had not seen a drop of rain, and I began to think that the fine weather would last for ever; but this eventful day arose in clouds. Moodie had hired a covered carriage to convey the baby, the servant-maid, and myself to the farm, as our driver prognosticated a wet day; while he followed with Tom Wilson and the teams that conveyed our luggage.

The scenery through which we were passing was so new to me, so unlike anything that I had ever beheld before, that in spite of its monotonous character, it won me from my melancholy, and I began to look about me with considerable interest. Not so my English servant, who declared that the woods were frightful to look upon; that it was a country only fit for wild beasts; that she hated it with all her heart and soul, and would go back as soon as she was able.

About a mile from the place of our destination the rain began to fall in torrents, and the air, which had been balmy as a spring morning, turned as chilly as that of a November day. Hannah shivered; the baby cried, and I drew my summer shawl as closely round as possible, to protect her from the sudden change in our hitherto delightful temperature. Just then, the carriage turned into a narrow, steep path, overhung with lofty woods, and after labouring up it with considerable difficulty, and at the risk of breaking our necks, it brought us at length to a rocky upland clearing, partially covered with a second growth of timber, and surrounded on all sides by the dark forest.

“I guess,” quoth our Yankee driver, “that at the bottom of this 'ere swell, you'll find yourself to hum;” and plunging into a short path cut through the wood, he pointed to a miserable hut, at the bottom of a steep descent, and cracking his whip, exclaimed, “'Tis a smart location that. I wish you Britishers may enjoy it.”

I gazed upon the place in perfect dismay, for I had never seen such a shed called a house before. “You must be mistaken; that is not a house, but a cattle-shed, or pig-sty.”

The man turned his knowing, keen eye upon me, and smiled, half-humorously, half-maliciously, as he said—

“You were raised in the old country, I guess; you have much to learn, and more, perhaps, than you'll like to know, before the winter is over.”

I was perfectly bewildered—I could only stare at the place, with my eyes swimming in tears; but as the horses plunged down into the broken hollow, my attention was drawn from my new residence to the perils which endangered life and limb at every step. The driver, however, was well used to such roads, and, steering us dexterously between the black stumps, at length drove up, not to the door, for there was none to the house, but to the open space from which that absent but very necessary appendage had been removed. Three young steers and two heifers, which the driver proceeded to drive out, were quietly reposing upon the floor. A few strokes of his whip, and a loud burst of gratuitous curses, soon effected an ejectment; and I dismounted, and took possession of this untenable tenement. Moodie was not yet in sight with the teams. I begged the man to stay until he arrived, as I felt terrified at being left alone in this wild, strange-looking place. He laughed, as well he might, at our fears, and said that he had a long way to go, and must be off; then, cracking his whip, and nodding to the girl, who was crying aloud, he went his way, and Hannah and myself were left standing in the middle of the dirty floor.

The prospect was indeed dreary. Without, pouring rain; within, a fireless hearth; a room with but one window, and that containing only one whole pane of glass; not an article of furniture to be seen, save an old painted pine-wood cradle, which had been left there by some freak of fortune. This, turned upon its side, served us for a seat, and there we impatiently awaited the arrival of Moodie, Wilson, and a man whom the former had hired that morning to assist on the farm. Where they were all to be stowed might have puzzled a more sagacious brain than mine. It is true there was a loft, but I could see no way of reaching it, for ladder there was none, so we amused ourselves, while waiting for the coming of our party, by abusing the place, the country, and our own dear selves for our folly in coming to it.

Now, when not only reconciled to Canada, but loving it, and feeling a deep interest in its present welfare, and the fair prospect of its future greatness, I often look back and laugh at the feelings with which I then regarded this noble country.

When things come to the worst, they generally mend. The males of our party no sooner arrived than they set about making things more comfortable. James, our servant, pulled up some of the decayed stumps, with which the small clearing that surrounded the shanty was thickly covered, and made a fire, and Hannah roused herself from the stupor of despair, and seized the corn-broom from the top of the loaded waggon, and began to sweep the house, raising such an intolerable cloud of dust that I was glad to throw my cloak over my head, and run out of doors, to avoid suffocation. Then commenced the awful bustle of unloading the two heavily-loaded waggons. The small space within the house was soon entirely blocked up with trunks and packages of all descriptions. There was scarcely room to move, without stumbling over some article of household stuff.

The rain poured in at the open door, beat in at the shattered window, and dropped upon our heads from the holes in the roof. The wind blew keenly through a thousand apertures in the log walls; and nothing could exceed the uncomfortableness of our situation. For a long time the box which contained a hammer and nails was not to be found. At length Hannah discovered it, tied up with some bedding which she was opening out in order to dry. I fortunately spied the door lying among some old boards at the back of the house, and Moodie immediately commenced fitting it to its place. This, once accomplished, was a great addition to our comfort. We then nailed a piece of white cloth entirely over the broken window, which, without diminishing the light, kept out the rain. James constructed a ladder out of the old bits of boards, and Tom Wilson assisted him in stowing the luggage away in the loft.

But what has this picture of misery and discomfort to do with borrowing? Patience, my dear, good friends; I will tell you all about it by-and-by.

While we were all busily employed—even the poor baby, who was lying upon a pillow in the old cradle, trying the strength of her lungs, and not a little irritated that no one was at leisure to regard her laudable endeavours to make herself heard—the door was suddenly pushed open, and the apparition of a woman squeezed itself into the crowded room. I left off arranging the furniture of a bed, that had been just put up in a corner, to meet my unexpected, and at that moment, not very welcome guest. Her whole appearance was so extraordinary that I felt quite at a loss how to address her.

Imagine a girl of seventeen or eighteen years of age, with sharp, knowing-looking features, a forward, impudent carriage, and a pert, flippant voice, standing upon one of the trunks, and surveying all our proceedings in the most impertinent manner. The creature was dressed in a ragged, dirty purple stuff gown, cut very low in the neck, with an old red cotton handkerchief tied over her head; her uncombed, tangled locks falling over her thin, inquisitive face, in a state of perfect nature. Her legs and feet were bare, and, in her coarse, dirty red hands, she swung to and fro an empty glass decanter.

“What can she want?” I asked myself. “What a strange creature!”

And there she stood, staring at me in the most unceremonious manner, her keen black eyes glancing obliquely to every corner of the room, which she examined with critical exactness.

Before I could speak to her, she commenced the conversation by drawling through her nose, “Well, I guess you are fixing here.”

I thought she had come to offer her services; and I told her that I did not want a girl, for I had brought one out with me.

“How!” responded the creature, “I hope you don't take me for a help. I'd have you to know that I'm as good a lady as yourself. No; I just stepped over to see what was going on. I seed the teams pass our'n about noon, and I says to father, 'Them strangers are cum; I'll go and look arter them.' 'Yes,' says he, 'do—and take the decanter along. May be they'll want one to put their whiskey in.' 'I'm goin to,' says I; so I cum across with it, an' here it is. But, mind—don't break it—'tis the only one we have to hum; and father says 'tis so mean to drink out of green glass.”

My surprise increased every minute. It seemed such an act of disinterested generosity thus to anticipate wants we had never thought of. I was regularly taken in.

“My good girl,” I began, “this is really very kind—but—”

“Now, don't go to call me 'gall'—and pass off your English airs on us. We are genuine Yankees, and think ourselves as good—yes, a great deal better than you. I am a young lady.”

“Indeed!” said I, striving to repress my astonishment. “I am a stranger in the country, and my acquaintance with Canadian ladies and gentlemen is very small. I did not mean to offend you by using the term girl; I was going to assure you that we had no need of the decanter. We have bottles of our own—and we don't drink whiskey.”

“How! Not drink whiskey? Why, you don't say! How ignorant you must be! may be they have no whiskey in the old country?”

“Yes, we have; but it is not like the Canadian whiskey. But, pray take the decanter home again—I am afraid that it will get broken in this confusion.”

“No, no; father told me to leave it—and there it is;” and she planted it resolutely down on the trunk. “You will find a use for it till you have unpacked your own.”

Seeing that she was determined to leave the bottle, I said no more about it, but asked her to tell me where the well was to be found.

“The well!” she repeated after me, with a sneer. “Who thinks of digging wells when they can get plenty of water from the creek? There is a fine water privilege not a stone's-throw from the door,” and, jumping off the box, she disappeared as abruptly as she had entered. We all looked at each other; Tom Wilson was highly amused, and laughed until he held his sides.

“What tempted her to bring this empty bottle here?” said Moodie. “It is all an excuse; the visit, Tom, was meant for you.”

“You'll know more about it in a few days,” said James, looking up from his work. “That bottle is not brought here for nought.”

I could not unravel the mystery, and thought no more about it, until it was again brought to my recollection by the damsel herself.

Our united efforts had effected a complete transformation in our uncouth dwelling. Sleeping-berths had been partitioned off for the men; shelves had been put up for the accommodation of books and crockery, a carpet covered the floor, and the chairs and tables we had brought from —— gave an air of comfort to the place, which, on the first view of it, I deemed impossible. My husband, Mr. Wilson, and James, had walked over to inspect the farm, and I was sitting at the table at work, the baby creeping upon the floor, and Hannah preparing dinner. The sun shone warm and bright, and the open door admitted a current of fresh air, which tempered the heat of the fire.

“Well, I guess you look smart,” said the Yankee damsel, presenting herself once more before me. “You old country folks are so stiff, you must have every thing nice, or you fret. But, then, you can easily do it; you have stacks of money; and you can fix everything right off with money.”

“Pray take a seat,” and I offered her a chair, “and be kind enough to tell me your name. I suppose you must live in the neighbourhood, although I cannot perceive any dwelling near us.”

“My name! So you want to know my name. I arn't ashamed of my own; 'tis Emily S——. I am eldest daughter to the gentleman who owns this house.”

“What must the father be,” thought I, “if he resembles the young lady, his daughter?”

Imagine a young lady, dressed in ragged petticoats, through whose yawning rents peeped forth, from time to time, her bare red knees, with uncombed elf-locks, and a face and hands that looked as if they had been unwashed for a month—who did not know A from B, and despised those who did. While these reflections, combined with a thousand ludicrous images, were flitting through my mind, my strange visitor suddenly exclaimed—

“Have you done with that 'ere decanter I brought across yesterday?”

“Oh, yes! I have no occasion for it.” I rose, took it from the shelf, and placed it in her hand.

“I guess you won't return it empty; that would be mean, father says. He wants it filled with whiskey.”

The mystery was solved, the riddle made clear. I could contain my gravity no longer, but burst into a hearty fit of laughter, in which I was joined by Hannah. Our young lady was mortally offended; she tossed the decanter from hand to hand, and glared at us with her tiger-like eyes.

“You think yourselves smart! Why do you laugh in that way?”

“Excuse me—but you have such an odd way of borrowing that I cannot help it. This bottle, it seems, was brought over for your own convenience, not for mine. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have no whiskey.”

“I guess spirits will do as well; I know there is some in that keg, for I smells it.”

“It contains rum for the workmen.”

“Better still. I calculate when you've been here a few months, you'll be too knowing to give rum to your helps. But old country folks are all fools, and that's the reason they get so easily sucked in, and be so soon wound-up. Cum, fill the bottle, and don't be stingy. In this country we all live by borrowing. If you want anything, why just send and borrow from us.”

Thinking that this might be the custom of the country, I hastened to fill the decanter, hoping that I might get a little new milk for the poor weanling child in return; but when I asked my liberal visitor if she kept cows, and would lend me a little new milk for the baby, she burst out into high disdain. “Milk! Lend milk? I guess milk in the fall is worth a York shilling a quart. I cannot sell you a drop under.”

This was a wicked piece of extortion, as the same article in the town, where, of course, it was in greater request, only brought three-pence the quart.

“If you'll pay me for it, I'll bring you some to-morrow. But mind—cash down.”

“And when do you mean to return the rum?” I said, with some asperity.

“When father goes to the creek.” This was the name given by my neighbours to the village of P——, distant about four miles.

Day after day I was tormented by this importunate creature; she borrowed of me tea, sugar, candles, starch, blueing, irons, pots, bowls—in short, every article in common domestic use—while it was with the utmost difficulty we could get them returned. Articles of food, such as tea and sugar, or of convenience, like candles, starch, and soap, she never dreamed of being required at her hands. This method of living upon their neighbours is a most convenient one to unprincipled people, as it does not involve the penalty of stealing; and they can keep the goods without the unpleasant necessity of returning them, or feeling the moral obligation of being grateful for their use. Living eight miles from ——, I found these constant encroachments a heavy burden on our poor purse; and being ignorant of the country, and residing in such a lonely, out-of-the-way place, surrounded by these savages, I was really afraid of denying their requests.

The very day our new plough came home, the father of this bright damsel, who went by the familiar and unenviable title of Old Satan, came over to borrow it (though we afterwards found out that he had a good one of his own). The land had never been broken up, and was full of rocks and stumps, and he was anxious to save his own from injury; the consequence was that the borrowed implement came home unfit for use, just at the very time that we wanted to plough for fall wheat. The same happened to a spade and trowel, bought in order to plaster the house. Satan asked the loan of them for one hour for the same purpose, and we never saw them again.

The daughter came one morning, as usual, on one of these swindling expeditions, and demanded of me the loan of some fine slack. Not knowing what she meant by fine slack, and weary of her importunities, I said I had none. She went away in a rage. Shortly after she came again for some pepper. I was at work, and my work-box was open upon the table, well stored with threads and spools of all descriptions. Miss Satan cast her hawk's eye into it, and burst out in her usual rude manner—

“I guess you told me a tarnation big lie the other day.”

Unaccustomed to such language, I rose from my seat, and pointing to the door, told her to walk out, as I did not choose to be insulted in my own house.

“Your house! I'm sure it's father's,” returned the incorrigible wretch. “You told me that you had no fine slack, and you have stacks of it.”

“What is fine slack?” said I, very pettishly.

“The stuff that's wound upon these 'ere pieces of wood,” pouncing as she spoke upon one of my most serviceable spools.

“I cannot give you that; I want it myself.”

“I didn't ask you to give it. I only wants to borrow it till father goes to the creek.”

“I wish he would make haste, then, as I want a number of things which you have borrowed of me, and which I cannot longer do without.”

She gave me a knowing look, and carried off my spool in triumph.

I happened to mention the manner in which I was constantly annoyed by these people, to a worthy English farmer who resided near us; and he fell a-laughing, and told me that I did not know the Canadian Yankees as well as he did, or I should not be troubled with them long.

“The best way,” says he, “to get rid of them, is to ask them sharply what they want; and if they give you no satisfactory answer, order them to leave the house; but I believe I can put you in a better way still. Buy some small article of them, and pay them a trifle over the price, and tell them to bring the change. I will lay my life upon it that it will be long before they trouble you again.”

I was impatient to test the efficacy of his scheme That very afternoon Miss Satan brought me a plate of butter for sale. The price was three and ninepence; twice the sum, by-the-bye, that it was worth.

“I have no change,” giving her a dollar; “but you can bring it me to-morrow.”

Oh, blessed experiment! for the value of one quarter dollar I got rid of this dishonest girl for ever; rather than pay me, she never entered the house again.

About a month after this, I was busy making an apple-pie in the kitchen. A cadaverous-looking woman, very long-faced and witch-like, popped her ill-looking visage into the door, and drawled through her nose—

“Do you want to buy a rooster?”

Now, the sucking-pigs with which we had been regaled every day for three weeks at the tavern, were called roasters; and not understanding the familiar phrases of the country, I thought she had a sucking-pig to sell.

“Is it a good one?”

“I guess 'tis.”

“What do you ask for it?”

“Two Yorkers.”

