THE PLURAL OF MOOSE.
The room in which we breakfasted was about eighteen feet square, having
a large old-fashioned fire-place opposite to the front door, which
opened directly on the lawn. The walls were fancifully ornamented with
moose and deer horns, fowling-pieces, fishing-rods, landing nets and
baskets, bows and arrows of every description, and Indian relics, such
as stone hatchets, bowls, rude mortars, images, war clubs, wampum, and
implements not unlike broad swords made of black birch, the edges of
which were inlaid with the teeth of animals, or the shells of fish,
ground sharp. Besides these, were skulls of great size and in good
preservation, stone pipes, pouches, and so on; also some enormous teeth
and bones of an antediluvian animal, found in the Bras Dor lake in Cape
Breton. It was, take it altogether, the most complete collection of
relics of this interesting race, the Micmacs, and of natur’s products
to be found in this province. Some of the larger moose horns are
ingeniously managed, so as to form supports for polished slabs of
hardwood for tables. The doctor informed me that this department of his
museum was under the sole direction of the sergeant, who called it his
armoury, and to whose experience in the arrangement of arms he was
indebted for the good effect they produced. The only objection he said
he had to it was, that classification had been sacrificed to
appearance, and things were very much intermixed; but his collection
was too small to make this a matter of any importance.
Jackson, as soon as the doctor was similarly engaged in showing them to
the captain and the Miss McDonalds, for whom they seemed to have a
peculiar interest, mounted guard over me.
“You see, Sir,” said he, “the moose horns are the only thing of any
size here, and that’s because the moose is half English, you know.
Everything is small in this country, and degenerates, Sir. The fox
ain’t near as big as an English one. Lord, Sir, the ounds would run
down one o’ these fellows in ten minutes. They haven’t got no strength.
The rabbit too is a mere nothink; he is more of a cat, and looks like
one too, when he is hanged in a snare. It’s so cold, nothin’ comes to a
right size here. The trees is mere shrubbery compared to our hoaxes.
The pine is tall, but then it has no sap. It’s all tar and turpentine,
and that keeps the frost out of its heart. The fish that live under the
ice in the winter are all iley, in a general way, like the whales,
porpoises, dog-fish, and cod. The liver of the cod is all ile, and
women take to drinkin’ it now in cold weather to keep their blood warm.
Depend upon it, Sir, in two or three generations they will shine in the
sun like niggers. Porter would be better for ’em to drink than ile, and
far more pleasanter too, Sir, wouldn’t it? It would fill ’em out.
Saving your presence, Sir, you never see a girl here with—”
“Hush! the ladies will hear you,” I said.
“I ax your Honour’s pardon; perhaps I am making too bold, but it’s
nateral for a man that has seed so much of the world as I have to talk
a bit, especially as my tongue is absent on furlough more nor half the
year, and then the old ‘ooman’s goes on duty, and never fear, Sir,
her’n don’t sleep at its post. She has seen too much sarvice for that.
It don’t indeed. It hails every one that passes the sentry-box, and
makes ’em advance and give the countersign. A man that has seed so
much, Sir, in course has a good deal to talk about. Now, Sir, I don’t
want to undervaly the orns at no rate, but Lord bless you, Sir, I have
seen the orns of a wild sheep, when I was in the Medeteranion, so
large, I could hardly lift them with one hand. They say young foxes
sleep in them sometimes. Oh, Sir, if they would only get a few of them
sheep, and let them loose here, there would be some fun in unting of
them. They are covered over with air in summer, and they are so wild
you can’t take them no other way than by shooting of them. Then, Sir,
there is the orns of—”
“But how is the moose half English?” sais I.
“Why, Sir, I heard our colour-sergeant M’Clure say so when we was in
Halifax. He was a great reader and a great arguer, Sir, as most
Scotchmen are. I used to say to him, ‘M’Clure, it’s a wonder you can
fight as well as you do, for in England fellows who dispute all the
time commonly take it all out in words.’
“One day, Sir, a man passed the north barrack gate, tumping (as he
said, which means in English, Sir, hauling) an immense bull moose on a
sled, though why he didn’t say so, I don’t know, unless he wanted to
show he knew what M’Clure calls the botanical word for it. It was the
largest hanimal I ever saw here.”
“Says Mac to him, ‘What do you call that creature?’
“‘Moose,’ said he.
“‘Do you pretend to tell me,’ said Mac, ‘that that henormous hanimal,
with orns like a deer, is a moose?’
“‘I don’t pretend at all,’ said he; ‘I think I hought to know one when
I see it, for I have killed the matter of a undred of them in my day.’
