quite as obvious, and much more disgusting, than with the vulgar poor.
But come, dear Ned; the faults and follies of others is a theme scarcely
worthy of this place; and just at the moment that you are enjoying this
festival of nature, you must take care you do not commit the pharisaic
fault, and thank God that you are not as these people, without reflecting
that Providence has arranged the circumstances which have made the
difference."
"But, papa," said Julia, "it would not be wrong, would it, for Edward
to feel that there is a difference?"
"Perhaps not, provided the feeling is properly tempered with humility
and gratitude; but it is far safer to be in the habit of comparing
yourselves with your superiors, than your inferiors."
"It may be safer, papa," said Julia, "but"--
"But what, my love?"
"It is not half so natural."
"Nor so pleasant," interposed Edward.
"Well, my children, I hope you will make it habitual, and then it will
be natural. For the present I am satisfied that you speak frankly your
opinions and feelings, without disguise or affectation."
Thus these vigilant parents extracted some moral good from every object
and every scene; and at that early age, when most children are thoughtless
of the future, theirs were constantly directed to virtue, which they
were taught is immortal in its nature, is man's support and solace
through all the vicissitudes of life, and his crown of glory when the
'terrestrial puts on the celestial.'
Our travellers remained at the Falls for a week, that they might become
familiar with them, see them by the rising and the setting sun; by
daylight, and moonlight, and starlight, in all the radiance of the
clear, full day, and in mists and storm; and then, after offering a Te
Deum from the temple of their hearts, they left them with beautiful and
imperishable pictures traced on their memories.
In following the windings of the Niagara to Newark, they passed the
celebrated heights of Queenstown, 'where ceas'd the swift their race,
where fell the strong;' but even then, though then so recent, there were
no traces of the disastrous battle fought there. The children, whose
home was in a hill-country, and who valued a mountain as much as a
New-Englander does a 'water privilege,' rambled over the heights, and
gazed delighted on the green Niagara, which, escaped from its rocky
prison, rejoices in its freedom, sweeps freely and gracefully around the
bluff promontories that indent its course, flows past the headland,
where Fort Niagara guards the American shore, and enters Lake Ontario,
which stretches, sparkling in the distance,
"To where the sky
Stoops, and shuts in th' exploring eye."
Edward had, in common with most spirited boys, a natural taste for
military exploits. "I think," he said to his mother, "that a coward
might play the hero on these heights, or at Lundie's-lane. Only think,
mother, of fighting within the sound of the roaring of the Falls: would
it not give you grand feelings?"
"I think, Edward, if I could hear the Falls at such a moment, they would
seem to me to speak in a voice of rebuke, rather than encouragement."
"O, mother, you never seem to admire courage; but I suppose it is
because you are a woman."
"No, my dear: women have been accused of having rather an undue admiration
for what you mean by courage--fighting courage; but I confess that war
seems to me a violation of the law of God, and it appears a profanation
of such beautiful scenes as these, to convert them into fields of
battle."
When they reached Newark, the party walked up to Fort George; a slight
embankment, surrounded by a palisade, is still dignified by that name.
"This palisade as they call it, Ned," said Mr. Morris, "we should
scarcely think a sufficient defence against the batteries of pigs and
chickens."
"It has served, though, to keep the yankees at bay," said a soldier,
gruffly, who was cutting up Canada thistles, and who had suspended his
labour for a moment, to regard the strangers.
"A fair hit, friend," said Mr. Morris; "but all our fighting is over
now, and forgotten I hope. This work you are doing here, cutting off
these thistles, is far better than cutting off heads."
"It is far aisier, sir," replied the man, with a slight curling of the
lip, which betrayed a professional contempt for Mr. Morris's preference
of the plough-share over the sword; then turning towards the gate he
called to a little boy who was just entering it--"Come, come Dick, what
do you gaze at, boy? bring me the basket."
The boy, without heeding the command, dropped the basket; and uttering
a cry between joy and surprise, scampered off in the direction of a
cottage, or rather hovel, which stood just without the palisade.
"That is Richard Barton!--that is certainly Richard Barton!" exclaimed
the children in one breath.
"Surely is it Richard Barton," said the soldier.