“That is very cheap, if it is any weight. I don't like them under ten or twelve pounds.”

“Ten or twelve pounds! Why, woman, what do you mean? Would you expect a rooster to be bigger nor a turkey?”

We stared at each other. There was evidently some misconception on my part.

“Bring the roaster up; and if I like it, I will buy it, though I must confess that I am not very fond of roast pig.”

“Do you call this a pig?” said my she-merchant, drawing a fine game-cock from under her cloak.

I laughed heartily at my mistake, as I paid her down the money for the bonny bird. This little matter settled, I thought she would take her departure; but that rooster proved the dearest fowl to me that ever was bought.

“Do you keep backy and snuff here?” says she, sideling close up to me.

“We make no use of those articles.”

“How! Not use backy and snuff? That's oncommon.”

She paused, then added in a mysterious, confidential tone—

“I want to ask you how your tea-caddy stands?”

“It stands in the cupboard,” said I, wondering what all this might mean.

“I know that; but have you any tea to spare?”

I now began to suspect what sort of a customer the stranger was.

“Oh, you want to borrow some? I have none to spare.”

“You don't say so. Well now, that's stingy. I never asked anything of you before. I am poor, and you are rich; besides, I'm troubled so with the headache, and nothing does me any good but a cup of strong tea.”

“The money I have just given you will buy a quarter of a pound of the best.”

“I guess that isn't mine. The fowl belonged to my neighbour. She's sick; and I promised to sell it for her to buy some physic. Money!” she added, in a coaxing tone, “Where should I get money? Lord bless you! people in this country have no money; and those who come out with piles of it, soon lose it. But Emily S—— told me that you are tarnation rich, and draw your money from the old country. So I guess you can well afford to lend a neighbour a spoonful of tea.”

“Neighbour! Where do you live, and what is your name?”

“My name is Betty Fye—old Betty Fye; I live in the log shanty over the creek, at the back of your'n. The farm belongs to my eldest son. I'm a widow with twelve sons; and 'tis —— hard to scratch along.”

“Do you swear?”

“Swear! What harm? It eases one's mind when one's vexed. Everybody swears in this country. My boys all swear like Sam Hill; and I used to swear mighty big oaths till about a month ago, when the Methody parson told me that if I did not leave it off I should go to a tarnation bad place; so I dropped some of the worst of them.”

“You would do wisely to drop the rest; women never swear in my country.”

“Well, you don't say! I always heer'd they were very ignorant. Will you lend me the tea?”

The woman was such an original that I gave her what she wanted. As she was going off, she took up one of the apples I was peeling.

“I guess you have a fine orchard?”

“They say the best in the district.”

“We have no orchard to hum, and I guess you'll want sarce.”

“Sarce! What is sarce?”

“Not know what sarce is? You are clever! Sarce is apples cut up and dried, to make into pies in the winter. Now do you comprehend?”

I nodded.

“Well, I was going to say that I have no apples, and that you have a tarnation big few of them; and if you'll give me twenty bushels of your best apples, and find me with half a pound of coarse thread to string them upon, I will make you a barrel of sarce on shares—that is, give you one, and keep one for myself.”

I had plenty of apples, and I gladly accepted her offer, and Mrs. Betty Fye departed, elated with the success of her expedition.

I found to my cost, that, once admitted into the house, there was no keeping her away. She borrowed everything that she could think of, without once dreaming of restitution. I tried all ways of affronting her, but without success. Winter came, and she was still at her old pranks. Whenever I saw her coming down the lane, I used involuntarily to exclaim, “Betty Fye! Betty Fye! Fye upon Betty Fye! The Lord deliver me from Betty Fye!” The last time I was honoured with a visit from this worthy, she meant to favour me with a very large order upon my goods and chattels.

“Well, Mrs. Fye, what do you want to-day?”

“So many things that I scarce know where to begin. Ah, what a thing 'tis to be poor! First, I want you to lend me ten pounds of flour to make some Johnnie cakes.”

“I thought they were made of Indian meal?”

“Yes, yes, when you've got the meal. I'm out of it, and this is a new fixing of my own invention. Lend me the flour, woman, and I'll bring you one of the cakes to taste.”

This was said very coaxingly.

“Oh, pray don't trouble yourself. What next?” I was anxious to see how far her impudence would go, and determined to affront her if possible.

“I want you to lend me a gown, and a pair of stockings. I have to go to Oswego to see my husband's sister, and I'd like to look decent.”

“Mrs. Fye, I never lend my clothes to any one. If I lent them to you, I should never wear them again.”

“So much the better for me,” (with a knowing grin). “I guess if you won't lend me the gown, you will let me have some black slack to quilt a stuff petticoat, a quarter of a pound of tea and some sugar; and I will bring them back as soon as I can.”

“I wonder when that will be. You owe me so many things that it will cost you more than you imagine to repay me.”

“Sure you're not going to mention what's past, I can't owe you much. But I will let you off the tea and the sugar, if you will lend me a five-dollar bill.” This was too much for my patience longer to endure, and I answered sharply—

“Mrs. Fye, it surprises me that such proud people as you Americans should condescend to the meanness of borrowing from those whom you affect to despise. Besides, as you never repay us for what you pretend to borrow, I look upon it as a system of robbery. If strangers unfortunately settle among you, their good-nature is taxed to supply your domestic wants, at a ruinous expense, besides the mortification of finding that they have been deceived and tricked out of their property. If you would come honestly to me and say, 'I want these things, I am too poor to buy them myself, and would be obliged to you to give them to me,' I should then acknowledge you as a common beggar, and treat you accordingly; give or not give, as it suited my convenience. But in the way in which you obtain these articles from me, you are spared even a debt of gratitude; for you well know that the many things which you have borrowed from me will be a debt owing to the Day of Judgment.”

“S'pose they are,” quoth Betty, not in the least abashed at my lecture on honesty, “you know what the Scripture saith, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”

“Ay, there is an answer to that in the same book, which doubtless you may have heard,” said I, disgusted with her hypocrisy, “'The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again.'”

Never shall I forget the furious passion into which this too apt quotation threw my unprincipled applicant. She lifted up her voice and cursed me, using some of the big oaths temporarily discarded for conscience sake. And so she left me, and I never looked upon her face again.

When I removed to our own house, the history of which, and its former owner, I will give by-and-by, we had a bony, red-headed, ruffianly American squatter, who had “left his country for his country's good,” for an opposite neighbour. I had scarcely time to put my house in order before his family commenced borrowing, or stealing from me. It is even worse than stealing, the things procured from you being obtained on false pretences—adding lying to theft. Not having either an oven or a cooking stove, which at that period were not so cheap or so common as they are now, I had provided myself with a large bake-kettle as a substitute. In this kettle we always cooked hot cakes for breakfast, preferring that to the trouble of thawing the frozen bread. This man's wife was in the habit of sending over for my kettle whenever she wanted to bake, which, as she had a large family, happened nearly every day, and I found her importunity a great nuisance.

I told the impudent lad so, who was generally sent for it; and asked him what they did to bake their bread before I came.

“I guess we had to eat cakes in the pan; but now we can borrow this kettle of your'n, mother can fix bread.”

I told him that he could have the kettle this time; but I must decline letting his mother have it in future, for I wanted it for the same purpose.

The next day passed over. The night was intensely cold, and I did not rise so early as usual in the morning. My servant was away at a quilting bee, and we were still in bed, when I heard the latch of the kitchen-door lifted up, and a step crossed the floor. I jumped out of bed, and began to dress as fast as I could, when Philander called out, in his well-known nasal twang—

“Missus! I'm come for the kettle.”

I (through the partition ): “You can't have it this morning. We cannot get our breakfast without it.”

Philander: “Nor more can the old woman to hum,” and, snatching up the kettle, which had been left to warm on the hearth, he rushed out of the house, singing, at the top of his voice—

“Hurrah for the Yankee Boys!”

When James came home for his breakfast, I sent him across to demand the kettle, and the dame very coolly told him that when she had done with it I might have it, but she defied him to take it out of her house with her bread in it.

One word more about this lad, Philander, before we part with him. Without the least intimation that his company would be agreeable, or even tolerated, he favoured us with it at all hours of the day, opening the door and walking in and out whenever he felt inclined. I had given him many broad hints that his presence was not required, but he paid not the slightest attention to what I said. One morning he marched in with his hat on, and threw himself down in the rocking-chair, just as I was going to dress my baby.

“Philander, I want to attend to the child; I cannot do it with you here. Will you oblige me by going into the kitchen?”

No answer. He seldom spoke during these visits, but wandered about the room, turning over our books and papers, looking at and handling everything. Nay, I have even known him to take a lid off from the pot on the fire, to examine its contents.

I repeated my request.

Philander: “Well, I guess I shan't hurt the young 'un. You can dress her.”

I: “But not with you here.”

Philander: “Why not? We never do anything that we are ashamed of.”

I: “So it seems. But I want to sweep the room—you had better get out of the dust.”

I took the broom from the corner, and began to sweep; still my visitor did not stir. The dust rose in clouds; he rubbed his eyes, and moved a little nearer to the door. Another sweep, and, to escape its inflictions, he mounted the threshold. I had him now at a fair advantage, and fairly swept him out, and shut the door in his face.

Philander (looking through the window ): “Well, I guess you did me then; but 'tis deuced hard to outwit a Yankee.”

This freed me from his company, and he, too, never repeated his visit; so I found by experience, that once smartly rebuked, they did not like to try their strength with you a second time.

When a sufficient time had elapsed for the drying of my twenty bushels of apples, I sent a Cornish lad, in our employ, to Betty Fye's, to inquire if they were ready, and when I should send the cart for them.

Dan returned with a yellow, smoke-dried string of pieces, dangling from his arm. Thinking that these were a specimen of the whole, I inquired when we were to send the barrel for the rest.

“Lord, ma'am, this is all there be.”

“Impossible! All out of twenty bushels of apples!”

“Yes,” said the boy, with a grin. “The old witch told me that this was all that was left of your share; that when they were fixed enough, she put them under her bed for safety, and the mice and the children had eaten them all up but this string.”

This ended my dealings with Betty Fye.

I had another incorrigible borrower in the person of old Betty B——. This Betty was unlike the rest of my Yankee borrowers; she was handsome in her person, and remarkably civil, and she asked for the loan of everything in such a frank, pleasant manner, that for some time I hardly knew how to refuse her. After I had been a loser to a considerable extent, and declined lending her any more, she refrained from coming to the house herself, but sent in her name the most beautiful boy in the world; a perfect cherub, with regular features, blue, smiling eyes, rosy cheeks, and lovely curling auburn hair, who said, in the softest tones imaginable, that mammy had sent him, with her compliments, to the English lady to ask the loan of a little sugar or tea. I could easily have refused the mother, but I could not find it in my heart to say nay to her sweet boy.

There was something original about Betty B——, and I must give a slight sketch of her.

She lived in a lone shanty in the woods, which had been erected by lumberers some years before, and which was destitute of a single acre of clearing; yet Betty had plenty of potatoes, without the trouble of planting, or the expense of buying; she never kept a cow, yet she sold butter and milk; but she had a fashion, and it proved a convenient one to her, of making pets of the cattle of her neighbours. If our cows strayed from their pastures, they were always found near Betty's shanty, for she regularly supplied them with salt, which formed a sort of bond of union between them; and, in return for these little attentions, they suffered themselves to be milked before they returned to their respective owners. Her mode of obtaining eggs and fowls was on the same economical plan, and we all looked upon Betty as a sort of freebooter, living upon the property of others. She had had three husbands, and he with whom she now lived was not her husband, although the father of the splendid child whose beauty so won upon my woman's heart. Her first husband was still living (a thing by no means uncommon among persons of her class in Canada), and though they had quarrelled and parted years ago, he occasionally visited his wife to see her eldest daughter, Betty the younger, who was his child. She was now a fine girl of sixteen, as beautiful as her little brother. Betty's second husband had been killed in one of our fields by a tree falling upon him while ploughing under it. He was buried upon the spot, part of the blackened stump forming his monument. In truth, Betty's character was none of the best, and many of the respectable farmers' wives regarded her with a jealous eye.

“I am so jealous of that nasty Betty B——,” said the wife of an Irish captain in the army, and our near neighbour, to me, one day as we were sitting at work together. She was a West Indian, and a negro by the mother's side, but an uncommonly fine-looking mulatto, very passionate, and very watchful over the conduct of her husband. “Are you not afraid of letting Captain Moodie go near her shanty?”

“No, indeed; and if I were so foolish as to be jealous, it would not be of old Betty, but of the beautiful young Betty, her daughter.” Perhaps this was rather mischievous on my part, for the poor dark lady went off in a frantic fit of jealousy, but this time it was not of old Betty.

Another American squatter was always sending over to borrow a small-tooth comb, which she called a vermin destroyer; and once the same person asked the loan of a towel, as a friend had come from the States to visit her, and the only one she had, had been made into a best “pinny” for the child; she likewise begged a sight in the looking-glass, as she wanted to try on a new cap, to see if it were fixed to her mind. This woman must have been a mirror of neatness when compared with her dirty neighbours.

One night I was roused up from my bed for the loan of a pair of “steelyards.” For what purpose think you, gentle reader? To weigh a new-born infant. The process was performed by tying the poor squalling thing up in a small shawl, and suspending it to one of the hooks. The child was a fine boy, and weighed ten pounds, greatly to the delight of the Yankee father.

One of the drollest instances of borrowing I have ever heard of was told me by a friend. A maid-servant asked her mistress to go out on a particular afternoon, as she was going to have a party of her friends, and wanted the loan of the drawing-room.

It would be endless to enumerate our losses in this way; but, fortunately for us, the arrival of an English family in our immediate vicinity drew off the attention of our neighbours in that direction, and left us time to recover a little from their persecutions.

This system of borrowing is not wholly confined to the poor and ignorant; it pervades every class of society. If a party is given in any of the small villages, a boy is sent round from house to house, to collect all the plates and dishes, knives and forks, teaspoons and candlesticks, that are presentable, for the use of the company.

During my stay at the hotel, I took a dress out of my trunk, and hung it up upon a peg in my chamber, in order to remove the creases it had received from close packing. Returning from a walk in the afternoon, I found a note upon my dressing table, inviting us to spend the evening with a clergyman's family in the village; and as it was nearly time to dress, I went to the peg to take down my gown. Was it a dream?—the gown was gone. I re-opened the trunk, to see if I had replaced it; I searched every corner of the room, but all in vain; nowhere could I discover the thing I sought. What had become of it? The question was a delicate one, which I did not like to put to the young ladies of the truly respectable establishment; still, the loss was great, and at that moment very inconvenient. While I was deliberating on what course to pursue, Miss S—— entered the room.

“I guess you missed your dress,” she said, with a smile.

“Do you know where it is?”

“Oh, sure. Miss L——, the dressmaker, came in just after you left. She is a very particular friend of mine, and I showed her your dress. She admired it above all things, and borrowed it, to get the pattern for Miss R——'s wedding dress. She promised to return it to-morrow.”

“Provoking! I wanted it to-night. Who ever heard of borrowing a person's dress without the leave of the owner? Truly, this is a free-and-easy country!”

One very severe winter night, a neighbour borrowed of me a blanket—it was one of my best—for the use of a stranger who was passing the night at her house. I could not well refuse; but at that time, the world pressed me sore, and I could ill spare it. Two years elapsed, and I saw no more of my blanket; at length I sent a note to the lady, requesting it to be returned. I got a very short answer back, and the blanket, alas! worn threadbare; the borrower stating that she had sent the article, but really she did not know what to do without it, as she wanted it to cover the children's bed. She certainly forgot that I, too, had children, who wanted covering as well as her own. But I have said so much of the ill results of others' borrowing, that I will close this sketch by relating my own experience in this way.