“‘It’s a daumed lee,’ said the sergeant. ‘It’s no such thing; I
wouldn’t believe it if you was to swear to it.’
“‘Tell you what,’ said the man, ‘don’t go for to tell me that again, or
I’ll lay you as flat as he is in no time,’ and he cracked his whip and
moved on.
“‘What’s the use,’ said I, ‘M’Clure, to call that man a liar? How do
you know whether it is a moose or not, and he is more like to get its
name right than you, who never saw one afore.’
“‘Moose,’ said he, ‘do you take me for a fool? do you suppose he is a
goin’ to cram me with such stuff as that? The idea of his pretending to
tell me that a creature six feet high with great spreading antlers like
a deer is a moose, when in fact they are no bigger than a cock-roach,
and can run into holes the size of a sixpence! Look at me—do you see
anything very green about me?’
“‘Why, Mac,’ sais I, ‘as sure as the world you mean a mouse.’
“‘Well, I said a moose,’ he replied.
“‘Yes, I know you said a moose, but that’s not the way to pronounce a
mouse. It may be Scotch, but it ain’t English. Do you go into that
hardware shop, and ask for a moose-trap, and see how the boys will wink
to each other, and laugh at you.’
“‘A man,’ sais he, drawing himself up, ‘who has learned humanity at
Glaskee, don’t require to be taught how to pronounce moose.’
“‘As for your humanity,’ said I, ‘I never see much of that. If you ever
had that weakness, you got bravely over it, and the glass key must have
been broke years agone in Spain.’
“‘You are getting impertinent,’ said he, and he walked off and left me.
“It’s very strange, your Honour, but I never saw an Irishman or
Scotchman yet that hadn’t the vanity to think he spoke English better
than we do.”
“But the Yankees?” said I.
“Well, Sir, they are foreigners, you know, and only speak broken
English; but they mix up a deal of words of their own with it, and then
wonder you don’t understand them. They keep their mouths so busy
chawing, they have to talk through their noses.
“A few days after that, Sir, we walked down to the marketplace, and
there was another of these hanimals for sale. But perhaps I am making
too bold, Sir?”
“No, no, not at all; go on. I like to hear you.”
“‘Well,’ said M’Clure to the countryman, ‘What do you call that?’
“‘A moose,’ said he.
“Well, I gives him a nudge of my helbow, to remind him not to tell him
it was a ‘daumed lee,’ as he did the other man.
“‘What does moose mean, my man?’
“Would you believe it, Sir, he didn’t like that word ‘my man,’
partikelarly coming from a soldier, for they are so hignorant here they
affect to look down upon soldiers, and call ’em ‘thirteen pences.’
“‘Mean,’ said he, ‘it means _that_,’ a-pointin’ to the carcass. ‘Do you
want to buy it?’
“‘Hem!’ said Mac. ‘Well now, my good fellow—’
“Oh, Sir, if you had a seen the countryman when he heard them words, it
would a been as good as a play. He eyed him all over, very scornful, as
if he was taking his measure and weight for throwing him over the sled
by his cape and his trousers, and then he put his hand in his waistcoat
pocket, and took out a large black fig of coarse tobacco, and bit a
piece out of it, as if it was an apple, and fell too a chewing of it,
as if to vent his wrath on it, but said nothing.
“‘Well, my good fellow,’ said Mac, ‘when there are more than one, or
they are in the plural number, what do you call them?’
“‘Mice,’ said the fellow.
“‘Mice!’ said M’Clure, ‘I must look into that; it’s very odd. Still, it
can’t be mooses either.’
“He didn’t know what to make of it; he had been puzzled with mouse
before, and found he was wrong, so he thought it was possible ‘mice’
might be the right word after all.
“‘Well,’ said he, ‘what do you call the female moose?’
“‘Why,’ sais the man, ‘I guess,’ a-talkin’ through his nose instead of
his mouth—how I hate that Yankee way, don’t you, Sir? ‘Why,’ sais he,
‘I guess we call the he-moose M, and the other N, as the case may be.’
“‘Who gave them that name?’ said M’Clure.
“‘Why, I reckon,’ said the other, ‘their godfathers and godmothers at
their baptism, but I can’t say, for I warn’t there.’
“‘I say, my man,’ said M’Clure, ‘you had better keep a civil tongue in
your head.’
“‘Ask me no questions, then,’ said the countryman, ‘and I’ll tell you
no lies; but if you think to run a rig on me, you have made a mistake
in the child, and barked up the wrong tree, that’s all. P’raps I ain’t
so old as you be, but I warn’t born yesterday. So slope, if you please,
for I want to sneeze, and if I do, it will blow your cap over the
market-house, and you’ll be lucky if your head don’t go along with it.”