"Is his mother, here? Has he found his father?" asked Edward impatiently;
while all the party drew nearer the soldier, anxious to learn the fate of
their humble friend.
"Ay, his mother is in by there, poor cratur; but his father has been
gone since the summer after the war, when the 40th was sent from
Canada--where, God knows--there's none but he that made them can keep
track of a British regiment: one year they are here with the setting
sun, and then off to where he rises--shifting and changing like the
waves of the sea, beating from one world to another; and I should know
it by rason that I myself was fighting, and baiting gentaly under
Wellington on the sunny side of the Pyrennees in one month, and the
next comes an order and whips us off for Canada in the twinkling of an
eye, among the indians and the yankees, who know nothing about fighting,"
he concluded, glancing his eye at Mr. Morris, "according to the civil
rules of war."
"Poor, Mrs. Barton!" said Mrs. Sackville. "I am grieved at her
disappointment, though I expected it."
"Oh, do let us go in and see her," said Julia.
"We will wait a moment, my dear," replied her mother; "her little boy
must have told her that we were here, and I think she will come out to
us."
"She'll not be right free to come before you," said the soldier, "if, as
I now partly suspect, you are the gentlemen and ladies that were so
hospitable like to her." The man now doffed his cap, and stood with it
in his hand, with an expression of respect in his manner far different
from the hostile air he had at first assumed.
"But, why not, my friend, come before us?" asked Mrs. Sackville. "I
trust she has nothing to be ashamed of."
"Ashamed! no, thank God--it would be hard indeed if she had to bear the
burthen of shame with her other misfortunes; but though a soldier's
wife, she has an English spirit, and a proud one; and she says, while
she has her health and her hands, she will never be seen asking charity;
and that destitute is her condition, that as she said to-day, to make
her case known to christian people, is asking charity of them."
"Do, mother, let us go now and see her," again interposed Julia.
"Stop, a moment, my love," replied Mrs. Sackville; and then turning
again to the soldier--"You say she is utterly destitute; but when she
left us, she said she had a considerable sum of money."
"And she spake the truth, ma'am--or, what is the same, she thought she
did; but a little limb of the old one, saving your presence, my lady,
had fingered all the poor cratur had been earning in three years, in as
many minutes, and was off to the States with it."
"Ah," exclaimed Mr. Morris, who had been intently listening--"the son of
Belial--I told you so--I knew the rascal had it."
"So dame Barton said one of the gentlemen told her; but the bundle was
all tight and snug, for the little devil had sewed it up again, and
she did not examine it till she come to look for the money to pay the
captain of a schooner, who had agreed to take her down the lakes: and
just think, my lady, at that moment what an overcast it was."
"That mischief was done," said Edward, as soon as he had an opportunity
of speaking, "when you and I, Julia, left that little wretch Tristy in
the wood. I shall always think we were to blame for leaving him."
"Does the poor woman," asked Mrs. Sackville, "still think of returning
to Quebec?"
"To Quebec! ah, madam, and to the world's end, but she'll find her
husband if he is above ground. She is that resolute, that neither wind
nor tide can turn her. If she was left on a naked island in mid ocean,
she would contrive to get off from it."
"Come, children," said Mrs. Sackville, "we will just leave your father
and uncle to finish their survey here, while we look in upon our poor
friend."
"Well, go on mother," said Edward, "I will overtake you; first I must
run up to the flag-staff and get at least a clover stalk for a memorial
of the gallant Brock who is buried there."
"And I will overtake you too, mother," said Julia, falling back with
Edward.
The soldier's eye followed the children: "God bless them--God bless
them!" said he, "that is better than a monument."
"What is better than a monument, friend?" asked Mrs. Sackville, riveted
to the spot, as most mothers would be, by an honest commendation of her
children.
"The memory of an innocent heart--and a tear from eyes that never cried
for sin, my lady--we soldiers die, and are turned into the turf--but we
are honored in our officers."
"Farewell, my friend; I wish you well," said Mrs. Sackville, dropping a
piece of money into the soldier's hand, and then turned from him while
he was still uttering his hearty, "God bless you, my lady."
Julia hailed Edward as he was bounding off towards the flag-staff, and
begged him to stop for her, as she had something private to say to him.