After removing to the bush, many misfortunes befel us, which deprived us of our income, and reduced us to great poverty. In fact we were strangers, and the knowing ones took us in; and for many years we struggled with hardships which would have broken stouter hearts than ours, had not our trust been placed in the Almighty, who among all our troubles never wholly deserted us.

While my husband was absent on the frontier during the rebellion, my youngest boy fell very sick, and required my utmost care, both by night and day. To attend to him properly, a candle burning during the night was necessary. The last candle was burnt out; I had no money to buy another, and no fat from which I could make one. I hated borrowing; but, for the dear child's sake, I overcame my scruples, and succeeded in procuring a candle from a good neighbour, but with strict injunctions (for it was her last), that I must return it if I did not require it during the night.

I went home quite grateful with my prize. It was a clear moonlight night—the dear boy was better, so I told old Jenny, my Irish servant, to go to bed, as I would lie down in my clothes by the child, and if he were worse I would get up and light the candle. It happened that a pane of glass was broken out of the window frame, and I had supplied its place by fitting in a shingle; my friend Emilia S—— had a large Tom-cat, who, when his mistress was absent, often paid me a predatory or borrowing visit; and Tom had a practice of pushing in this wooden pane, in order to pursue his lawless depredations. I had forgotten all this, and never dreaming that Tom would appropriate such light food, I left the candle lying in the middle of the table, just under the window.

Between sleeping and waking, I heard the pane gently pushed in. The thought instantly struck me that it was Tom, and that, for lack of something better, he might steal my precious candle.

I sprang up from the bed, just in time to see him dart through the broken window, dragging the long white candle after him. I flew to the door, and pursued him half over the field, but all to no purpose. I can see him now, as I saw him then, scampering away for dear life, with his prize trailing behind him, gleaming like a silver tail in the bright light of the moon.

Ah! never did I feel more acutely the truth of the proverb, “Those that go a-borrowing go a-sorrowing,” than I did that night. My poor boy awoke ill and feverish, and I had no light to assist him, or even to look into his sweet face, to see how far I dared hope that the light of day would find him better.

OH CANADA! THY GLOOMY WOODS

A song

Oh Canada! thy gloomy woods
Will never cheer the heart;
The murmur of thy mighty floods
But cause fresh tears to start
From those whose fondest wishes rest
Beyond the distant main;
Who, 'mid the forests of the West,
Sigh for their homes again.
I, too, have felt the chilling blight
Their shadows cast on me,
My thought by day—my dream by night—
Was of my own country.
But independent souls will brave
All hardships to be free;
No more I weep to cross the wave,
My native land to see.
But ever as a thought most bless'd,
Her distant shores will rise,
In all their spring-tide beauty dress'd.
To cheer my mental eyes.
And treasured in my inmost heart,
The friends I left behind;
But reason's voice, that bade us part,
Now bids me be resign'd.
I see my children round me play,
My husband's smiles approve;
I dash regretful tears away,
And lift my thoughts above:
In humble gratitude to bless
The Almighty hand that spread
Our table in the wilderness,
And gave my infants bread.

CHAPTER VI — OLD SATAN AND TOM WILSON'S NOSE

“A nose, kind sir! Sure mother Nature,
With all her freaks, ne'er formed this feature.
If such were mine, I'd try and trade it,
And swear the gods had never made it.”

After reducing the log cabin into some sort of order, we contrived, with the aid of a few boards, to make a bed-closet for poor Tom Wilson, who continued to shake every day with the pitiless ague. There was no way of admitting light and air into this domicile, which opened into the general apartment, but through a square hole cut in one of the planks, just wide enough to admit a man's head through the aperture. Here we made Tom a comfortable bed on the floor, and did the best we could to nurse him through his sickness. His long, thin face, emaciated with disease, and surrounded by huge black whiskers, and a beard of a week's growth, looked perfectly unearthly. He had only to stare at the baby to frighten her almost out of her wits.

“How fond that young one is of me,” he would say; “she cries for joy at the sight of me.”

Among his curiosities, and he had many, he held in great esteem a huge nose, made hollow to fit his face, which his father, a being almost as eccentric as himself, had carved out of boxwood. When he slipped this nose over his own (which was no beautiful classical specimen of a nasal organ), it made a most perfect and hideous disguise. The mother who bore him never would have recognised her accomplished son.

Numberless were the tricks he played off with this nose. Once he walked through the streets of ——, with this proboscis attached to his face. “What a nose! Look at the man with the nose!” cried all the boys in the street. A party of Irish emigrants passed at the moment. The men, with the courtesy natural to their nation, forbore to laugh in the gentleman's face; but after they had passed, Tom looked back, and saw them bent half double in convulsions of mirth. Tom made the party a low bow, gravely took off his nose, and put it in his pocket.

The day after this frolic, he had a very severe fit of the ague, and looked so ill that I really entertained fears for his life. The hot fit had just left him, and he lay upon his bed bedewed with a cold perspiration, in a state of complete exhaustion.

“Poor Tom,” said I, “he has passed a horrible day, but the worst is over, and I will make him a cup of coffee.” While preparing it, Old Satan came in and began to talk to my husband. He happened to sit directly opposite the aperture which gave light and air to Tom's berth. This man was disgustingly ugly. He had lost one eye in a quarrel. It had been gouged out in the barbarous conflict, and the side of his face presented a succession of horrible scars inflicted by the teeth of his savage adversary. The nickname he had acquired through the country sufficiently testified to the respectability of his character, and dreadful tales were told of him in the neighbourhood, where he was alike feared and hated.

The rude fellow, with his accustomed insolence, began abusing the old country folks.

The English were great bullies, he said; they thought no one could fight but themselves; but the Yankees had whipped them, and would whip them again. He was not afear'd of them, he never was afear'd in his life.

Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when a horrible apparition presented itself to his view. Slowly rising from his bed, and putting on the fictitious nose, while he drew his white nightcap over his ghastly and livid brow, Tom thrust his face through the aperture, and uttered a diabolical cry; then sank down upon his unseen couch as noiselessly as he had arisen. The cry was like nothing human, and it was echoed by an involuntary scream from the lips of our maid-servant and myself.

“Good God! what's that?” cried Satan, falling back in his chair, and pointing to the vacant aperture. “Did you hear it? did you see it? It beats the universe. I never saw a ghost or the devil before!”

Moodie, who had recognised the ghost, and greatly enjoyed the fun, pretended profound ignorance, and coolly insinuated that Old Satan had lost his senses. The man was bewildered; he stared at the vacant aperture, then at us in turn, as if he doubted the accuracy of his own vision. “'Tis tarnation odd,” he said; “but the women heard it too.”

“I heard a sound,” I said, “a dreadful sound, but I saw no ghost.”

“Sure an' 'twas himsel',” said my lowland Scotch girl, who now perceived the joke; “he was a-seeken' to gie us puir bodies a wee fricht.”

“How long have you been subject to these sort of fits?” said I. “You had better speak to the doctor about them. Such fancies, if they are not attended to, often end in madness.”

“Mad!” (very indignantly) “I guess I'm not mad, but as wide awake as you are. Did I not see it with my own eyes? And then the noise—I could not make such a tarnation outcry to save my life. But be it man or devil, I don't care, I'm not afear'd,” doubling his fist very undecidedly at the hole. Again the ghastly head was protruded—the dreadful eyes rolled wildly in their hollow sockets, and a yell more appalling than the former rang through the room. The man sprang from his chair, which he overturned in his fright, and stood for an instant with his one-eyeball starting from his head, and glaring upon the spectre; his cheeks deadly pale; the cold perspiration streaming from his face; his lips dissevered, and his teeth chattering in his head.

“There—there—there. Look—look, it comes again!—the devil!—the devil!”

Here Tom, who still kept his eyes fixed upon his victim, gave a knowing wink, and thrust his tongue out of his mouth.

“He is coming!—he is coming!” cried the affrighted wretch; and clearing the open doorway with one leap, he fled across the field at full speed. The stream intercepted his path—he passed it at a bound, plunged into the forest, and was out of sight.

“Ha, ha, ha!” chuckled poor Tom, sinking down exhausted on his bed. “Oh that I had strength to follow up my advantage, I would lead Old Satan such a chase that he should think his namesake was in truth behind him.”

During the six weeks that we inhabited that wretched cabin, we never were troubled by Old Satan again.

As Tom slowly recovered, and began to regain his appetite, his soul sickened over the salt beef and pork, which, owing to our distance from ——, formed our principal fare. He positively refused to touch the sad bread, as my Yankee neighbours very appropriately termed the unleavened cakes in the pan; and it was no easy matter to send a man on horseback eight miles to fetch a loaf of bread.

“Do, my dear Mrs. Moodie, like a good Christian as you are, give me a morsel of the baby's biscuit, and try and make us some decent bread. The stuff your servant gives us is uneatable,” said Wilson to me, in most imploring accents.

“Most willingly. But I have no yeast; and I never baked in one of those strange kettles in my life.”

“I'll go to old Joe's wife and borrow some,” said he; “they are always borrowing of you.” Away he went across the field, but soon returned. I looked into his jug—it was empty. “No luck,” said he; “those stingy wretches had just baked a fine batch of bread, and they would neither lend nor sell a loaf; but they told me how to make their milk-emptyings.”

“Well, discuss the same;” but I much doubted if he could remember the recipe.

“You are to take an old tin pan,” said he, sitting down on the stool, and poking the fire with a stick.

“Must it be an old one?” said I, laughing.

“Of course; they said so.”

“And what am I to put into it?”

“Patience; let me begin at the beginning. Some flour and some milk—but, by George! I've forgot all about it. I was wondering as I came across the field why they called the yeast milk-emptyings, and that put the way to make it quite out of my head. But never mind; it is only ten o'clock by my watch. I having nothing to do; I will go again.”

He went. Would I had been there to hear the colloquy between him and Mrs. Joe; he described it something to this effect:—

Mrs. Joe: “Well, stranger, what do you want now?”

Tom: “I have forgotten the way you told me how to make the bread.”

Mrs. Joe: “I never told you how to make bread. I guess you are a fool. People have to raise bread before they can bake it. Pray who sent you to make game of me? I guess somebody as wise as yourself.”

Tom: “The lady at whose house I am staying.”

Mrs. Joe: “Lady! I can tell you that we have no ladies here. So the old woman who lives in the old log shanty in the hollow don't know how to make bread. A clever wife that! Are you her husband?” (Tom shakes his head.)—“Her brother?”—(Another shake.)—“Her son? Do you hear? or are you deaf?” (Going quite close up to him.)

Tom (moving back): “Mistress, I'm not deaf; and who or what I am is nothing to you. Will you oblige me by telling me how to make the mill-emptyings; and this time I'll put it down in my pocket-book.”

Mrs. Joe (with a strong sneer): “Mill-emptyings! Milk, I told you. So you expect me to answer your questions, and give back nothing in return. Get you gone; I'll tell you no more about it.”

Tom (bowing very low): “Thank you for your civility. Is the old woman who lives in the little shanty near the apple-trees more obliging?”

Mrs. Joe: “That's my husband's mother. You may try. I guess she'll give you an answer.” (Exit, slamming the door in his face.)

“And what did you do then ?” said I.

“Oh, went of course. The door was open, and I reconnoitred the premises before I ventured in. I liked the phiz of the old woman a deal better than that of her daughter-in-law, although it was cunning and inquisitive, and as sharp as a needle. She was busy shelling cobs of Indian corn into a barrel. I rapped at the door. She told me to come in, and in I stepped. She asked me if I wanted her. I told her my errand, at which she laughed heartily.”

Old woman: “You are from the old country, I guess, or you would know how to make milk-emptyings. Now, I always prefer bran-emptyings. They make the best bread. The milk, I opine, gives it a sourish taste, and the bran is the least trouble.”

Tom: “Then let us have the bran, by all means. How do you make it?”

Old woman: “I put a double handful of bran into a small pot, or kettle, but a jug will do, and a teaspoonful of salt; but mind you don't kill it with salt, for if you do, it won't rise. I then add as much warm water, at blood-heat, as will mix it into a stiff batter. I then put the jug into a pan of warm water, and set it on the hearth near the fire, and keep it at the same heat until it rises, which it generally will do, if you attend to it, in two or three hours' time. When the bran cracks at the top, and you see white bubbles rising through it, you may strain it into your flour, and lay your bread. It makes good bread.”

Tom: “My good woman, I am greatly obliged to you. We have no bran; can you give me a small quantity?”

Old woman: “I never give anything. You Englishers, who come out with stacks of money, can afford to buy.”

Tom: “Sell me a small quantity.”

Old woman: “I guess I will.” (Edging quite close, and fixing her sharp eyes on him.) “You must be very rich to buy bran.”

Tom (quizzically): “Oh, very rich.”

Old woman: “How do you get your money?”

Tom (sarcastically): “I don't steal it.”

Old woman: “Pr'aps not. I guess you'll soon let others do that for you, if you don't take care. Are the people you live with related to you?”

Tom (hardly able to keep his gravity): “On Eve's side. They are my friends.”

Old woman (in surprise): “And do they keep you for nothing, or do you work for your meat?”

Tom (impatiently): “Is that bran ready?” (The old woman goes to the binn, and measures out a quart of bran.) “What am I to pay you?”

Old woman: “A York shilling.”

Tom (wishing to test her honesty): “Is there any difference between a York shilling and a shilling of British currency?”

Old woman (evasively): “I guess not. Is there not a place in England called York?” (Looking up and leering knowingly in his face.)

Tom (laughing): “You are not going to come York over me in that way, or Yankee either. There is threepence for your pound of bran; you are enormously paid.”

Old woman (calling after him): “But the recipe; do you allow nothing for the recipe?”

Tom: “It is included in the price of the bran.”

“And so,” said he, “I came laughing away, rejoicing in my sleeve that I had disappointed the avaricious old cheat.”

The next thing to be done was to set the bran rising. By the help of Tom's recipe, it was duly mixed in the coffee-pot, and placed within a tin pan, full of hot water, by the side of the fire. I have often heard it said that a watched pot never boils; and there certainly was no lack of watchers in this case. Tom sat for hours regarding it with his large heavy eyes, the maid inspected it from time to time, and scarce ten minutes were suffered to elapse without my testing the heat of the water, and the state of the emptyings; but the day slipped slowly away, and night drew on, and yet the watched pot gave no signs of vitality. Tom sighed deeply when we sat down to tea with the old fare.

“Never mind,” said he, “we shall get some good bread in the morning; it must get up by that time. I will wait till then. I could almost starve before I could touch these leaden cakes.”

The tea-things were removed. Tom took up his flute, and commenced a series of the wildest voluntary airs that ever were breathed forth by human lungs. Mad jigs, to which the gravest of mankind might have cut eccentric capers. We were all convulsed with laughter. In the midst of one of these droll movements, Tom suddenly hopped like a kangaroo (which feat he performed by raising himself upon tip-toes, then flinging himself forward with a stooping jerk), towards the hearth, and squinting down into the coffee-pot in the most quizzical manner, exclaimed, “Miserable chaff! If that does not make you rise nothing will.”

I left the bran all night by the fire. Early in the morning I had the satisfaction of finding that it had risen high above the rim of the pot, and was surrounded by a fine crown of bubbles.

“Better late than never,” thought I, as I emptied the emptyings into my flour. “Tom is not up yet. I will make him so happy with a loaf of new bread, nice home-baked bread, for his breakfast.” It was my first Canadian loaf. I felt quite proud of it, as I placed it in the odd machine in which it was to be baked. I did not understand the method of baking in these ovens; or that my bread should have remained in the kettle for half an hour, until it had risen the second time, before I applied the fire to it, in order that the bread should be light. It not only required experience to know when it was in a fit state for baking, but the oven should have been brought to a proper temperature to receive the bread. Ignorant of all this, I put my unrisen bread into a cold kettle, and heaped a large quantity of hot ashes above and below it. The first intimation I had of the result of my experiment was the disagreeable odour of burning bread filling the house.