“‘Come away,’ said I, ‘Mac, that fellow has no more manners than a
heathen.’
“‘He’s an hignorant beast,’ said he, ‘he is beneath notice.’
“The man eard that, and called after him, ‘Hofficer, hofficer,’ said
he.
“That made M’Clure stop, for he was expectin’ to be one every day, and
the word sounded good, and Scotchmen, Sir, ain’t like other people,
pride is as natural as oatmeal to them. The man came up to us limpin’.
“‘Hofficer,’ said he, ‘I ax your pardon if I offended you, I thought
you was a pokin’ fun at me, for I am nothing but a poor hignorant
farmer, from the country, and these townspeople are always making game
of us. I’ll tell you all about that are moose and how I killed him. He
urt my feelins, Sir, or I never would have mislested him, for Zack
Wilcox is as good-natured a chap, it’s generally allowed, as ever
lived. Yes, he trod on my toes, I don’t feel right yet, and when any
fellow does that to me, why there ain’t no mistake about it, his time
is out and the sentence is come to pass. He begged for his life, oh, it
was piteous to see him. I don’t mean to say the dumb beast spoke, but
his looks were so beseeching just the way if you was tied up to the
halbert to be whipped, you’d look at the general.’
“‘Me?’ said M’Clure.
“‘Yes, you or anybody else,’ said the man. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I told him
I wouldn’t shoot him, I’de give him one chance for his life, but if he
escaped he’d be deaf for ever afterwards. Poor feller, I didn’t intend
to come it quite so strong, but he couldn’t stand the shock I gave him,
and it killed him—frightened him to death.’
“‘How?’ said M’Clure.
“‘Why,’ sais he, ‘I’ll tell you,’ and he looked cautiously all round,
as if he didn’t want any one to know the secret. ‘I gave him a most an
almighty hambler that fairly keeled him over.’
“‘What?’ said M’Clure.
“‘Why,’ sais he, ‘I gave him,’ and he bent forward towards his hear as
if to whisper the word, ‘I gave him a most thunderin’ everlastin’
loud—’ and he gave a yell into his hear that was eard clean across the
harbour, and at the ospital beyond the dockyard, and t’other way as far
as Fresh-water Bridge. Nothin’ was hever eard like it before.
“M’Clure sprang backwards the matter of four or five feet, and placed
his hand on his side arms, while the countryman brayed out a horse
laugh that nearly took away one’s earing. The truck-men gate him a
cheer, for they are all Irishmen, and they don’t like soldiers commonly
on account of their making them keep the peace at ome at their meetin’
of monsters, and there was a general commotion in the market. We beat a
retreat, and when we got out of the crowd, sais I, ‘M’Clure, that comes
of arguing with every one you meet. It’s a bad habit.’
“‘I wasn’t arguing,’ sais he, quite short, ‘I was only asking
questions, and how can you ever learn if you don’t inquire?’
“Well, when he got to the barrack, he got a book wrote by a Frenchman,
called Buffoon.”
“A capital name,” sais I, “for a Frenchman,” but he didn’t take, for
there is no more fun in an Englishman than a dough pudding, and went on
without stopping.
“Sais he, ‘this author is all wrong. He calls it han ‘horiginal,’ but
he ain’t a native animal, it’s half English and half Yankee. Some
British cattle at a remote period have been wrecked here, strayed into
the woods, and erded with the Carriboo. It has the ugly carcass and ide
of the ox, and has taken the orns, short tail, and its speed from the
deer. That accounts for its being larger than the native stags.’ I
think he was right, Sir, what is your opinion?”
The doctor and the rest of the party coming up just put an end to
Jackson’s dissertation on the origin of the moose. The former said,
“Come, Mr Slick, suppose we try the experiment of the bow,” and Jessie,
seeing us preparing for shooting, asked the doctor for smaller ones for
her sister and herself. The targets were accordingly prepared, and
placing myself near one of them, I discharged the gun and removed a few
paces on one side, and commenced as rapidly as I could to reload, but
the doctor had sent three arrows through mine before I had finished. It
required almost as little time as a revolver. He repeated the trial
again with the same result.
“What do you think of the bow now?” said he in triumph. “Come, Captain,
do you and Mr Slick try your luck, and see what sort of shots you can
make.” The captain, who was an experienced hand with the gun, after a
few attempts to ascertain the power and practice necessary, made
capital play with the bow, and his muscular arm rendered easy to him
that which required of me the utmost exertion of my strength. Jessie
and her sister now stept forward, and measuring off a shorter distance,
took their stations. Their shooting, in which they were quite at home,
was truly wonderful. Instead of using the bow as we did, so as to bring
the arrow in a line with the eye, they held it lower down, in a way to
return the elbow to the right side, much in the same manner that a
skilful sportsman shoots from the hip. It seemed to be no sort of
exertion whatever to them, and every arrow was lodged in the inner
circle. It seemed to awaken them to a new existence, and in their
excitement I observed they used their mother tongue.