He laughed at her passion for secrets, said he could not possibly be
detained, and at last good naturedly stopped to listen. "Ned," she said,
"I tell you what I was thinking of--as it was our fault, you know, that
poor Mrs. Barton lost her money--and she is so anxious to get to
Quebec--and that little Dick is such a good good natured little
fellow--I was thinking, Ned--"
"For mercy's sake think a little faster, Julia."
"Well, I was thinking, if we could contrive some way to have her go down
in the boat with us."
"Contrive! it could not take us long to contrive I think: we can only
ask papa, you know, and all the contrivance in the world will do her no
good, if he does not think it best."
"But, then, Ned, there is one thing I would like to propose to father
and mother, if you are willing to join me."
"Don't be so round-about, Julia, as if I was the great Mogul. Speak
out."
"Well then, to speak plain--you know Edward, you and I have each of
us five dollars that papa gave us to buy Canada curiosities with; now
I think if we were to club, we might have enough to get Mrs. Barton
to Quebec, if the captains of the boats are good-natured men, and
reasonable in their charges, and if papa approves the scheme--and
if"----
"If--if--if," said Edward, "we shall never move the woman with all
these _ifs_ to clog the way; one _if_ is sure, that if we spend our
money this way, we might have saved ourselves all the trouble of
planning so many times over how we should lay it out."
Edward continued for a few moments silent and moody, while Julia urged
her cause zealously. The person, young or old, to whom a charity is
suggested, is not often as eager for it as the original projector.
Edward, however, after having walked up to the flag-staff, plucked a
clover-stalk, and retraced a part of the way to the little wicket by
which they entered, said, with the air of a sage, "I did not think it
best, Julia, to say yes, without some consideration; but on the whole I
like the plan, and if father and mother consent, I shall be very glad."
Once agreed, they were impatient for the execution of their scheme, and
they hurried forward to the cottage, at the door of which they were met
by both the children. The little girl now quite recovered, clung to
Julia, while Richard plucked Edward by the sleeve, and expressed his joy
awkwardly, but naturally enough, by laughing in his face.
"Ah, they are indeed right glad to see ye," said Mrs. Barton, "as I'm
sure I am, as I have reason; but they, poor things--their hearts would
not jump so at sight of their father's face, as indeed how should they,
seeing they can have no recollection of him."
The children replied to all these kind expressions from mother and
children, and then drawing Mrs. Sackville to the door, they suggested
their plan. She kissed them both, and bade them await her in the
cottage, while she went to consult their father and uncle, whom she saw
approaching.
As soon as she had communicated the children's wishes, Mr. Morris
laughed at them. "Why," said he, "the poor foolish woman is on a
wild-goose chase, and the sooner she is stopped the better--travelling
over the world after a husband, who I have no doubt she is vastly better
without than with."
"But she is the best judge of that, brother."
"Lord bless you, no--a wife is no judge at all about her husband. She is
evidently an ingenious worthy woman, and can get a good living if she is
not footing it over the world after this soldier--a good riddance--a
good riddance, Mrs. Sackville. I am surprised you do not see it is a
good riddance."
Mrs. Sackville, who did not esteem matrimonial ties so lightly as her
bachelor brother, appealed to her husband, but he joined Mr. Morris in
thinking Mrs. Barton had much better remain where she was; not because
he was sure the father and husband, though a soldier, might not be worth
looking up, but because there was not the slightest chance of finding
him. "What good will it do the woman to get to Quebec?" he asked; "her
husband's regiment has left Canada."
"She tells me," replied Mrs. Sackville, "that she has many friends in
Quebec from whom she might expect assistance. She has worked for the
governor's lady, and she builds much on her benevolence, and thinks she
will get her a free passage to her husband in a government ship; and
besides," added Mrs. Sackville, "even if her hopes fail utterly, we
shall confer an essential benefit on our children by complying with
their wishes; for if they give this poor woman all their little store of
wealth, it will cost them the sacrifice of sundry personal gratifications
that they have reckoned much on, and thus give them a practical lesson
of self-denial and disinterestedness, better than all our precepts, and
it will associate with the more selfish and transient pleasures of their
journey, the pure and enduring sentiment of benevolence."
"Well, my dear wife," said Mr. Sackville, "do as you please--you have
arrayed before me irresistible motives."