“What is this horrid smell?” cried Tom, issuing from his domicile, in his shirt sleeves. “Do open the door, Bell (to the maid); I feel quite sick.”

“It is the bread,” said I, taking the lid of the oven with the tongs. “Dear me, it is all burnt!”

“And smells as sour as vinegar,” says he. “The black bread of Sparta!”

Alas! for my maiden loaf! With a rueful face I placed it on the breakfast table. “I hoped to have given you a treat, but I fear you will find it worse than the cakes in the pan.”

“You may be sure of that,” said Tom, as he stuck his knife into the loaf, and drew it forth covered with raw dough. “Oh, Mrs. Moodie! I hope you make better books than bread.”

We were all sadly disappointed. The others submitted to my failure good-naturedly, and made it the subject of many droll, but not unkindly, witicisms. For myself, I could have borne the severest infliction from the pen of the most formidable critic with more fortitude than I bore the cutting up of my first loaf of bread.

After breakfast, Moodie and Wilson rode into the town; and when they returned at night brought several long letters for me. Ah! those first kind letters from home! Never shall I forget the rapture with which I grasped them—the eager, trembling haste with which I tore them open, while the blinding tears which filled my eyes hindered me for some minutes from reading a word which they contained. Sixteen years have slowly passed away—it appears half a century—but never, never can home letters give me the intense joy those letters did. After seven years' exile, the hope of return grows feeble, the means are still less in our power, and our friends give up all hope of our return; their letters grow fewer and colder, their expressions of attachment are less vivid; the heart has formed new ties, and the poor emigrant is nearly forgotten. Double those years, and it is as if the grave had closed over you, and the hearts that once knew and loved you know you no more.

Tom, too, had a large packet of letters, which he read with great glee. After re-perusing them, he declared his intention of setting off on his return home the next day. We tried to persuade him to stay until the following spring, and make a fair trial of the country. Arguments were thrown away upon him; the next morning our eccentric friend was ready to start.

“Good-bye!” quoth he, shaking me by the hand as if he meant to sever it from the wrist. “When next we meet it will be in New South Wales, and I hope by that time you will know how to make better bread.” And thus ended Tom Wilson's emigration to Canada. He brought out three hundred pounds, British currency; he remained in the country just four months, and returned to England with barely enough to pay his passage home.

THE BACKWOODSMAN

Son of the isles! rave not to me
Of the old world's pride and luxury;
Why did you cross the western deep,
Thus like a love-lorn maid to weep
O'er comforts gone and pleasures fled,
'Mid forests wild to earn your bread?
Did you expect that Art would vie
With Nature here, to please the eye;
That stately tower, and fancy cot,
Would grace each rude concession lot;
That, independent of your hearth,
Men would admit your claims to birth?
No tyrant's fetter binds the soul,
The mind of man's above control;
Necessity, that makes the slave,
Has taught the free a course more brave;
With bold, determined heart to dare
The ills that all are born to share.
Believe me, youth, the truly great
Stoop not to mourn o'er fallen state;
They make their wants and wishes less,
And rise superior to distress;
The glebe they break—the sheaf they bind—
But elevates a noble mind.
Contented in my rugged cot,
Your lordly towers I envy not;
Though rude our clime and coarse our cheer,
True independence greets you here;
Amid these forests, dark and wild,
Dwells honest labour's hardy child.
His happy lot I gladly share,
And breathe a purer, freer air;
No more by wealthy upstart spurn'd,
The bread is sweet by labour earn'd;
Indulgent heaven has bless'd the soil,
And plenty crowns the woodman's toil.
Beneath his axe, the forest yields
Its thorny maze to fertile fields;
This goodly breadth of well-till'd land,
Well-purchased by his own right hand,
With conscience clear, he can bequeath
His children, when he sleeps in death.

CHAPTER VII — UNCLE JOE AND HIS FAMILY

“Ay, your rogue is a laughing rogue, and not a whit the less
dangerous for the smile on his lip, which comes not from an
honest heart, which reflects the light of the soul through
the eye. All is hollow and dark within; and the contortion
of the lip, like the phosophoric glow upon decayed timber,
only serves to point out the rotteness within.”

Uncle Joe! I see him now before me, with his jolly red face, twinkling black eyes, and rubicund nose. No thin, weasel-faced Yankee was he, looking as if he had lived upon 'cute ideas and speculations all his life; yet Yankee he was by birth, ay, and in mind, too; for a more knowing fellow at a bargain never crossed the lakes to abuse British institutions and locate himself comfortably among despised Britishers. But, then, he had such a good-natured, fat face, such a mischievous, mirth-loving smile, and such a merry, roguish expression in those small, jet-black, glittering eyes, that you suffered yourself to be taken in by him, without offering the least resistance to his impositions.

Uncle Joe's father had been a New England loyalist, and his doubtful attachment to the British government had been repaid by a grant of land in the township of H——. He was the first settler in that township, and chose his location in a remote spot, for the sake of a beautiful natural spring, which bubbled up in a small stone basin in the green bank at the back of the house.

“Father might have had the pick of the township,” quoth Uncle Joe; “but the old coon preferred that sup of good water to the site of a town. Well, I guess it's seldom I trouble the spring; and whenever I step that way to water the horses, I think what a tarnation fool the old one was, to throw away such a chance of making his fortune, for such cold lap.”

“Your father was a temperance man?”

“Temperance!—He had been fond enough of the whiskey bottle in his day. He drank up a good farm in the United States, and then he thought he could not do better than turn loyal, and get one here for nothing. He did not care a cent, not he, for the King of England. He thought himself as good, any how. But he found that he would have to work hard here to scratch along, and he was mightily plagued with the rheumatics, and some old woman told him that good spring water was the best cure for that; so he chose this poor, light, stony land on account of the spring, and took to hard work and drinking cold water in his old age.”

“How did the change agree with him?”

“I guess better than could have been expected. He planted that fine orchard, and cleared his hundred acres, and we got along slick enough as long as the old fellow lived.”

“And what happened after his death, that obliged you to part with your land?”

“Bad times—bad crops,” said Uncle Joe, lifting his shoulders. “I had not my father's way of scraping money together. I made some deuced clever speculations, but they all failed. I married young, and got a large family; and the women critters ran up heavy bills at the stores, and the crops did not yield enough to pay them; and from bad we got to worse, and Mr. C—— put in an execution, and seized upon the whole concern. He sold it to your man for double what it cost him; and you got all that my father toiled for during the last twenty years of his life for less than half the cash he laid out upon clearing it.”

“And had the whiskey nothing to do with this change?” said I, looking him in the face suspiciously.

“Not a bit! When a man gets into difficulties, it is the only thing to keep him from sinking outright. When your husband has had as many troubles as I have had, he will know how to value the whiskey bottle.”

This conversation was interrupted by a queer-looking urchin of five years old, dressed in a long-tailed coat and trousers, popping his black shock head in at the door, and calling out,

“Uncle Joe!—You're wanted to hum.”

“Is that your nephew?”

“No! I guess 'tis my woman's eldest son,” said Uncle Joe, rising, “but they call me Uncle Joe. 'Tis a spry chap that—as cunning as a fox. I tell you what it is—he will make a smart man. Go home, Ammon, and tell your ma that I am coming.”

“I won't,” said the boy; “you may go hum and tell her yourself. She has wanted wood cut this hour, and you'll catch it!”

Away ran the dutiful son, but not before he had applied his forefinger significantly to the side of his nose, and, with a knowing wink, pointed in the direction of home.

Uncle Joe obeyed the signal, drily remarking that he could not leave the barn door without the old hen clucking him back.

At this period we were still living in Old Satan's log house, and anxiously looking out for the first snow to put us in possession of the good substantial log dwelling occupied by Uncle Joe and his family, which consisted of a brown brood of seven girls, and the highly-prized boy who rejoiced in the extraordinary name of Ammon.

Strange names are to be found in this free country. What think you, gentle reader, of Solomon Sly, Reynard Fox, and Hiram Dolittle and Prudence Fidget; all veritable names, and belonging to substantial yeomen? After Ammon and Ichabod, I should not be at all surprised to meet with Judas Iscariot, Pilate, and Herod. And then the female appellations! But the subject is a delicate one and I will forbear to touch upon it. I have enjoyed many a hearty laugh over the strange affectations which people designate here very handsome names. I prefer the old homely Jewish names, such as that which it pleased my godfather and godmothers to bestow upon me, to one of those high-sounding christianities, the Minervas, Cinderellas, and Almerias of Canada. The love of singular names is here carried to a marvellous extent. It is only yesterday that, in passing through one busy village, I stopped in astonishment before a tombstone headed thus: “Sacred to the memory of Silence Sharman, the beloved wife of Asa Sharman.” Was the woman deaf and dumb, or did her friends hope by bestowing upon her such an impossible name to still the voice of Nature, and check, by an admonitory appellative, the active spirit that lives in the tongue of woman? Truly, Asa Sharman, if thy wife was silent by name as well as by nature, thou wert a fortunate man!

But to return to Uncle Joe. He made many fair promises of leaving the residence we had bought, the moment he had sold his crops and could remove his family. We could see no interest which could be served by his deceiving us, and therefore we believed him, striving to make ourselves as comfortable as we could in the meantime in our present wretched abode. But matters are never so bad but that they may be worse. One day when we were at dinner, a waggon drove up to the door, and Mr. —— alighted, accompanied by a fine-looking, middle-aged man, who proved to be Captain S——, who had just arrived from Demarara with his wife and family. Mr. ——, who had purchased the farm of Old Satan, had brought Captain S—— over to inspect the land, as he wished to buy a farm, and settle in that neighbourhood. With some difficulty I contrived to accommodate the visitors with seats, and provide them with a tolerable dinner. Fortunately, Moodie had brought in a brace of fine fat partridges that morning; these the servant transferred to a pot of boiling water, in which she immersed them for the space of a minute—a novel but very expeditious way of removing the feathers, which then come off at the least touch. In less than ten minutes they were stuffed, trussed, and in the bake-kettle; and before the gentlemen returned from walking over the farm, the dinner was on the table.

To our utter consternation, Captain S—— agreed to purchase, and asked if we could give him possession in a week!

“Good heavens!” cried I, glancing reproachfully at Mr. ——, who was discussing his partridge with stoical indifference. “What will become of us? Where are we to go?”

“Oh, make yourself easy; I will force that old witch, Joe's mother, to clear out.”

“But 'tis impossible to stow ourselves into that pig-sty.”

“It will only be for a week or two, at farthest. This is October; Joe will be sure to be off by the first of sleighing.”

“But if she refuses to give up the place?”

“Oh, leave her to me. I'll talk her over,” said the knowing land speculator. “Let it come to the worst,” he said, turning to my husband, “she will go out for the sake of a few dollars. By-the-by, she refused to bar the dower when I bought the place; we must cajole her out of that. It is a fine afternoon; suppose we walk over the hill, and try our luck with the old nigger?”

I felt so anxious about the result of the negotiation, that, throwing my cloak over my shoulders, and tying on my bonnet without the assistance of a glass, I took my husband's arm, and we walked forth.

It was a bright, clear afternoon, the first week in October, and the fading woods, not yet denuded of their gorgeous foliage, glowed in a mellow, golden light. A soft purple haze rested on the bold outline of the Haldimand hills, and in the rugged beauty of the wild landscape I soon forgot the purport of our visit to the old woman's log hut.

On reaching the ridge of the hill, the lovely valley in which our future home lay smiled peacefully upoon us from amidst its fruitful orchards, still loaded with their rich, ripe fruit.

“What a pretty place it is!” thought I, for the first time feeling something like a local interest in the spot, springing up in my heart. “How I wish those odious people would give us possession of the home which for some time has been our own.”

The log hut that we were approaching, and in which the old woman, R——, resided by herself—having quarrelled years ago with her son's wife—was of the smallest dimensions, only containing one room, which served the old dame for kitchen, and bed-room, and all. The open door, and a few glazed panes, supplied it with light and air; while a huge hearth, on which crackled two enormous logs—which are technically termed a front and a back stick—took up nearly half the domicile; and the old woman's bed, which was covered with an unexceptionally clean patched quilt, nearly the other half, leaving just room for a small home-made deal table, of the rudest workmanship, two basswood-bottomed chairs, stained red, one of which was a rocking-chair, appropiated solely to the old woman's use, and a spinning wheel. Amidst this muddle of things—for small as was the quantum of furniture, it was all crowded into such a tiny space that you had to squeeze your way through it in the best manner you could—we found the old woman, with a red cotton handkerchief tied over her grey locks, hood-fashion, shelling white bush-beans into a wooden bowl. Without rising from her seat, she pointed to the only remaining chair. “I guess, miss, you can sit there; and if the others can't stand, they can make a seat of my bed.”

The gentlemen assured her that they were not tired, and could dispense with seats. Mr. —— then went up to the old woman, and proffering his hand, asked after her health in his blandest manner.

“I'm none the better for seeing you, or the like of you,” was the ungracious reply. “You have cheated my poor boy out of his good farm; and I hope it may prove a bad bargain to you and yours.”

“Mrs. R——,” returned the land speculator, nothing ruffled by her unceremonious greeting, “I could not help your son giving way to drink, and getting into my debt. If people will be so imprudent, they cannot be so stupid as to imagine that others can suffer for their folly.”

“Suffer!” repeated the old woman, flashing her small, keen black eyes upon him with a glance of withering scorn. “You suffer! I wonder what the widows and orphans you have cheated would say to that? My son was a poor, weak, silly fool, to be sucked in by the like of you. For a debt of eight hundred dollars—the goods never cost you four hundred—you take from us our good farm; and these, I s'pose,” pointing to my husband and me, “are the folk you sold it to. Pray, miss,” turning quickly to me, “what might your man give for the place?”

“Three hundred pounds in cash.”

“Poor sufferer!” again sneered the hag. “Four hundred dollars is a very small profit in as many weeks. Well, I guess, you beat the Yankees hollow. And pray, what brought you here to-day, scenting about you like a carrion-crow? We have no more land for you to seize from us.”

Moodie now stepped forward, and briefly explained our situation, offering the old woman anything in reason to give up the cottage and reside with her son until he removed from the premises; which, he added, must be in a very short time.

The old dame regarded him with a sarcastic smile. “I guess, Joe will take his own time. The house is not built which is to receive him; and he is not a man to turn his back upon a warm hearth to camp in the wilderness. You were green when you bought a farm of that man, without getting along with it the right of possession.”

“But, Mrs. R——, your son promised to go out the first of sleighing.”

“Wheugh!” said the old woman. “Would you have a man give away his hat and leave his own head bare? It's neither the first snow nor the last frost that will turn Joe out of his comfortable home. I tell you all that he will stay here, if it is only to plague you.”

Threats and remonstrances were alike useless, the old woman remained inexorable; and we were just turning to leave the house, when the cunning old fox exclaimed, “And now, what will you give me to leave my place?”

“Twelve dollars, if you give us possession next Monday,” said my husband.

“Twelve dollars! I guess you won't get me out for that.”

“The rent would not be worth more than a dollar a month,” said Mr. ——, pointing with his cane to the dilapidated walls. “Mr. Moodie has offered you a year's rent for the place.”

“It may not be worth a cent,” returned the woman; “for it will give everybody the rheumatism that stays a week in it—but it is worth that to me, and more nor double that just now to him. But I will not be hard with him,” continued she, rocking herself to and fro. “Say twenty dollars, and I will turn out on Monday.”