“Beg your pardon, Sir,” said Jackson to the doctor, putting his hand to
his forehead, “if our sharp-shooters in Spain ad ad bows like yours, in
their scrimmages with the French light troops, they would ave done more
service and made less noise about it than they did.” And saluting me in
the same manner, he said in an under-tone,
“If I ad ad one of them at Badajoz, Sir, I think I’d a put a pen in
that trooper’s mouth to write the account of the way he lost his elmet.
A shower of them, Sir, among a troop of cavalry would have sent riders
flying, and horses kicking, as bad as a shower of grape. There is no
danger of shooting your fingers off with them, Sir, or firing away your
ramrod. No, there ain’t, is there, Sir?”
“Tom, do’ee put on your hat now, that’s a good soul,” said his
attentive wife, who had followed him out a third time to remind him of
his danger. “Oh, Sir,” said she, again addressing me, “what signifies a
armless thing like an harrow; that’s nothin but a little wooden rod to
the stroke of the sun, as they calls it. See what a dreadful cut it’s
given him.”
Tom looked very impatient at this, but curbed in his vexation, and said
“Thankee, Betty,” though his face expressed anything but thanks.
“Thankee, Betty. There, the doctor is calling you. She is as good a
creature, Sir, as ever lived,” he continued; “and has seen a deal of
service in her day. But she bothers me to death about that stroke of
the sun. Sometimes I think I’ll tell her all about it; but I don’t like
to demean myself to her. She wouldn’t think nothin’ of me, Sir, if she
thought I could have been floored that way; and women, when they begin
to cry, throw up sometime what’s disagreeable. They ain’t safe. She
would perhaps have heaved up in my face that that dragoon had slapped
my chops for me, with his elmet. I am blowed, Sir, if I can take a
glass of grog out of my canteen, but she says, ‘Tom, mind that stroke
of the sun.’ And when I ave a big D marked agin my name in the pension
book, she’ll swear, to her dying day, I was killed by that are stroke.”
“Why don’t you put it on then,” I said, “just to please her.”
“Well, Sir, if I was at head-quarters, or even at han hout-post, where
there was a detachment, I would put it hon; because it wouldn’t seem
decent to go bare-headed. But Lord bless you, Sir, _what’s the use of a
hat in the woods, where there is no one to see you?”_
Poor fellow, he didn’t know what a touch of human nature there was in
that expression, “_what’s the use of a hat in the woods, where there is
no one to see you?”_
The same idea, though differently expressed, occurs to so many. “Yes,”
said I to myself, “put on your hat for your wife’s sake, and your own
too; for though you may fail to get a stroke of the sun, you may get
not an inflammation of the brain, for there ain’t enough of it for that
complaint to feed on, but rheumatism in the head; and that will cause a
plaguey sight more pain than the dragoon’s helmet ever did, by a long
chalk.”
But, to get back to my story, for the way I travel through a tale is
like the way a child goes to school. He leaves the path to chase a
butterfly, or to pick wild strawberries, or to run after his hat that
has blown off, or to take a shy at a bird, or throw off his shoes, roll
up his trousers, and wade about the edge of a pond to catch polly-wogs;
but he gets to school in the eend, though somewhat of the latest, so I
have got back at last, you see.
Mother used to say, “Sam, your head is always a woolgathering.”
“I am glad of it,” says I, “marm.”
“Why, Sam,” she’d say, “why, what on earth do you mean?”
“Because, marm,” I’d reply, “a head that’s alway a gathering will get
well stored at last.”
“Do get out,” the dear old soul would say, “I do believe, in my heart,
you are the most nimpent (impudent), idlest, good-for-nothingest boy in
the world. Do get along.”
But she was pleased, though, after all; for women do like to repeat
little things like them, that their children say, and ask other people,
who don’t hear a word, or if they do, only go right off and laugh at
’em: “Ain’t that proper ‘cute now? Make a considerable smart man when
he is out of his time, and finished his broughtens up, won’t he?”