Thus sanctioned, Mrs. Sackville returned to the cottage, whispered to
the children their father's acquiescence, and then saying aloud, "I
leave you to make all the arrangements with Mrs. Barton," she left them.
We shall not attempt to describe the poor woman's gratitude, which
overflowed in words and tears, nor the children's noisy joy when they
heard they were to go down the lake with their friends. Suffice it to
say, that in the course of two hours, and just as the steam-boat
appeared in sight, heavily plying down from Lewistown, Mrs. Barton was
on the wharf with her children, as clean and nice as soap and water and
fresh and well-patched clothes could make them, and looking so grateful
and joyful, that Mr. Morris, who, like the good vicar of Wakefield,
'loved happy human faces,' forgot all his objections to the procedure,
and shaking the good woman's hand heartily, said, he "was glad they were
to be fellow-passengers."
Our friends, with many others, were now impatiently waiting a conveyance
to the steam-boat, which had stopped near the opposite shore. The wharf
exhibited the usual signs of a small garrisoned town. Half drunken
soldiers were idling about, and sentinels were posting to and fro,
stationed there to prevent the desertion of the soldiers to the opposite
side, a crime which the vicinity and hospitable habits of the State
render very common. Edward accosted one of the sentinels, and asked him
if the captain of the steam-boat sent his small boat ashore. "Fraquently
he does, and fraquently he don't," replied the fellow, rather surlily.
"Does the boat stop at fort Niagara?"
"Indeed sir, and that is what I cannot tell you."
"Well," pursued Edward with simplicity, "do you think they will send
ashore to-day?"
"Indeed master, and it's what I am not thinking about."
Edward turned away, making a mental comparison between this man and
his own civil countrymen, greatly to the disadvantage of the former,
when his attention was attracted by the approach of a boat which came
skimming over the water like a bird, and as it neared the shore, a
little tight-built sailor leaped on to the wharf, and announced himself
as Jemmy Chapman, the captain's mate. While the baggage was arranging in
the boat, Edward seized the favorable moment to make the best bargain he
could with the mate for his protegee.
But the mate averred he had no power to transact that business, and
referred him to his captain. "You may safely trust to him, my young
man," said he, "for captain Vaughan is not a man to take advantage of
a ship in distress."
And so it proved--for the captain, (as every body knows, who ever
crossed the lake in the steam-boat Ontario) was a man of distinguished
humanity; and pleased with the good appearance of Mrs. Barton and her
children, and the zeal of her youthful protectors, he said, that if she
had brought her thread and needles a-board, she might work her passage
to Ogdensburg, for he and some of his men were sadly out at elbows. The
good woman's eyes glistened with delight, at the thought of paying her
way thus far, and she seated herself directly to put new pockets in an
old coat of Jemmy's, when a sudden attack of tooth-ache put a stop to
her progress.
The children were soon acquainted with her malady, for they were
continually hovering about her, and Julia procured some camphor and
laudanum from an invalid passenger, and gave them to her. She applied
them, but the horrible pangs were not allayed, when Jemmy Chapman was
attracted by the report of her distress. "Stand away, all," said he;
"stand away--fall back, my young man; and you, my little lady, and
give place to me. I am the seventh son of a seventh son, and I can cure
any body's tooth-ache but my own." Mrs. Barton was not free from the
superstition which pervades her class, and she gladly permitted him to
stroke her face, which he did with a gravity that evinced perfect faith
in his own powers; and in the course of fifteen minutes, she declared
herself completely relieved, and cheerfully resumed her labors. Julia
ran to announce the cure to her mother.
"Is not it strange, mama," she said, "that she could believe it was
Jemmy that cured her?"
"Strange to us, my dear, who do not believe in any such supernatural
powers; but we will not quarrel with a faith that cures the
tooth-ache."
As the boat passed Fort Niagara, where the river debouches into the
lake, "There," said Jemmy Chapman to Edward, who stood beside him;
"there, on that point stood a noble stone light-house, that has saved
many a poor fellow from finding a grave in this stormy lake: it was like
the good scripture light which shines equally upon all."
"And what has become of it?" asked Edward.
"Oh, it was taken down like Solomon's temple, till there was not one
stone left upon another, by one of our generals--thank the Lord he was
not an American born--he it was, that first set the example of burning
on the frontier, and burnt down this pretty town of Newark here--and cut
down all the orchards."