“I dare say you will,” said Mr. ——, “and who do you think would be fool enough to give you such an exorbitant sum for a ruined old shed like this?”

“Mind your own business, and make your own bargains,” returned the old woman, tartly. “The devil himself could not deal with you, for I guess he would have the worst of it. What do you say, sir?” and she fixed her keen eyes upon my husband, as if she would read his thoughts. “Will you agree to my price?”

“It is a very high one, Mrs. R——; but as I cannot help myself, and you take advantage of that, I suppose I must give it.”

“'Tis a bargain,” cried the old crone, holding out her hard, bony hand. “Come, cash down!”

“Not until you give me possession on Monday next; or you might serve me as your son has done.”

“Ha!” said the old woman, laughing and rubbing her hands together; “you begin to see daylight, do you? In a few months, with the help of him,” pointing to Mr. ——, “you will be able to go alone; but have a care of your teacher, for it's no good that you will learn from him. But will you really stand to your word, mister?” she added, in a coaxing tone, “if I go out on Monday?”

“To be sure I will; I never break my word.”

“Well, I guess you are not so clever as our people, for they only keep it as long as it suits them. You have an honest look; I will trust you; but I will not trust him,” nodding to Mr. ——, “he can buy and sell his word as fast as a horse can trot. So on Monday I will turn out my traps. I have lived here six-and-thirty years; 'tis a pretty place and it vexes me to leave it,” continued the poor creature, as a touch of natural feeling softened and agitated her world-hardened heart. “There is not an acre in cultivation but I helped to clear it, nor a tree in yonder orchard but I held it while my poor man, who is dead and gone, planted it; and I have watched the trees bud from year to year, until their boughs overshadowed the hut, where all my children, but Joe, were born. Yes, I came here young, and in my prime; and I must leave it in age and poverty. My children and husband are dead, and their bones rest beneath the turf in the burying-ground on the side of the hill. Of all that once gathered about my knees, Joe and his young ones alone remain. And it is hard, very hard, that I must leave their graves to be turned by the plough of a stranger.”

I felt for the desolate old creature—the tears rushed to my eyes; but there was no moisture in hers. No rain from the heart could filter through that iron soil.

“Be assured, Mrs. R——,” said Moodie, “that the dead will be held sacred; the place will never be disturbed by me.”

“Perhaps not; but it is not long that you will remain here. I have seen a good deal in my time; but I never saw a gentleman from the old country make a good Canadian farmer. The work is rough and hard, and they get out of humour with it, and leave it to their hired helps, and then all goes wrong. They are cheated on all sides, and in despair take to the whiskey bottle, and that fixes them. I tell you what it is, mister—I give you just three years to spend your money and ruin yourself; and then you will become a confirmed drunkard, like the rest.”

The first part of her prophecy was only too true. Thank God! the last has never been fulfilled, and never can be.

Perceiving that the old woman was not a little elated with her bargain, Mr. —— urged upon her the propriety of barring the dower. At first, she was outrageous, and very abusive, and rejected all his proposals with contempt; vowing that she would meet him in a certain place below, before she would sign away her right to the property.

“Listen to reason, Mrs. R——,” said the land speculator. “If you will sign the papers before the proper authorities, the next time your son drives you to C——, I will give you a silk gown.”

“Pshaw! Buy a shroud for yourself; you will need it before I want a silk gown,” was the ungracious reply.

“Consider woman; a black silk of the best quality.”

“To mourn in for my sins, or for the loss of the farm?”

“Twelve yards,” continued Mr. ——, without noticing her rejoinder, “at a dollar a yard. Think what a nice church-going gown it will make.”

“To the devil with you! I never go to church.”

“I thought as much,” said Mr. ——, winking to us. “Well, my dear madam, what will satisfy you?”

“I'll do it for twenty dollars,” returned the old woman, rocking herself to and fro in her chair; her eyes twinkling, and her hands moving convulsively, as if she already grasped the money so dear to her soul.

“Agreed,” said the land speculator. “When will you be in town?”

“On Tuesday, if I be alive. But, remember, I'll not sign till I have my hand on the money.”

“Never fear,” said Mr. ——, as we quitted the house; then, turning to me, he added, with a peculiar smile,” That's a devilish smart woman. She would have made a clever lawyer.”

Monday came, and with it all the bustle of moving, and, as is generally the case on such occasions, it turned out a very wet day. I left Old Satan's hut without regret, glad, at any rate, to be in a place of my own, however humble. Our new habitation, though small, had a decided advantage over the one we were leaving. It stood on a gentle slope; and a narrow but lovely stream, full of pretty speckled trout, ran murmuring under the little window; the house, also, was surrounded by fine fruit trees.

I know not how it was, but the sound of that tinkling brook, for ever rolling by, filled my heart with a strange melancholy, which for many nights deprived me of rest. I loved it, too. The voice of waters, in the stillness of night, always had an extraordinary effect upon my mind. Their ceaseless motion and perpetual sound convey to me the idea of life—eternal life; and looking upon them, glancing and flashing on, now in sunshine, now in shade, now hoarsely chiding with the opposing rock, now leaping triumphantly over it, creates within me a feeling of mysterious awe of which I never could wholly divest myself.

A portion of my own spirit seemed to pass into that little stream. In its deep wailings and fretful sighs, I fancied myself lamenting for the land I had left for ever; and its restless and impetuous rushings against the stones which choked its passage, were mournful types of my own mental struggles against the destiny which hemmed me in. Through the day the stream still moaned and travelled on,—but, engaged in my novel and distasteful occupations, I heard it not; but whenever my winged thoughts flew homeward, then the voice of the brook spoke deeply and sadly to my heart, and my tears flowed unchecked to its plaintive and harmonious music.

In a few hours I had my new abode more comfortably arranged than the old, although its dimensions were much smaller. The location was beautiful, and I was greatly consoled by this circumstance. The aspect of Nature ever did, and I hope ever will continue—

“To shoot marvellous strength into my heart.”

As long as we remain true to the Divine Mother, so long will she remain faithful to her suffering children.

At that period my love for Canada was a feeling very nearly allied to that which the condemned criminal entertains for his cell—his only hope of escape being through the portals of the grave.

The fall rains had commenced. In a few days the cold wintry showers swept all the gorgeous crimson from the trees; and a bleak and desolate waste presented itself to the shuddering spectator. But, in spite of wind and rain, my little tenement was never free from the intrusion of Uncle Joe's wife and children. Their house stood about a stone's-throw from the hut we occupied, in the same meadow, and they seemed to look upon it still as their own, although we had literally paid for it twice over. Fine strapping girls they were, from five years old to fourteen, but rude and unnurtured as so many bears. They would come in without the least ceremony, and, young as they were, ask me a thousand impertinent questions; and when I civilly requested them to leave the room, they would range themselves upon the door-step, watching my motions, with their black eyes gleaming upon me through their tangled, uncombed locks. Their company was a great annoyance, for it obliged me to put a painful restraint upon the thoughtfulness in which it was so delightful to me to indulge. Their visits were not visits of love, but of mere idle curiosity, not unmingled with malicious pleasure at my awkward attempts at Canadian house-wifieries.

The simplicity, the fond, confiding faith of childhood is unknown in Canada. There are no children here. The boy is a miniature man—knowing, keen, and wide awake; as able to drive a bargain and take an advantage of his juvenile companion as the grown-up, world-hardened man. The girl, a gossipping flirt, full of vanity and affectation, with a premature love of finery, and an acute perception of the advantages to be derived from wealth, and from keeping up a certain appearance in the world.

The flowers, the green grass, the glorious sunshine, the birds of the air, and the young lambs gambolling down the verdant slopes, which fill the heart of a British child with a fond ecstacy, bathing the young spirit in Elysium, would float unnoticed before the vision of a Canadian child; while the sight of a dollar, or a new dress, or a gay bonnet, would swell its proud bosom with self-importance and delight. The glorious blush of modest diffidence, the tear of gentle sympathy, are so rare on the cheek, or in the eye of the young, that their appearance creates a feeling of surprise. Such perfect self-reliance in beings so new to the world is painful to a thinking mind. It betrays a great want of sensibility and mental culture, and a melancholy knowledge of the arts of life.

For a week I was alone, my good Scotch girl having left me to visit her father. Some small baby-articles were needed to be washed, and after making a great preparation, I determined to try my unskilled hand upon the operation. The fact is, I knew nothing about the task I had imposed upon myself, and in a few minutes rubbed the skin off my wrists, without getting the clothes clean.

The door was open, as it generally was, even during the coldest winter days, in order to let in more light, and let out the smoke, which otherwise would have enveloped us like a cloud. I was so busy that I did not perceive that I was watched by the cold, heavy, dark eyes of Mrs. Joe, who, with a sneering laugh, exclaimed—

“Well, thank God! I am glad to see you brought to work at last. I hope you may have to work as hard as I have. I don't see, not I, why you, who are no better than me, should sit still all day, like a lady!”

“Mrs. R——,” said I, not a little annoyed at her presence, “what concern is it of yours whether I work or sit still? I never interfere with you. If you took it into your head to lie in bed all day, I should never trouble myself about it.”

“Ah, I guess you don't look upon us as fellow-critters, you are so proud and grand. I s'pose you Britishers are not made of flesh and blood like us. You don't choose to sit down at meat with your helps. Now, I calculate, we think them a great deal better nor you.”

“Of course,” said I, “they are more suited to you than we are; they are uneducated, and so are you. This is no fault in either; but it might teach you to pay a little more respect to those who are possessed of superior advantages. But, Mrs. R——, my helps, as you call them, are civil and obliging, and never make unprovoked and malicious speeches. If they could so far forget themselves, I should order them to leave the house.”

“Oh, I see what you are up to,” replied the insolent dame; “you mean to say that if I were your help you would turn me out of your house; but I'm a free-born American, and I won't go at your bidding. Don't think I came here out of regard to you. No, I hate you all; and I rejoice to see you at the wash-tub, and I wish that you may be brought down upon your knees to scrub the floors.”

This speech only caused a smile, and yet I felt hurt and astonished that a woman whom I had never done anything to offend should be so gratuitously spiteful.

In the evening she sent two of her brood over to borrow my “long iron,” as she called an Italian iron. I was just getting my baby to sleep, sitting upon a low stool by the fire. I pointed to the iron upon the shelf, and told the girl to take it. She did so, but stood beside me, holding it carelessly in her hand, and staring at the baby, who had just sunk to sleep upon my lap.

The next moment the heavy iron fell from her relaxed grasp, giving me a severe blow upon my knee and foot; and glanced so near the child's head that it drew from me a cry of terror.

“I guess that was nigh braining the child,” quoth Miss Amanda, with the greatest coolness, and without making the least apology. Master Ammon burst into a loud laugh. “If it had, Mandy, I guess we'd have cotched it.” Provoked at their insolence, I told them to leave the house. The tears were in my eyes, for I felt that had they injured the child, it would not have caused them the least regret.

The next day, as we were standing at the door, my husband was greatly amused by seeing fat Uncle Joe chasing the rebellious Ammon over the meadow in front of the house. Joe was out of breath, panting and puffing like a small steam-engine, and his face flushed to deep red with excitement and passion. “You —— young scoundrel!” he cried, half choked with fury, “If I catch up to you, I'll take the skin off you!”

“You —— old scoundrel, you may have my skin if you can get at me,” retorted the precocious child, as he jumped up upon the top of the high fence, and doubled his fist in a menacing manner at his father.

“That boy is growing too bad,” said Uncle Joe, coming up to us out of breath, the perspiration streaming down his face. “It is time to break him in, or he'll get the master of us all.”

“You should have begun that before,” said Moodie. “He seems a hopeful pupil.”

“Oh, as to that, a little swearing is manly,” returned the father; “I swear myself, I know, and as the old cock crows, so crows the young one. It is not his swearing that I care a pin for, but he will not do a thing I tell him to.”

“Swearing is a dreadful vice,” said I, “and, wicked as it is in the mouth of a grown-up person, it is perfectly shocking in a child; it painfully tells he has been brought up without the fear of God.”

“Pooh! pooh! that's all cant; there is no harm in a few oaths, and I cannot drive oxen and horses without swearing. I dare say that you can swear too when you are riled, but you are too cunning to let us hear you.”

I could not help laughing outright at this supposition, but replied very quietly, “Those who practice such iniquities never take any pains to conceal them. The concealment would infer a feeling of shame; and when people are conscious of the guilt, they are in the road to improvement.” The man walked whistling away, and the wicked child returned unpunished to his home.

The next minute the old woman came in. “I guess you can give me a piece of silk for a hood,” said she, “the weather is growing considerable cold.”

“Surely it cannot well be colder than it is at present,” said I, giving her the rocking-chair by the fire.

“Wait a while; you know nothing of a Canadian winter. This is only November; after the Christmas thaw, you'll know something about the cold. It is seven-and-thirty years ago since I and my man left the U-ni-ted States. It was called the year of the great winter. I tell you, woman, that the snow lay so deep on the earth, that it blocked up all the roads, and we could drive a sleigh whither we pleased, right over the snake fences. All the cleared land was one wide white level plain; it was a year of scarcity, and we were half starved; but the severe cold was far worse nor the want of provisions. A long and bitter journey we had of it; but I was young then, and pretty well used to trouble and fatigue; my man stuck to the British government. More fool he! I was an American born, and my heart was with the true cause. But his father was English, and, says he, 'I'll live and die under their flag.' So he dragged me from my comfortable fireside to seek a home in the far Canadian wilderness. Trouble! I guess you think you have your troubles; but what are they to mine?” She paused, took a pinch of snuff, offered me the box, sighed painfully, pushed the red handkerchief from her high, narrow, wrinkled brow, and continued: “Joe was a baby then, and I had another helpless critter in my lap—an adopted child. My sister had died from it, and I was nursing it at the same breast with my boy. Well, we had to perform a journey of four hundred miles in an ox-cart, which carried, besides me and the children, all our household stuff. Our way lay chiefly through the forest, and we made but slow progress. Oh! what a bitter cold night it was when we reached the swampy woods where the city of Rochester now stands. The oxen were covered with icicles, and their breath sent up clouds of steam. 'Nathan,' says I to my man, 'you must stop and kindle a fire; I am dead with cold, and I fear the babes will be frozen.' We began looking about for a good spot to camp in, when I spied a light through the trees. It was a lone shanty, occupied by two French lumberers. The men were kind; they rubbed our frozen limbs with snow, and shared with us their supper and buffalo skins. On that very spot where we camped that night, where we heard nothing but the wind soughing amongst the trees, and the rushing of the river, now stands the great city of Rochester. I went there two years ago, to the funeral of a brother. It seemed to me like a dream. Where we foddered our beasts by the shanty fire now stands the largest hotel in the city; and my husband left this fine growing country to starve here.”

I was so much interested in the old woman's narrative—for she was really possessed of no ordinary capacity, and, though rude and uneducated might have been a very superior person under different circumstances—that I rummaged among my store, and soon found a piece of black silk, which I gave her for the hood she required.

The old woman examined it carefully over, smiled to herself, but, like all her people, was too proud to return a word of thanks. One gift to the family always involved another.

“Have you any cotton-batting, or black sewing-silk, to give me, to quilt it with?”

“No.”

“Humph!” returned the old dame, in a tone which seemed to contradict my assertion. She then settled herself in her chair, and, after shaking her foot awhile, and fixing her piercing eyes upon me for some minutes, she commenced the following list of interrogatories:—

“Is your father alive?”

“No; he died many years ago, when I was a young girl.”

“Is your mother alive?”

“Yes.”

