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 _Bush_became
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.