"The orchards! what in the world did he do that for?" asked Edward.
Jemmy paused for a moment, apparently at a loss what motive to assign
for such reckless destruction, and then said, "Out of curiosity I
believe."
* * * * *
We fear that we have already protracted our details beyond the patience
of our readers.
We shall not therefore describe the prosperous passage of the boat over
the beautiful expanse of Lake Ontario: nor the visit of our friends
to the town of Rochester, which five years before was a complete
wilderness; but now had fine houses, shops, and warehouses, and Edward
said, reminded him of Adam, who was born grown up: nor their passage
from the lake into the St. Lawrence, where these mighty waters passing
St. Vincent on one side, and Grand Island on the other, contract their
channel, and assume the form of a river.
Our friends, wrapped in their cloaks and shawls to defend them from the
chill night air, clustered around Jemmy Chapman, who stood at the helm
guiding the boat through the difficult and shifting channels, amid the
'thousand isles'--now in silence gazing on them, as they were lit up
with the rosy hues of twilight, and then with the mild but insufficient
lustre of the half orbed moon. These verdant islands are of every size
and form. Some lying in clusters like the 'solitary set in families:'
and some like beautiful vestals in single loveliness. Some stretching
for miles in length, and some so small, and without a tree or shrub,
that they look like lawns destined for fairy sporting grounds; while
others are encircled by such an impenetrable growth of trees, that one
might fancy that within this sylvan barrier wood-nymphs held their
courts and revels; in short, might fancy any thing; for there are no
traces of human footsteps to break the spell of imagination, save where
the fisherman's hut, placed on the brink of the element by which he
lives, is disclosed with its dark relief of unbroken woods by the bright
glare of the pine torch, which is his beacon light, and which serves to
show the gleaming path-way of his little canoe. Jemmy recounted to the
children the sad mishaps and disastrous chances that had befallen
unskilful or unfortunate navigators in these dangerous passes, and the
kind captain repeatedly fired his signal gun, which seemed to wake the
spirits of these deep solitudes, to send back the greeting in echo and
re-echo, till their voices died away on the most distant shores.
"Don't they hollow well?" said Jemmy, after the last report, turning
briskly around to dame Barton who sat near him.
"Well, I did not hear them," said she, mournfully.
"Not hear them--why, they spoke as plain as preaching--are you deaf,
good woman?"
"Deaf! oh, no--but my thoughts were far from here."
Mrs. Sackville thought there was something in Mrs. Barton's devotedness
to her husband, not common in her class of life. She had been deterred
from putting any questions to her, by the habitual silence and diffidence
of the poor woman. But now they had become so much more acquainted, that
she ventured to say to her, "Come, Mrs. Barton, suppose you favor us
while we sit here, with a little history of your life. My children are
so much interested in you, that they want to know all they can about
you."
"Oh, you are very good ma'am to say so; but what is there in the history
of the like of me to tell? not that I have any objection to make known
my story--thank God, that's kept me in his fear--but then what happens
to poor plain bodies like me, is not made much count of in the world."
"But, remember, my good friend," said Mrs. Sackville, "the happiness of
all his creatures, rich and poor, is of equal account in the sight of
our heavenly Father, and as I wish my children continually to bear in
mind that it is this great Being, whom they are commanded by their
Saviour to imitate, I trust that the happiness of their fellow-beings,
whether high or low, will be of equal importance in their view."
Thus encouraged by the kindness of the mother, and the eager looks of
the children, who stationed themselves close to her, Mrs. Barton began
her simple and brief story.
"I never knew my parents," she said. "I was, as I have been told, given
by a gipsey woman to a magistrate of the town of Lichfield, in England,
when I was three years old. The woman was sick, and died shortly after.
She declared herself ignorant of my parentage. She believed I had been
stolen in London, by some of her tribe, about a year before; and said
that I had been committed to her charge for some months, I had a
necklace, with a gold clasp with initials, which I had been permitted
to retain; and the worthy magistrate, in the hope that this might lead
to a discovery, advertised me, with a description of the necklace; but
no one appearing to claim me, he finally placed me in the Lichfield
alms-house.