“What is her name?” I satisfied her on this point.

“Did she ever marry again?”

“She might have done so, but she loved her husband too well, and preferred living single.”

“Humph! We have no such notions here. What was your father?”

“A gentleman, who lived upon his own estate.”

“Did he die rich?”

“He lost the greater part of his property from being surety for another.”

“That's a foolish business. My man burnt his fingers with that. And what brought you out to this poor country—you, who are no more fit for it than I am to be a fine lady?”

“The promise of a large grant of land, and the false statements we heard regarding it.”

“Do you like the country?”

“No; and I fear I never shall.”

“I thought not; for the drop is always on your cheek, the children tell me; and those young ones have keen eyes. Now, take my advice: return while your money lasts; the longer you remain in Canada the less you will like it; and when your money is all spent, you will be like a bird in a cage; you may beat your wings against the bars, but you can't get out.” There was a long pause. I hoped that my guest had sufficiently gratified her curiosity, when she again commenced:—

“How do you get your money? Do you draw it from the old country, or have you it with you in cash?”

Provoked by her pertinacity, and seeing no end to her cross-questioning, I replied, very impatiently, “Mrs. R——, is it the custom in your country to catechise strangers whenever you meet with them?”

“What do you mean?” she said, colouring, I believe, for the first time in her life.

“I mean,” quoth I, “an evil habit of asking impertinent questions.”

The old woman got up, and left the house without speaking another word.

THE SLEIGH-BELLS

'Tis merry to hear, at evening time,
By the blazing hearth the sleigh-bells chime;
To know the bounding steeds bring near
The loved one to our bosom dear.
Ah, lightly we spring the fire to raise,
Till the rafters glow with the ruddy blaze;
Those merry sleigh-bells, our hearts keep time
Responsive to their fairy chime.
Ding-dong, ding-dong, o'er vale and hill,
Their welcome notes are trembling still.
'Tis he, and blithely the gay bells sound,
As glides his sleigh o'er the frozen ground;
Hark! he has pass'd the dark pine wood,
He crosses now the ice-bound flood,
And hails the light at the open door
That tells his toilsome journey's o'er.
The merry sleigh-bells! My fond heart swells
And throbs to hear the welcome bells;
Ding-dong, ding-dong, o'er ice and snow,
A voice of gladness, on they go.
Our hut is small, and rude our cheer,
But love has spread the banquet here;
And childhood springs to be caress'd
By our beloved and welcome guest.
With a smiling brow, his tale he tells,
The urchins ring the merry sleigh-bells;
The merry sleigh-bells, with shout and song
They drag the noisy string along;
Ding-dong, ding-dong, the father's come
The gay bells ring his welcome home.
From the cedar-swamp the gaunt wolves howl,
From the oak loud whoops the felon owl;
The snow-storm sweeps in thunder past,
The forest creaks beneath the blast;
No more I list, with boding fear,
The sleigh-bells' distant chime to hear.
The merry sleigh-bells, with soothing power
Shed gladness on the evening hour.
Ding-dong, ding-dong, what rapture swells
The music of those joyous bells.

(Many versions have been given of this song, and it has been set to music in the States. I here give the original copy, written whilst leaning on the open door of my shanty, and watching for the return of my husband.)

CHAPTER VIII — JOHN MONAGHAN

“Dear mother Nature! on thy ample breast
Hast thou not room for thy neglected son?
A stern necessity has driven him forth
Alone and friendless. He has naught but thee,
And the strong hand and stronger heart thou gavest,
To win with patient toil his daily bread.”

A few days after the old woman's visit to the cottage, our servant James absented himself for a week, without asking leave, or giving any intimation of his intention. He had under his care a fine pair of horses, a yoke of oxen, three cows, and a numerous family of pigs, besides having to chop all the firewood required for our use. His unexpected departure caused no small trouble in the family; and when the truant at last made his appearance, Moodie discharged him altogether.

The winter had now fairly set in—the iron winter of 1833. The snow was unusually deep, and it being our first winter in Canada, and passed in such a miserable dwelling, we felt it very severely. In spite of all my boasted fortitude—and I think my powers of endurance have been tried to the uttermost since my sojourn in this country—the rigour of the climate subdued my proud, independent English spirit, and I actually shamed my womanhood and cried with the cold. Yes, I ought to blush at evincing such unpardonable weakness; but I was foolish and inexperienced, and unaccustomed to the yoke.

My husband did not much relish performing the menial duties of a servant in such weather, but he did not complain, and in the meantime commenced an active inquiry for a man to supply the place of the one we had lost; but at that season of the year no one was to be had.

It was a bitter, freezing night. A sharp wind howled without, and drove the fine snow through the chinks in the door, almost to the hearth-stone, on which two immense blocks of maple shed forth a cheering glow, brightening the narrow window-panes, and making the blackened rafters ruddy with the heart-invigorating blaze.

The toils of the day were over, the supper things cleared away, and the door closed for the night. Moodie had taken up his flute, the sweet companion of happier days, at the earnest request of our homesick Scotch servant-girl, to cheer her drooping spirits by playing some of the touching national airs of the glorious mountain land, the land of chivalry and song, the heroic North. Before retiring to rest, Bell, who had an exquisite ear for music, kept time with foot and hand, while large tears gathered in her soft blue eyes.

“Ay, 'tis bonnie thae songs; but they mak' me greet, an' my puir heart is sair, sair when I think on the bonnie braes and the days o'lang syne.”

Poor Bell! Her heart was among the hills, and mine had wandered far, far away to the green groves and meadows of my own fair land. The music and our reveries were alike abruptly banished by a sharp blow upon the door. Bell rose and opened it, when a strange, wild-looking lad, barefooted, and with no other covering to his head than the thick, matted locks of raven blackness that hung like a cloud over his swarthy, sunburnt visage, burst into the room.

“Guidness defend us! Wha ha'e we here?” screamed Bell, retreating into a corner. “The puir callant's no cannie.”

My husband turned hastily round to meet the intruder, and I raised the candle from the table the better to distinguish his face; while Bell, from her hiding-place, regarded him with unequivocal glances of fear and mistrust, waving her hands to me, and pointing significantly to the open door, as if silently beseeching me to tell her master to turn him out.

“Shut the door, man,” said Moodie, whose long scrutiny of the strange being before us seemed upon the whole satisfactory; “we shall be frozen.”

“Thin faith, sir, that's what I am,” said the lad, in a rich brogue, which told, without asking, the country to which he belonged. Then stretching his bare hands to the fire, he continued, “By Jove, sir, I was never so near gone in my life!”

“Where do you come from, and what is your business here? You must be aware that this is a very late hour to take a house by storm in this way.”

“Thrue for you, sir. But necessity knows no law; and the condition you see me in must plade for me. First, thin, sir, I come from the township of D——, and want a masther; and next to that, bedad! I want something to ate. As I'm alive, and 'tis a thousand pities that I'm alive at all at all, for shure God Almighty never made sich a misfortunate crather afore nor since; I have had nothing to put in my head since I ran away from my ould masther, Mr. F——, yesterday at noon. Money I have none, sir; the divil a cent. I have neither a shoe to my foot nor a hat to my head, and if you refuse to shelter me the night, I must be contint to perish in the snow, for I have not a frind in the wide wurld.”

The lad covered his face with his hands, and sobbed aloud.

“Bell,” I whispered; “go to the cupboard and get the poor fellow something to eat. The boy is starving.”

“Dinna heed him, mistress, dinna credit his lees. He is ane o' those wicked Papists wha ha' just stepped in to rob and murder us.”

“Nonsense! Do as I bid you.”

“I winna be fashed aboot him. An' if he bides here, I'll e'en flit by the first blink o' the morn.”

“Isabel, for shame! Is this acting like a Christian, or doing as you would be done by?”

Bell was as obstinate as a rock, not only refusing to put down any food for the famished lad, but reiterating her threat of leaving the house if he were suffered to remain. My husband, no longer able to endure her selfish and absurd conduct, got angry in good earnest, and told her that she might please herself; that he did not mean to ask her leave as to whom he received into his house. I, for my part, had no idea that she would realise her threat. She was an excellent servant, clean, honest, and industrious, and loved the dear baby.

“You will think better of it in the morning,” said I, as I rose and placed before the lad some cold beef and bread, and a bowl of milk, to which the runaway did ample justice.

“Why did you quit your master, my lad?” said Moodie.

“Because I could live wid him no longer. You see, sir, I'm a poor foundling from the Belfast Asylum, shoved out by the mother that bore me, upon the wide wurld, long before I knew that I was in it. As I was too young to spake for myself intirely, she put me into a basket, wid a label round my neck, to tell the folks that my name was John Monaghan. This was all I ever got from my parents; and who or what they were, I never knew, not I, for they never claimed me; bad cess to them! But I've no doubt it's a fine illigant gintleman he was, and herself a handsome rich young lady, who dared not own me for fear of affronting the rich jintry, her father and mother. Poor folk, sir, are never ashamed of their children; 'tis all the threasure they have, sir; but my parents were ashamed of me, and they thrust me out to the stranger and the hard bread of depindence.” The poor lad signed deeply, and I began to feel a growing interest in his sad history.

“Have you been in the country long?”

“Four years, madam. You know my masther, Mr. F——; he brought me out wid him as his apprentice, and during the voyage he trated me well. But the young men, his sons, are tyrants, and full of durty pride; and I could not agree wid them at all at all. Yesterday, I forgot to take the oxen out of the yoke, and Musther William tied me up to a stump, and bate me with the raw hide. Shure the marks are on me showlthers yet. I left the oxen and the yoke, and turned my back upon them all, for the hot blood was bilin' widin me; and I felt that if I stayed it would be him that would get the worst of it. No one had ever cared for me since I was born, so I thought it was high time to take care of myself. I had heard your name, sir, and I thought I would find you out; and if you want a lad, I will work for you for my kape, and a few dacent clothes.”

A bargain was soon made. Moodie agreed to give Monaghan six dollars a month, which he thankfully accepted; and I told Bell to prepare his bed in a corner of the kitchen. But mistress Bell thought fit to rebel. Having been guilty of one act of insubordination, she determined to be consistent, and throw off the yoke altogether. She declared that she would do no such thing; that her life and that all our lives were in danger; and that she would never stay another night under the same roof with that Papist vagabond.

“Papist!” cried the indignant lad, his dark eyes flashing fire, “I'm no Papist, but a Protestant like yourself; and I hope a deuced dale better Christian. You take me for a thief; yet shure a thief would have waited till you were all in bed and asleep, and not stepped in forenint you all in this fashion.”

There was both truth and nature in the lad's argument; but Bell, like an obstinate woman as she was, chose to adhere to her own opinion. Nay, she even carried her absurd prejudices so far that she brought her mattress and laid it down on the floor in my room, for fear that the Irish vagabond should murder her during the night. By the break of day she was off; leaving me for the rest of the winter without a servant. Monaghan did all in his power to supply her place; he lighted the fires, swept the house, milked the cows, nursed the baby, and often cooked the dinner for me, and endeavoured by a thousand little attentions to show the gratitude he really felt for our kindness. To little Katie he attached himself in an extraordinary manner. All his spare time he spent in making little sleighs and toys for her, or in dragging her in the said sleighs up and down the steep hills in front of the house, wrapped up in a blanket. Of a night, he cooked her mess of bread and milk, as she sat by the fire, and his greatest delight was to feed her himself. After this operation was over, he would carry her round the floor on his back, and sing her songs in native Irish. Katie always greeted his return from the woods with a scream of joy, holding up her fair arms to clasp the neck of her dark favourite.

“Now the Lord love you for a darlint!” he would cry, as he caught her to his heart. “Shure you are the only one of the crathers he ever made who can love poor John Monaghan. Brothers and sisters I have none—I stand alone in the wurld, and your bonny wee face is the sweetest thing it contains for me. Och, jewil! I could lay down my life for you, and be proud to do that same.”

Though careless and reckless about everything that concerned himself, John was honest and true. He loved us for the compassion we had shown him; and he would have resented any injury offered to our persons with his best blood.

But if we were pleased with our new servant, Uncle Joe and his family were not, and they commenced a series of petty persecutions that annoyed him greatly, and kindled into a flame all the fiery particles of his irritable nature.

Moodie had purchased several tons of hay of a neighbouring farmer, for the use of his cattle, and it had to be stowed into the same barn with some flax and straw that belonged to Uncle Joe. Going early one morning to fodder the cattle, John found Uncle Joe feeding his cows with his master's hay, and as it had diminished greatly in a very short time, he accused him in no measured terms of being the thief. The other very coolly replied that he had taken a little of the hay in order to repay himself for his flax, that Monaghan had stolen for the oxen. “Now by the powers!” quoth John, kindling into wrath, “that is adding a big lie to a dirthy petty larceny. I take your flax, you ould villain! Shure I know that flax is grown to make linen wid, not to feed oxen. God Almighty has given the crathers a good warm coat of their own; they neither require shifts nor shirts.”

“I saw you take it, you ragged Irish vagabond, with my own eyes.”

“Thin yer two eyes showed you a wicked illusion. You had betther shut up yer head, or I'll give you that for an eye-salve that shall make you see thrue for the time to come.”

Relying upon his great size, and thinking that the slight stripling, who, by-the-bye, was all bones and sinews, was no match for him, Uncle Joe struck Monaghan over the head with the pitchfork. In a moment the active lad was upon him like a wild cat, and in spite of the difference of his age and weight, gave the big man such a thorough dressing that he was fain to roar aloud for mercy.

“Own that you are a thief and a liar, or I'll murther you!”

“I'll own to anything whilst your knee is pressing me into a pancake. Come now—there's a good lad—let me get up.” Monaghan felt irresolute, but after extorting from Uncle Joe a promise never to purloin any of the hay again, he let him rise.

“For shure,” he said, “he began to turn so black in the face, I thought he'd burst intirely.”

The fat man neither forgot nor forgave this injury; and though he dared not attack John personally, he set the children to insult and affront him upon all occasions. The boy was without socks, and I sent him to old Mrs. R——, to inquire of her what she would charge for knitting him two pairs of socks. The reply was, a dollar. This was agreed to, and dear enough they were; but the weather was very cold, and the lad was barefooted, and there was no other alternative than either to accept her offer, or for him to go without.

In a few days, Monaghan brought them home; but I found upon inspecting them that they were old socks new-footed. This was rather too glaring a cheat, and I sent the lad back with them, and told him to inform Mrs. R—— that as he had agreed to give the price for new socks, he expected them to be new altogether.

The avaricious old woman did not deny the fact, but she fell to cursing and swearing in an awful manner, and wished so much evil to the lad, that, with the superstitious fear so common to the natives of his country, he left her under the impression that she was gifted with the evil eye, and was an “owld witch.” He never went out of the yard with the waggon and horses, but she rushed to the door, and cursed him for a bare-heeled Irish blackguard, and wished that he might overturn the waggon, kill the horses, and break his own worthless neck.

“Ma'am,” said John to me one day, after returning from C—— with the team, “it would be betther for me to lave the masther intirely; for shure if I do not, some mischief will befall me or the crathers. That wicked owld wretch! I cannot thole her curses. Shure it's in purgatory I am all the while.”

“Nonsense, Monaghan! you are not a Catholic, and need not fear purgatory. The next time the old woman commences her reprobate conduct, tell her to hold her tongue, and mind her own business, for curses, like chickens come home to roost.”

The boy laughed heartily at the old Turkish proverb, but did not reckon much on its efficacy to still the clamorous tongue of the ill-natured old jade. The next day he had to pass her door with the horses. No sooner did she hear the sound of the wheels, than out she hobbled, and commenced her usual anathemas.