Well, arter the archery meeting was over, and the congregation
disparsed, who should I find myself a walkin’ down to the lake with but
Jessie? How it was, I don’t know, for I warn’t a lookin’ for her, nor
she for me; but so it was. I suppose it is human natur, and that is the
only way I can account for it. Where there is a flower, there is the
bee; where the grass is sweet, there is the sheep; where the cherry is
ripe, there is the bird; and where there is a gall, especially if she
is pretty, there it is likely I am to be found also. Yes, it must be
natur. Well, we walked, or rather, strolled off easy. There are
different kinds of gaits, and they are curious to observe; for I
consait sometimes I can read a man’s character in his walk. The child
trots; the boy scarcely touches the ground with his feet, and how the
plague he wears his shoes out so fast I don’t know. Perhaps Doctor
Lardner can tell, but I’ll be hanged if I can, for the little critter
is so light, he don’t even squash the grass. The sailor waddles like a
duck, and gives his trousers a jerk to keep them from going down the
masts (his legs) by the run; a sort of pull at the main-brace. The
soldier steps solemn and formal, as if the dead march in Saul was a
playin’. A man and his wife walk on different sides of the street; _he_
sneaks along head down, and _she_ struts head up, as if she never heard
the old proverb, “Woe to the house where the hen crows.” They leave the
carriage-way between them, as if they were afraid their thoughts could
be heard. When meetin’ is out, a lover lags behind, as if he had
nothin’ above particular to do but to go home; and he is in no hurry to
do that, for dinner won’t be ready this hour. But, as soon as folks are
dodged by a blue bonnet with pink ribbons ahead, he pulls foot like a
lamplighter, and is up with the gall that wears it in no time, and she
whips her arms in hisn, and they saunter off, to make the way as long
as possible. She don’t say, “_Peeower_ful sermon that, warn’t it?” and
he don’t reply, “I heerd nothin’ but the text, ‘Love one another.’” Nor
does he squeeze her arm with his elbow, nor she pinch his with her
little blue-gloved fingers. Watch them after that, for they go so slow,
they almost crawl, they have so much to say, and they want to make the
best of their time; and besides, walking fast would put them out of
breath.
The articled-clerk walks the streets with an air as much like a
military man as he can; and it resembles it almost as much as
electrotype ware does silver. He tries to look at ease, though it is a
great deal of trouble; but he imitates him to a hair in some things,
for he stares impudent at the galls, has a cigar in his mouth, dresses
snobbishly, and talks of making a book at Ascot. The young lawyer
struts along in his seven-league boots, has a white-bound book in one
hand, and a parcel of papers, tied with red tape, in the other. He is
in a desperate hurry, and as sure as the world, somebody is a dying,
and has sent for him to make his will. The Irish priest walks like a
warder who has the keys. There is an air of authority about him. He
puts his cane down on the pavement hard, as much as to say, Do you hear
that, you spalpeen? He has the secrets of all the parish in his
keeping; but they are other folk’s secrets, and not his own, and of
course, so much lighter to carry, it don’t prevent him looking like a
jolly fellow, as he is, arter all. The high-churchman has an M. B.
waistcoat on, is particular about his dress, and walks easy, like a
gentleman, looks a little pale about the gills, like a student; but has
the air of a man that wanted you to understand—I am about my work, and
I would have you to know I am the boy to do it, and do it too without a
fuss. If he meets a bishop, he takes his hat off, for he admits his
authority. If a beggar accosts him, he slips some charity in his hands,
and looks scared lest he should be seen.
The low-churchman hates the M. B. vestment, it was him who christened
it. He is a dab at nick-names. He meant it to signify the Mark of the
Beast. He likes the broad-brimmed beaver, it’s more like a quaker, and
less like a pope. It is primitive. He looks better fed than the other,
and in better care. Preachin’ he finds in a general way easier than
practice. Watch his face as he goes along, slowly and solemncoly
through the street. He looks _so_ good, all the women that see him say,
“Ain’t he a dear man?” He is meekness itself. Butter wouldn’t melt in
his mouth. He has no pride in him. If there is any, it ain’t in his
heart at any rate. Perhaps there is a little grain in his legs, but it
never got any higher. Sometimes, I suspect they have been touched with
the frost, for the air of a dining-room is colder under the table than
above it, and his legs do march stiff and formal like a soldier’s, but
then, as he says, he is of the church militant. See what a curious
expression of countenance he has when he meets his bishop. Read it, it
says: “Now, my old Don, let us understand each other; you may ordain
and confirm, but don’t you go one inch beyond that. No synods, no
regeneration in baptism, no control for me; I won’t stand it. My idea
is every clergyman is a bishop in his own parish, and his synod is
composed of pious galls that _work,_ and rich spinsters that _give._ If
you do interfere, I will do my duty and rebuke those in high places.
Don’t rile me, for I have an ugly pen, an ugly tongue, and an ugly
temper, and nothing but my sanctity enables me to keep them under.” If
he is accosted by a beggar, he don’t, like the other, give him money to
squander, but he gives him instruction. He presents him with a tract.
As he passes on, the poor wretch pauses and looks after him, and
mutters—“Is it a prayer? most likely, for that tract must be worth
something, for it cost something to print.”
Then there is the sectarian lay-brother. He has a pious walk, looks
well to his ways lest he should stumble, and casting his eyes down,
kills two birds with one stone. He is in deep meditation about a
contract for a load of deals, and at the same time regards his steps,
for the ways of the world are slippery. His digestion is not good, and
he eats pickles, for the vinegar shows in his face. Like Jehu Judd, he
hates “fiddling and dancing, and serving the devil,” and it is lucky he
has a downcast look, for here come two girls that would shock him into
an ague.
Both of them have the colonial step and air, both of them too are
beautiful, as Nova Scotia girls generally are. The first is young and
delicate, and as blooming as a little blush-rose. She holds out with
each hand a portion of her silk dress, as if she was walking a minuet,
and it discloses a snow-white petticoat, and such a dear little foot
and ankle—lick! Her step is short and mincing. She has a new bonnet on,
just imported by the last English steamer. It has a horrid name, it is
called a kiss-me-quick. It is so far back on her head, she is afraid
people will think she is _bare-faced,_ so she casts her eyes down, as
much as to say, “Don’t look at me, please, I am so pretty I am afraid
you will stare, and if you do I shall faint, as sure as the world, and
if you want to look at my bonnet, do pray go behind me, for what there
is of it is all there. It’s a great trial to me to walk alone, when I
am so pretty.” So she compresses her sweet lips with such resolution,
that her dear little mouth looks so small you’d think it couldn’t take
in a sugar-plum. Oh, dear, here are some officers approaching, for
though she looks on the pavement she can see ahead for all that. What
is to be done. She half turns aside, half is enough, to turn her back
would be rude, and she looks up at a print or a necklace, or something
or another in a shop window, and it’s a beautiful attitude, and very
becoming, and if they will stare, she is so intent on the show glass,
she can’t see them, and won’t faint, and her little heart flutters as
one of them says as he passes, “Devilish pretty gall, that, Grant, who
is she?” and then she resumes her walk, and minces on.
If any man was to take his Bible oath that that little delicate girl,
when she gets home, and the hall-door is shut, will scream out at the
tip eend of her voice, like a screetching paraquet, “Eliza Euphemia,
where in creation have you stowed yourself too?” and that Eliza
Euphemia would hear her away up in the third story, and in the same key
answer: “I can’t come down, I ain’t fit to be seen, nary way, for I’m
all open before, and onfastened behind, and my hair is all in paper,” I
wouldn’t believe him; would you?
The other young lady, that follows, is a little too much of Juno, and
somewhat too little of Venus. She is a tall, splendid-looking heifer,
as fine a gall as you will see in any country, and she takes it for
granted you don’t need to inquire who _she_ is. She ain’t bold, and she
ain’t diffident; but she can stare as well as you can, and has as good
a right too. Her look is scorny, as the snobocracy pass and do homage,
by bestowing on her an admiring look. Her step is firm, but elastic; it
is a decided step, but the pious lay-brother regards her not, and moves
not out of his way for her. So she stops that he may see his error, and
when he does look, he perceives that it would lead him into further
error if he gazed long, so he moves to the other side of the path, but
does it so slowly, she confronts him again. After a moment’s
reflection, he tries to turn her flank—a movement that is unfortunately
anticipated by her, and there is a collision on the track. The
concussion dislocates his hat, and the red silk Bandannah handkerchief,
which acted as travelling-bag, and pocket-book, discharges its
miscellaneous contents on the pavement. That’s onlucky; for he was a
going to shunt off on another line and get away; but he has to stop and
pick up the fragmentary freight of his beaver.
Before he can do this, he is asked by Juno how he dares to stop a lady
in that indecent manner in the street; and while he is pleading not
guilty to the indictment, the gentlemen that stared at the simpering
beauty, come to the aid of the fair prosecutrix. She knows them, and
they say, “Capital, by Jove—what a rum one he is!” Rum one; why he is a
member of a temperance society, walks in procession when to home, with
a white apron in front, and the ends of a scarf-like sash behind, and a
rosette as large as a soup-plate on his breast—a rum one; what an
infamous accusation!