“Bad luck to yer croaking, yer ill-conditioned owld raven. It is not me you are desthroying shure, but yer own poor miserable sinful sowl. The owld one has the grief of ye already, for 'curses, like chickens, come home to roost'; so get in wid ye, and hatch them to yerself in the chimley corner. They'll all be roosting wid ye by-and-by; and a nice warm nest they'll make for you, considering the brave brood that belongs to you.”

Whether the old woman was as superstitious as John, I know not; or whether she was impressed with the moral truth of the proverb—for, as I have before stated, she was no fool—is difficult to tell; but she shrunk back into her den, and never attacked the lad again.

Poor John bore no malice in his heart, not he; for, in spite of all the ill-natured things he had to endure from Uncle Joe and his family, he never attempted to return evil for evil. In proof of this, he was one day chopping firewood in the bush, at some distance from Joe, who was engaged in the same employment with another man. A tree in falling caught upon another, which, although a very large maple, was hollow and very much decayed, and liable to be blown down by the least shock of the wind. The tree hung directly over the path that Uncle Joe was obliged to traverse daily with his team. He looked up, and perceived, from the situation it occupied, that it was necessary for his own safety to cut it down; but he lacked courage to undertake so hazardous a job, which might be attended, if the supporting tree gave way during the operation, with very serious consequences. In a careless tone, he called to his companion to cut down the tree.

“Do it yourself, H——,” said the axe man, with a grin. “My wife and children want their man as much as your Hannah wants you.”

“I'll not put axe to it,” quoth Joe. Then, making signs to his comrade to hold his tongue, he shouted to Monaghan, “Hollo, boy! you're wanted here to cut down this tree. Don't you see that your master's cattle might be killed if they should happen to pass under it, and it should fall upon them.”

“Thrue for you, Masther Joe; but your own cattle would have the first chance. Why should I risk my life and limbs, by cutting down the tree, when it was yerself that threw it so awkwardly over the other?”

“Oh, but you are a boy, and have no wife and children to depend upon you for bread,” said Joe, gravely. “We are both family men. Don't you see that 'tis your duty to cut down the tree?”

The lad swung the axe to and fro in his hand, eyeing Joe and the tree alternately; but the natural kind-heartedness of the creature, and his reckless courage, overcame all idea of self-preservation, and raising aloft his slender but muscular arm, he cried out, “If it's a life that must be sacrificed, why not mine as well as another? Here goes! and the Lord have mercy on my sinful sowl!”

The tree fell, and, contrary to their expectations, without any injury to John. The knowing Yankee burst into a loud laugh. “Well, if you arn't a tarnation soft fool, I never saw one.”

“What do you mane?” exclaimed John, his dark eyes flashing fire. “If 'tis to insult me for doing that which neither of you dared to do, you had better not thry that same. You have just seen the strength of my spirit. You had better not thry again the strength of my arm, or, may be, you and the tree would chance to share the same fate;” and, shouldering his axe, the boy strode down the hill, to get scolded by me for his foolhardiness.

The first week of March, all the people were busy making maple sugar. “Did you ever taste any maple sugar, ma'am?” asked Monaghan, as he sat feeding Katie one evening by the fire.

“No, John.”

“Well, then, you've a thrate to come; and it's myself that will make Miss Katie, the darlint, an illigant lump of that same.”

Early in the morning John was up, hard at work, making troughs for the sap. By noon he had completed a dozen, which he showed me with great pride of heart. I felt a little curious about this far-famed maple sugar, and asked a thousand questions about the use to which the troughs were to be applied; how the trees were to be tapped, the sugar made, and if it were really good when made?

To all my queries, John responded, “Och! 'tis illigant. It bates all the sugar that ever was made in Jamaky. But you'll see before to-morrow night.”

Moodie was away at P——, and the prospect of the maple sugar relieved the dulness occasioned by his absence. I reckoned on showing him a piece of sugar of our own making when he came home, and never dreamt of the possibility of disappointment.

John tapped his trees after the most approved fashion, and set his troughts to catch the sap; but Miss Amanda and Master Ammon upset them as fast as they filled, and spilt all the sap. With great difficulty, Monaghan saved the contents of one large iron pot. This he brought in about nightfall, and made up a roaring fire, in order to boil in down into sugar. Hour after hour passed away, and the sugar-maker looked as hot and black as the stoker in a steam-boat. Many times I peeped into the large pot, but the sap never seemed to diminish.

“This is a tedious piece of business,” thought I, but seeing the lad so anxious, I said nothing. About twelve o'clock he asked me, very mysteriously, for a piece of pork to hang over the sugar.

“Pork!” said I, looking into the pot, which was half full of a very black-looking liquid; “what do you want with pork?”

“Shure an' 'tis to keep the sugar from burning.”

“But, John, I see no sugar!”

“Och, but 'tis all sugar, only 'tis molasses jist now. See how it sticks to the ladle. Aha! But Miss Katie will have the fine lumps of sugar when she awakes in the morning.”

I grew so tired and sleepy that I left John to finish his job, went to bed, and soon forgot all about the maple sugar. At breakfast I observed a small plate upon the table, placed in a very conspicuous manner on the tea-tray, the bottom covered with a hard, black substance, which very much resembled pitch. “What is that dirty-looking stuff, John?”

“Shure an 'tis the maple sugar.”

“Can people eat that?”

“By dad, an' they can; only thry it, ma'arm.”

“Why, 'tis so hard, I cannot cut it.”

With some difficulty, and not without cutting his finger, John broke a piece off, and stuffed it into the baby's mouth. The poor child made a horrible face, and rejected it as if it had been poison. For my own part, I never tasted anything more nauseous. It tasted like a compound of pork grease and tobacco juice. “Well, Monaghan, if this be maple sugar, I never wish to taste any again.”

“Och, bad luck to it!” said the lad, flinging it away, plate and all. “It would have been first-rate but for the dirthy pot, and the blackguard cinders, and its burning to the bottom of the pot. That owld hag, Mrs. R——, bewitched it with her evil eye.”

“She is not so clever as you think, John,” said I, laughing. “You have forgotten how to make the sugar since you left D——; but let us forget the maple sugar, and think of something else. Had you not better get old Mrs. R—— to mend that jacket for you; it is too ragged.”

“Ay, dad! an it's mysel' is the illigant tailor. Wasn't I brought up to the thrade in the Foundling Hospital?”

“And why did you quit it?”

“Because it's a low, mane thrade for a jintleman's son.”

“But, John, who told you that you were a gentleman's son?”

“Och! but I'm shure of it, thin. All my propensities are gintale. I love horses, and dogs, and fine clothes, and money. Och! that I was but a jintleman! I'd show them what life is intirely, and I'd challenge Masther William, and have my revenge out of him for the blows he gave me.”

“You had better mend your trousers,” said I, giving him a tailor's needle, a pair of scissors, and some strong thread.

“Shure, an' I'll do that same in a brace of shakes,” and sitting down upon a ricketty three-legged stool of his own manufacturing, he commenced his tailoring by tearing off a piece of his trousers to patch the elbows of his jacket. And this trifling act, simple as it may appear, was a perfect type of the boy's general conduct, and marked his progress through life. The present for him was everything; he had no future. While he supplied stuff from the trousers to repair the fractures in the jacket, he never reflected that both would be required on the morrow. Poor John! in his brief and reckless career, how often have I recalled that foolish act of his. It now appears to me that his whole life was spent in tearing his trousers to repair his jacket.

In the evening John asked me for a piece of soap.

“What do you want with soap, John?”

“To wash my shirt, ma'am. Shure an' I'm a baste to be seen, as black as the pots. Sorra a shirt have I but the one, an' it has stuck on my back so long that I can thole it no longer.”

I looked at the wrists and collar of the condemned garment, which was all of it that John allowed to be visible. They were much in need of soap and water.

“Well, John, I will leave you the soap, but can you wash?”

“Och, shure, an' I can thry. If I soap it enough, and rub long enough, the shirt must come clane at last.”

I thought the matter rather doubtful; but when I went to bed I left what he required, and soon saw through the chinks in the boards a roaring fire, and heard John whistling over the tub. He whistled and rubbed, and washed and scrubbed, but as there seemed no end to the job, and he was a long washing this one garment as Bell would have been performing the same operation on fifty, I laughed to myself, and thought of my own abortive attempts in that way, and went fast asleep. In the morning John came to his breakfast, with his jacket buttoned up to his throat.

“Could you not dry your shirt by the fire, John? You will get cold wanting it.”

“Aha, by dad! it's dhry enough now. The divil has made tinder of it long afore this.”

“Why, what has happened to it? I heard you washing all night.”

“Washing! Faith, an' I did scrub it till my hands were all ruined intirely, and thin I took the brush to it; but sorra a bit of the dirth could I get out of it. The more I rubbed the blacker it got, until I had used up all the soap, and the perspiration was pouring off me like rain. 'You dirthy owld bit of a blackguard of a rag,' says I, in an exthremity of rage, 'You're not fit for the back of a dacent lad an' a jintleman. The divil may take ye to cover one of his imps;' an' wid that I sthirred up the fire, and sent it plump into the middle of the blaze.”

“And what will you do for a shirt?”

“Faith, do as many a betther man has done afore me, go widout.”

I looked up two old shirts of my husband's, which John received with an ecstacy of delight. He retired instantly to the stable, but soon returned, with as much of the linen breast of the garment displayed as his waistcoat would allow. No peacock was ever prouder of his tail than the wild Irish lad was of the old shirt.

John had been treated very much like a spoiled child, and, like most spoiled children, he was rather fond of having his own way. Moodie had set him to do something which was rather contrary to his own inclinations; he did not object to the task in words, for he was rarely saucy to his employers, but he left the following stave upon the table, written in pencil upon a scrap of paper torn from the back of an old letter:—

“A man alive, an ox may drive
Unto a springing well;
To make him drink, as he may think,
No man can him compel.
“JOHN MONAGHAN.”

THE EMIGRANT'S BRIDE

A Canadian ballad

The waves that girt my native isle,
The parting sunbeams tinged with red;
And far to seaward, many a mile,
A line of dazzling glory shed.
But, ah, upon that glowing track,
No glance my aching eyeballs threw;
As I my little bark steer'd back
To bid my love a last adieu.
Upon the shores of that lone bay,
With folded arms the maiden stood;
And watch'd the white sails wing their way
Across the gently heaving flood.
The summer breeze her raven hair
Swept lightly from her snowy brow;
And there she stood, as pale and fair
As the white foam that kiss'd my prow.
My throbbing heart with grief swell'd high,
A heavy tale was mine to tell;
For once I shunn'd the beauteous eye,
Whose glance on mine so fondly fell.
My hopeless message soon was sped,
My father's voice my suit denied;
And I had promised not to wed,
Against his wish, my island bride.
She did not weep, though her pale face
The trace of recent sorrow wore;
But, with a melancholy grace,
She waved my shallop from the shore.
She did not weep; but oh! that smile
Was sadder than the briny tear
That trembled on my cheek the while
I bade adieu to one so dear.
She did not speak—no accents fell
From lips that breathed the balm of May;
In broken words I strove to tell
All that my broken heart would say.
She did not speak—but to my eyes
She raised the deep light of her own.
As breaks the sun through cloudy skies,
My spirit caught a brighter tone.
“Dear girl!” I cried, “we ne'er can part,
My angry father's wrath I'll brave;
He shall not tear thee from my heart.
Fly, fly with me across the wave!”
My hand convulsively she press'd,
Her tears were mingling fast with mine;
And, sinking trembling on my breast,
She murmur'd out, “For ever thine!”

CHAPTER IX — PHOEBE R——, AND OUR SECOND MOVING

“She died in early womanhood,
Sweet scion of a stem so rude;
A child of Nature, free from art,
With candid brow and open heart;
The flowers she loved now gently wave
Above her low and nameless grave.”

It was during the month of March that Uncle Joe's eldest daughter, Phoebe, a very handsome girl, and the best of the family, fell sick. I went over to see her. The poor girl was very depressed, and stood but a slight chance for her life, being under medical treatment of three or four old women, who all recommended different treatment and administered different nostrums. Seeing that the poor girl was dangerously ill, I took her mother aside, and begged her to lose no time in procuring proper medical advice. Mrs. Joe listened to me very sullenly, and said there was no danger; that Phoebe had caught a violent cold by going hot from the wash-tub to fetch a pail of water from the spring; that the neighbours knew the nature of her complaint, and would soon cure her.

The invalid turned upon me her fine dark eyes, in which the light of fever painfully burned, and motioned me to come near her. I sat down by her, and took her burning hand in mine.

“I am dying, Mrs. Moodie, but they won't believe me. I wish you would talk to mother to send for the doctor.”

“I will. Is there anything I can do for you?—anything I can make for you, that you would like to take?”

She shook her head. “I can't eat. But I want to ask you one thing, which I wish very much to know.” She grasped my hand tightly between her own. Her eyes looked darker, and her feverish cheek paled. “What becomes of people when they die?”

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed involuntarily; “can you be ignorant of a future state?”

“What is a future state?”

I endeavoured, as well as I was able, to explain to her the nature of the soul, its endless duration, and responsibility to God for the actions done in the flesh; its natural depravity and need of a Saviour; urging her, in the gentlest manner, to lose no time in obtaining forgiveness of her sins, through the atoning blood of Christ.

The poor girl looked at me with surprise and horror. These things were all new to her. She sat like one in a dream; yet the truth seemed to flash upon her at once.

“How can I speak to God, who never knew Him? How can I ask Him to forgive me?”

“You must pray to him.”

“Pray! I don't know how to pray. I never said a prayer in my life. Mother; can you teach me how to pray?”

“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Joe, hurrying forward. “Why should you trouble yourself about such things? Mrs. Moodie, I desire you not to put such thoughts into my daughter's head. We don't want to know anything about Jesus Christ here.”

“Oh, mother, don't speak so to the lady! Do Mrs. Moodie, tell me more about God and my soul. I never knew until now that I had a soul.”

Deeply compassionating the ignorance of the poor girl, in spite of the menaces of the heathen mother—for she was no better, but rather worse, seeing that the heathen worships in ignorance a false God, while this woman lived without acknowledging a God at all, and therefore considered herself free from all moral restraint—I bid Phoebe good-bye, and promised to bring my bible, and read to her the next day.

The gratitude manifested by this sick girl was such a contrast to the rudeness and brutality of the rest of the family, that I soon felt a powerful interest in her fate.

The mother did not actually forbid me the house, because she saw that my visits raised the drooping spirits of her child, whom she fiercely loved, and, to save her life, would cheerfully have sacrificed her own. But she never failed to make all the noise she could to disturb my reading and conversation with Phoebe. She could not be persuaded that her daughter was really in any danger, until the doctor told her that her case was hopeless; then the grief of the mother burst forth, and she gave way to the most frantic and impious complainings.

The rigour of the winter began to abate. The beams of the sun during the day were warm and penetrating, and a soft wind blew from the south. I watched, from day to day, the snow disappearing from the earth, with indescribable pleasure, and at length it wholly vanished; not even a solitary patch lingered under the shade of the forest trees; but Uncle Joe gave no sign of removing his family.

“Does he mean to stay all the summer?” thought I. “Perhaps he never intends going at all. I will ask him, the next time he comes to borrow whiskey.”

In the afternoon he walked in to light his pipe, and, with some anxiety, I made the inquiry.

“Well, I guess we can't be moving afore the end of May. My missus expects to be confined the fore part of the month, and I shan't move till she be quite smart agin.”

“You are not using us well, in keeping us out of the house so long.”

“Oh, I don't care a curse about any of you. It is my house as long as I choose to remain in it, and you may put up with it the best way you can,” and, humming a Yankee tune, he departed.