The poor man stands aghast at this; he humbly begs pardon, and Juno is
satisfied. She takes one of the beaux by the arm, and says: “Do pray
see me home—I am quite nervous;” and to prove it she laughs as loud as
any of them. The joke is now being carried too far, and the young
sword-knots pick up, amid roars of laughter, his handkerchief, the
papers, the horn-comb, the fig of tobacco, the fractured pipe, the
jack-knife, and the clean shirt-collar, that was only worn once, and
toss them into his hat, which is carefully secured on his head, so low
as to cover his eyes, and so tight as nearly to shave off both his
ears. The lay-brother thinks, with great truth, that he would sooner
take five yoke of oxen, and tail a mast for a frigate through the solid
forest to the river, than snake his way through the streets of a
garrison-town. After re-adjusting his hat, he resumes his pious gait,
and Juno also goes her way, and exhibits her _decided_ step.
Now, the step of Jessie and myself was unlike any of these—it was a
natural and easy one; the step of people who had no reason to hurry,
and, at the same time, were not in the habit of crawling. In this
manner we proceeded to the lake, and sought a point of land which
commanded a full view of it on both sides, and embraced nearly its
whole length. Here was a clump of trees from which the underwood had
been wholly cut away, so as to form a shade for the cattle depasturing
in the meadow. As we entered the grove, Jessie exclaimed:
“Oh! Mr Slick, do look! Here is a canoe—can you use a paddle?”
“As well as an oar,” said I, “and perhaps a little grain better; for I
haven’t been down all the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia rivers in ’em
for nothing, let alone Lake Michigan, George, Madawaska, and Rossignol,
and I don’t know how many others. Step in, and let us have at them on
the water.”
In a minute the canoe was launched, and away we flew like lightning.
Oh, there is nothing like one of those light, elegant, graceful barks;
what is a wherry or a whale-boat, or a skull or a gig, to them? They
draw no more water than an egg-shell; they require no strength to
paddle; they go right up on the beach, and you can carry them about
like a basket. With a light hand, a cool head, and a quick eye, you can
make them go where a duck can. What has science, and taste, and
handicraft ever made to improve on this simple contrivance of the
savage? When I was for two years in John Jacob Astor Fur Company’s
employment, I knew the play of Jessie’s tribe.
“Can you catch,” said I, “Miss?”
“Can you?”
“Never fear.”
And we exchanged paddles, as she sat in one end of the canoe and I in
the other, by throwing them diagonally at each other as if we were
passing a shuttle-cock. She almost screamed with delight, and in her
enthusiasm addressed me in her native Indian language.
“Gaelic,” said I, “give me Gaelic, dear, for I am very simple and very
innocent.”
“Oh, very,” she said, and as she dropped her paddle into the water,
managed to give me the benefit of a spoonful in the eyes.
After we had tried several evolutions with the canoe, and had proceeded
homeward a short distance, we opened a miniature bay into which we
leisurely paddled, until we arrived at its head, where a small
waterfall of about forty feet in height poured its tributary stream
into the lake. On the right-hand side, which was nearest to the house,
was a narrow strip of verdant intervale, dotted here and there with
vast shady beeches and elms. I never saw a more lovely spot. Hills rose
above each other beyond the waterfall, like buttresses to support the
conical one that, though not in itself a mountain (for there is not,
strictly speaking, one in this province), yet loomed as large in the
light mist that enveloped its lofty peak. As this high cliff rose
abruptly from the lake, the light of smaller cascades was discernible
through the thin shrubbery that clothed its rocky side, although their
voice was drowned in the roar of that at its base.
Nothing was said by either of us for some time, for both were occupied
by different thoughts. I was charmed with its extraordinary beauty, and
wondered how it was possible that it should be so little known as not
even to have a name. My companion, on the other hand, was engaged in
sad reflections, which the similarity of the scene with her early
recollections of her home in the far west suggested to her mind.
“Ain’t this beautiful, Jessie?” I said, “don’t this remind you of
Canada, or rather your own country?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “me—me,” for during the whole day there had been a
sad confusion of languages and idioms, “me very happy and very sad; I
want to laugh, I want to cry; I am here and there,” pointing to the
north-west. “Laughing, talking, sporting with my father, and Jane, and
you, and am also by the side of my dear mother, far—far beyond those
hills. I see your people and my people; I paddle in our canoe, shoot
with our bows, speak our language; yes, I am here, and there also. The
sun too is in both places. He sees us all. When I die, perhaps I shall
go back, but I am not of them or of you—I am nothing,” and she burst
into tears and wept bitterly.
“Jessie,” said I, “let us talk about something else; you have been too
much excited this morning, let us enjoy what God gives us, and not be
ungrateful; let your sister come also, and try the canoe once more.
This is better than a hot room, ain’t it?”
“Oh yes,” she replied, “this is life. This is freedom.”
“Suppose we dine here,” I said.
“Oh yes,” she replied, “I should like it above all things. Let us dine
on the grass, the table the great Spirit spreads for his children;” and
the transient cloud passed away, and we sped back to the lawn as if the
bark that carried us was a bird that bore us on its wings.
Poor Jessie, how well I understood her emotions. Home is a word, if
there is one in the language, that appeals directly to the heart. Man
and wife, father and mother, brothers and sisters, master and servant,
with all their ties, associations, and duties, all, all are contained
in that one word. Is it any wonder, when her imagination raised them up
before her, that the woman became again a child, and that she longed
for the wings of the dove to fly away to the tents of her tribe in the
far west? I am myself as dry, as seasoned, and as hard as the wood of
which my clocks are made. I am a citizen of the world rather than of
Slickville. But I too felt my heart sink within me when I reflected
that mine, also, was desolate, and that I was alone in my own house,
the sole surviving tenant of all that large domestic circle, whose
merry voices once made its silent halls vocal with responsive echoes of
happiness. We know that our fixed domicile is not here, but we feel
that it is and must continue to be our home, ever dear and ever sacred,
until we depart hence for another and a better world. They know but
little of the agency of human feelings, who in their preaching attempt
to lessen our attachment for the paternal roof, because, in common with
all other earthly possessions, it is perishable in its nature, and
uncertain in it’s tenure. The home of life is not the less estimable
because it is not the home of eternity; but the more valuable perhaps
as it prepares and fits us by its joys and its sorrows, its rights and
its duties, and also by what it withholds, as well as imparts, for that
inheritance which awaits us hereafter. Yes, home is a great word, but
its full meaning ain’t understood by every one.
It ain’t those who have one, or those who have none, that comprehend
what it is; nor those who in the course of nature leave the old and
found a new one for themselves; nor those who, when they quit, shut
their eyes and squinch their faces when they think of it, as if it
fetched something to their mind that warn’t pleasant to recollect; nor
those who suddenly rise so high in life, that their parents look too
vulgar, or the old cottage too mean for them, or their former
acquaintances too low. But I’ll tell you who knows the meaning and
feels it too; a fellow like me, who had a cheerful home, a merry and a
happy home, and who when he returns from foreign lands finds it
deserted and as still as the grave, and all that he loved scattered and
gone, some to the tomb, and others to distant parts of the earth. The
solitude chills him, the silence appals him. At night shadows follow
him like ghosts of the departed, and the walls echo back the sound of
his footsteps, as if demons were laughing him to scorn. The least noise
is heard over the whole house. The clock ticks so loud he has to remove
it, for it affects his nerves. The stealthy mouse tries to annoy him
with his mimic personification of the burglar, and the wind moans among
the trees as if it lamented the general desolation. If he strolls out
in his grounds, the squirrel ascends the highest tree and chatters and
scolds at the unusual intrusion, while the birds fly away screaming
with affright, as if pursued by a vulture. They used to be tame once,
when the family inhabited the house, and listen with wonder at notes
sweeter and more musical than their own. They would even feed from the
hand that protected them. His dog alone seeks his society, and strives
to assure him by mute but expressive gestures that he at least will
never desert him. As he paces his lonely quarter-deck (as he calls the
gravel-walk in front of his house), the silver light of the moon,
gleaming here and there between the stems of the aged trees, startles
him with the delusion of unreal white-robed forms, that flit about the
shady groves as if enjoying or pitying his condition, or perhaps
warning him that in a few short years he too must join this host of
disembodied spirits.
Time hangs heavily on his hands, he is tired of reading, it is too
early for repose, so he throws himself on the sofa and muses, but even
meditation calls for a truce. His heart laments its solitude, and his
tongue its silence. Nature is weary and exhausted, and sleep at last
comes to his aid. But, alas! he awakes in the morning only to resume
his dull monotonous course, and at last he fully comprehends what it is
to be alone. Women won’t come to see him, for fear they might be talked
about, and those that would come would soon make him a subject of
scandal. He and the world, like two people travelling in opposite
directions, soon increase at a rapid rate the distance between them. He
loses his interest in what is going on around him, and people lose
their interest in him. If his name happens to be mentioned, it may
occasion a listless remark, “I wonder how he spends his time?” or, “The
poor devil must be lonely there.”
Yes, yes, there are many folks in the world that talk of things they
don’t understand, and there are precious few who appreciate the meaning
of that endearing term “home.” He only knows it as I have said who has
lived in one, amid a large family, of which he is the solitary
surviving member. The change is like going from the house to the
sepulchre, with this difference only, one holds a living and the other
a dead body. Yes, if you have had a home you know what it is, but if
you have lost it, then and not till then do you feel its value.