I had borne patiently the odious, cribbed-up place during the winter, but now the hot weather was coming, it seemed almost insupportable, as we were obliged to have a fire in the close room, in order to cook our provisions. I consoled myself as well as I could by roaming about the fields and woods, and making acquaintance with every wild flower as it blossomed, and in writing long letters to home friends, in which I abused one of the finest countries in the world as the worst that God ever called out of chaos. I can recall to memory, at this moment, the few lines of a poem which commenced in this strain; nor am I sorry that the rest of it has passed into oblivion:—

Oh! land of waters, how my spirit tires,
In the dark prison of thy boundless woods;
No rural charm poetic thought inspires,
No music murmurs in thy mighty floods;
Though vast the features that compose thy frame,
Turn where we will, the landscape's still the same.
The swampy margin of thy inland seas,
The eternal forest girdling either shore,
Its belt of dark pines sighing in the breeze,
And rugged fields, with rude huts dotted o'er,
Show cultivation unimproved by art,
That sheds a barren chillness on the heart.

How many home-sick emigrants, during their first winter in Canada, will respond to this gloomy picture! Let them wait a few years; the sun of hope will arise and beautify the landscape, and they will proclaim the country one of the finest in the world.

The middle of May at length arrived, and, by the number of long, lean women, with handkerchiefs of all colours tied over their heads, who passed my door, and swarmed into Mrs. Joe's house, I rightly concluded that another young one had been added to the tribe; and shortly after, Uncle Joe himself announced the important fact, by putting his jolly red face in at the door, and telling me, that “his missus had got a chopping boy; and he was right glad of it, for he was tired of so many gals, and that he should move in a fortnight, if his woman did kindly.”

I had been so often disappointed that I paid very little heed to him, but this time he kept his word.

The last day of May, they went, bag and baggage, the poor sick Phoebe, who still lingered on, and the new-born infant; and right joyfully I sent a Scotch girl (another Bell, whom I had hired in lieu of her I had lost), and Monaghan, to clean out the Augean stable. In a few minutes John returned, panting his indignation.

“The house,” he said, “was more filthy than a pig-sty.” But that was not the worst of it, Uncle Joe, before he went, had undermined the brick chimney, and let all the water into the house. “Oh, but if he comes here agin,” he continued, grinding his teeth and doubling his fist, “I'll thrash him for it. And thin, ma'am, he has girdled round all the best graft apple-trees, the murtherin' owld villain, as if it could spile his digestion our ating them.”

“It would require a strong stomach to digest apple-trees, John; but never mind, it can't be helped, and we may be very thankful that these people are gone at last.”

John and Bell scrubbed at the house all day, and in the evening they carried over the furniture, and I went to inspect our new dwelling.

It looked beautifully clean and neat. Bell had whitewashed all the black, smoky walls and boarded ceilings, and scrubbed the dirty window-frames, and polished the fly-spotted panes of glass, until they actually admitted a glimpse of the clear air and the blue sky. Snow-white fringed curtains, and a bed, with furniture to correspond, a carpeted floor, and a large pot of green boughs on the hearthstone, gave an air of comfort and cleanliness to a room which, only a few hours before, had been a loathsome den of filth and impurity.

This change would have been very gratifying, had not a strong, disagreeable odour almost deprived me of my breath as I entered the room. It was unlike anything I had ever smelt before, and turned me so sick and faint that I had to cling to the door-post for support.

“Where does this dreadful smell come from?”

“The guidness knows, ma'am; John and I have searched the house from the loft to the cellar, but we canna find out the cause of thae stink.”

“It must be in the room, Bell; and it is impossible to remain here, or live in this house, until it is removed.”

Glancing my eyes all round the place, I spied what seemed to me a little cupboard, over the mantel-shelf, and I told John to see if I was right. The lad mounted upon a chair, and pulled open a small door, but almost fell to the ground with the dreadful stench which seemed to rush from the closet.

“What is it, John?” I cried from the open door.

“A skunk! ma'am, a skunk! Shure, I thought the divil had scorched his tail, and left the grizzled hair behind him. What a strong perfume it has!” he continued, holding up the beautiful but odious little creature by the tail.

“By dad! I know all about it now. I saw Ned Layton, only two days ago, crossing the field with Uncle Joe, with his gun on his shoulder, and this wee bit baste in his hand. They were both laughing like sixty. 'Well, if this does not stink the Scotchman out of the house,' said Joe, 'I'll be contint to be tarred and feathered;' and thin they both laughed until they stopped to draw breath.”

I could hardly help laughing myself; but I begged Monaghan to convey the horrid creature away, and putting some salt and sulphur into a tin plate, and setting fire to it, I placed it on the floor in the middle of the room, and closed all the doors for an hour, which greatly assisted in purifying the house from the skunkification. Bell then washed out the closet with strong ley, and in a short time no vestige remained of the malicious trick that Uncle Joe had played off upon us.

The next day, we took possession of our new mansion, and no one was better pleased with the change than little Katie. She was now fifteen months old, and could just begin to prattle, but she dared not venture to step alone, although she would stand by a chair all day, and even climb upon it. She crept from room to room, feeling and admiring everything, and talking to it in her baby language. So fond was the dear child of flowers, that her father used to hold her up to the apple-trees, then rich in their full spring beauty, that she might kiss the blossoms. She would pat them with her soft white hands, murmuring like a bee among the branches. To keep her quiet whilst I was busy, I had only to give her a bunch of wild flowers. She would sit as still as a lamb, looking first at one and then another, pressing them to her little breast in a sort of ecstacy, as if she comprehended the worth of this most beautiful of God's gifts to man.

She was a sweet, lovely flower herself, and her charming infant graces reconciled me, more than aught else, to a weary lot. Was she not purely British? Did not her soft blue eyes, and sunny curls, and bright rosy cheeks for ever remind me of her Saxon origin, and bring before me dear forms and faces I could never hope to behold again?

The first night we slept in the new house, a demon of unrest had taken possession of it in the shape of a countless swarm of mice. They scampered over our pillows, and jumped upon our faces, squeaking and cutting a thousand capers over the floor. I never could realise the true value of Whittington's invaluable cat until that night. At first we laughed until our sides ached, but in reality it was no laughing matter. Moodie remembered that we had left a mouse-trap in the old house; he went and brought it over, baited it, and set it on the table near the bed. During the night no less than fourteen of the provoking vermin were captured; and for several succeeding nights the trap did equal execution. How Uncle Joe's family could have allowed such a nuisance to exist astonished me; to sleep with these creatures continually running over us was impossible; and they were not the only evils in the shape of vermin we had to contend with. The old logs which composed the walls of the house were full of bugs and large black ants; and the place, owing to the number of dogs that always had slept under the beds with the children, was infested with fleas. It required the utmost care to rid the place of these noisome and disgusting tenants.

Arriving in the country in the autumn, we had never experienced any inconvenience from the mosquitoes, but after the first moist, warm spring days, particularly after the showers, these tormenting insects annoyed us greatly. The farm, lying in a valley cut up with little streams in every direction, made us more liable to their inflictions. The hands, arms, and face of the poor babe were covered every morning with red inflamed bumps, which often threw out blisters.

The banks of the little streams abounded with wild strawberries, which, although small, were of a delicious flavour. Thither Bell and I, and the baby, daily repaired to gather the bright red berries of Nature's own providing. Katie, young as she was, was very expert at helping herself, and we used to seat her in the middle of a fine bed, whilst we gathered farther on. Hearing her talking very lovingly to something in the grass, which she tried to clutch between her white hands, calling it “Pitty, pitty;” I ran to the spot, and found that it was a large garter-snake that she was so affectionately courting to her embrace. Not then aware that this formidable-looking reptile was perfectly harmless, I snatched the child up in my arms, and ran with her home; never stopping until I gained the house, and saw her safely seated in her cradle.

It had been a very late, cold spring, but the trees had fully expanded into leaf, and the forest world was glorious in its beauty. Every patch of cleared land presented a vivid green to the eye; the brook brawled in the gay sunshine, and the warm air was filled with soft murmurs. Gorgeous butterflies floated about like winged flowers, and feelings allied to poetry and gladness once more pervaded my heart. In the evening we wandered through the woodland paths, beneath the glowing Canadian sunset, and gathered rare specimens of strange plants and flowers. Every object that met my eyes was new to me, and produced that peculiar excitement which has its origin in a thirst for knowledge, and a love of variety.

We had commenced gardening, too, and my vegetables did great credit to my skill and care; and, when once the warm weather sets in, the rapid advance of vegetation in Canada is astonishing.

Not understanding much about farming, especially in a climate like Canada, Moodie was advised by a neighbouring settler to farm his farm upon shares. This advice seemed very reasonable; and had it been given disinterestedly, and had the persons recommended (a man and his wife) been worthy or honest people, we might have done very well. But the farmer had found out their encroaching ways, was anxious to get rid of them himself, and saw no better way of doing so than by palming them upon us.

From our engagement with these people commenced that long series of losses and troubles to which their conduct formed the prelude. They were to live in the little shanty that we had just left, and work the farm. Moodie was to find them the land, the use of his implements and cattle, and all the seed for the crops; and to share with them the returns. Besides this, they unfortunately were allowed to keep their own cows, pigs, and poultry. The produce of the orchard, with which they had nothing to do, was reserved for our own use.

For the first few weeks, they were civil and obliging enough; and had the man been left to himself, I believe we should have done pretty well; but the wife was a coarse-minded, bold woman, who instigated him to every mischief. They took advantage of us in every way they could, and were constantly committing petty depredations.

From our own experience of this mode of farming, I would strenuously advise all new settlers never to embrace any such offer, without they are well acquainted with the parties, and can thoroughly rely upon their honesty; or else, like Mrs. O——, they may impudently tell you that they can cheat you as they please, and defy you to help yourself. All the money we expended upon the farm was entirely for these people's benefit, for by their joint contrivances very little of the crops fell to our share; and when any division was made, it was always when Moodie was absent from home; and there was no person present to see fair play. They sold what apples and potatoes they pleased, and fed their hogs ad libitum. But even their roguery was more tolerable than the irksome restraint which their near vicinity, and constantly having to come in contact with them, imposed. We had no longer any privacy, our servants were cross-questioned, and our family affairs canvassed by these gossiping people, who spread about a thousand falsehoods regarding us. I was so much disgusted with this shareship, that I would gladly have given them all the proceeds of the farm to get rid of them, but the bargain was for twelve months, and bad as it was, we could not break our engagement.

One little trick of this woman's will serve to illustrate her general conduct. A neighbouring farmer's wife had presented me with some very pretty hens, who followed to the call of old Betty Fye's handsome game-cock. I was always fond of fowls, and the innocent Katie delighted in her chicks, and would call them round her to the sill of the door to feed from her hand. Mrs. O—— had the same number as I had, and I often admired them when marshalled forth by her splendid black rooster. One morning I saw her eldest son chop off the head of the fine bird; and I asked his mother why she had allowed him to kill the beautiful creature. She laughed, and merely replied that she wanted it for the pot. The next day my sultan walked over to the widowed hens, and took all his seraglio with him. From that hour I never gathered a single egg; the hens deposited all their eggs in Mrs. O——'s hen-house. She used to boast of this as an excellent joke among her neighbours.

On the 9th of June, my dear little Agnes was born. A few days after this joyful event, I heard a great bustle in the room adjoining to mine, and old Dolly Rowe, my Cornish nurse, informed me that it was occasioned by the people who came to attend the funeral of Phoebe R——. She only survived the removal of the family a week; and at her own request had been brought all the way from the —— lake plains to be interred in the burying ground on the hill which overlooked the stream.

As I lay upon my pillow I could distinctly see the spot, and mark the long funeral procession, as it wound along the banks of the brook. It was a solemn and imposing spectacle, that humble funeral. When the waggons reached the rude enclosure, the coffin was carefully lifted to the ground, the door in the lid opened, and old and young approached, one after another, to take a last look at the dead, before consigning her to the oblivion of the grave.

Poor Phoebe! Gentle child, of coarse, unfeeling parents, few shed more sincerely a tear for thy early fate than the stranger whom they hated and despised. Often have I stood beside that humble mound, when the song of the lark was above me, and the bee murmuring at my feet, and thought that it was well for thee that God opened the eyes of thy soul, and called thee out of the darkness of ignorance and sin to glory in His marvellous light. Sixteen years have passed away since I heard anything of the family, or what had become of them, when I was told by a neighbour of theirs, whom I accidentally met last winter, that the old woman, who now nearly numbers a hundred years, is still living, and inhabits a corner of her son's barn, as she still quarrels too much with his wife to reside with Joe; that the girls are all married and gone; and that Joe himself, although he does not know a letter, has commenced travelling preacher. After this, who can doubt the existence of miracles in the nineteenth century?

THE FAITHFUL HEART THAT LOVES THEE STILL

I kneel beside the cold grey stone
That tells me, dearest, thou art gone
To realms more bless'd—and left me still
To struggle with this world of ill.
But oft from out the silent mound
Delusive fancy breathes a sound;
My pent-up heart within me burns,
And all the blessed past returns.
Thy form is present to mine eye,
Thy voice is whispering in mine ear,
The love that spake in days gone by;
And rapture checks the starting tear.
Thy deathless spirit wakes to fill
The faithful heart that loves thee still.
For thee the day's bright glow is o'er,
And summer's roses bloom no more;
The song of birds in twilight bowers,
The breath of spring's delicious flowers,
The towering wood and mountain height,
The glorious pageantry of night;
Which fill'd thy soul with musings high,
And lighted up thy speaking eye;
The mournful music of the wave
Can never reach thy lonely grave.
Thou dost but sleep! It cannot be
That ardent heart is silent now—
That death's dark door has closed on thee;
And made thee cold to all below.
Ah, no! the flame death could not chill,
Thy tender love survives thee still.
That love within my breast enshrined,
In death alone shall be resign'd;
And when the eve, thou lovest so well,
Pours on my soul its soothing spell,
I leave the city's busy scene
To seek thy dwelling, cold and green,—
In quiet sadness here to shed
Love's sacred tribute o'er the dead—
To dream again of days gone by,
And hold sweet converse here with thee;
In the soft air to feel thy sigh,
Whilst winds and waters answer me.
Yes!—though resign'd to Heaven's high will,
My joy shall be to love thee still!

ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH

By Susanna Moodie

To Agnes StricklandAuthor of the “Lives of the Queens of England"This simple tribute of affectionis dedicated by her sisterSusanna Moodie

Transcriber's Notes on this Etext Edition.

INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION

Published by Richard Bentley in 1854

BELLEVILLE, UPPER CANADA

CANADA

CHAPTER I — A VISIT TO GROSSE ISLE

OH! CAN YOU LEAVE YOUR NATIVE LAND?

CHAPTER II — QUEBEC

CHAPTER III — OUR JOURNEY UP THE COUNTRY

THERE'S REST

CHAPTER IV — TOM WILSON'S EMIGRATION

THE LAMENT OF A CANADIAN EMIGRANT

CHAPTER V — OUR FIRST SETTLEMENT, AND THE BORROWING SYSTEM

OH CANADA! THY GLOOMY WOODS

CHAPTER VI — OLD SATAN AND TOM WILSON'S NOSE

THE BACKWOODSMAN

CHAPTER VII — UNCLE JOE AND HIS FAMILY

THE SLEIGH-BELLS

CHAPTER VIII — JOHN MONAGHAN

THE EMIGRANT'S BRIDE

CHAPTER IX — PHOEBE R——, AND OUR SECOND MOVING

THE FAITHFUL HEART THAT LOVES THEE STILL

To Agnes Strickland
Author of the “Lives of the Queens of England"
This simple tribute of affection
is dedicated by her sister
Susanna Moodie