"Were you born in this country?"
"No; I'm from the old country."
"From what part of it?"
"From about Glasgow."
"What is your name?"
"Sholto ----."
"Sholto!--that is rather an uncommon name, is it not?"
"I was called Sholto after a son of Lord Douglas. My father was Lord
Douglas's gardener."
"How long have you been here?"
"I came over with my father about five years, ago." (In 1832.)
"How came your father to emigrate?"
"My father was one of the commuted pensioners, as they call them.[10] He
was an old soldier in the veteran battalion, and he sold his pension of
fivepence a day for four years and a grant of land, and came out here.
Many did the like."
"But if he was gardener to Lord Douglas, he could not have suffered from
want."
"Why, he was not a gardener _then_; he was a weaver; he worked hard
enough for us. I remember often waking in the middle of the night, and
seeing my father working still at his loom, as if he would never give
over, while my mother and all of us were asleep."
"All of us!--how many of you?"
"There were six of us: but my eldest brother and myself could do
something."
"And you all emigrated with your father?"
"Why, you see, at last he couldn't get no work, and trade was dull, and
we were nigh starving. I remember I was always hungry then--always."
"And you all came out?"
"All but my eldest brother. When we were on the way to the ship, he got
frightened and turned back, and wouldn't come. My poor mother cried very
much, and begged him hard. Now the last we heard of him is, that he is
very badly off, and can't get no work at all."
"Is your father yet alive?"
"Yes, he has land up in Adelaide."
"Is your mother alive?"
"No; she died of the cholera, coming over. You see the cholera broke out
in the ship, and fifty-three people died, one after t'other, and were
thrown into the sea. My mother died, and they threw her into the sea.
And then my little sister, only nine months old, died, because there was
nobody to take care of her, and they threw _her_ into the sea--poor
little thing!"
"Was it not dreadful to see the people dying around you? Did you not
feel frightened for yourself?"
"Well--I don't know--one got used to it--it was nothing but splash,
splash, all day long--first one, then another. There was one Martin on
board, I remember, with a wife and nine children--one of those as sold
his pension: he had fought in Spain with the Duke of Wellington. Well,
first his wife died, and they threw her into the sea; and then _he_
died, and they threw _him_ into the sea; and then the children, one
after t'other, till only two were left alive; the eldest, a girl about
thirteen, who had nursed them all, one after another, and seen them
die--well, _she_ died, and then there was only the little fellow left."
"And what became of him?"
"He went back, as I heard, in the same ship with the captain."
"And did you not think sometimes it might be your turn next."
"No--I didn't; and then I was down with the fever."
"What do you mean by _the fever?_"
"Why, you see, I was looking at some fish that was going by the ship in
shoals, as they call it. It was very pretty, and I never saw anything
like it, and I stood watching over the ship's side all day long. It
poured rain, and I was wet through and through, and felt very cold, and
I went into my berth and pulled the blanket round me, and fell asleep.
After that I had the fever very bad. I didn't know when we landed at
Quebec, and after that I didn't know where we were for five weeks, nor
nothing."
I assured him that this was only a natural and necessary consequence of
his own conduct, and took the opportunity to explain to him some of
those simple laws by which he held both health and existence, to all
which he listened with an intelligent look, and thanked me cordially,
adding,--
"Then I wonder I didn't die! and it was a great mercy I didn't."
"I hope you will live to think so, and be thankful to Heaven. And so you
were detained at Quebec?"
"Yes; my father had some money to receive of his pension, but what with
my illness and the expense of living, it soon went; and then he sold his
silver watch, and that brought us on to York--that's Toronto now. And
then there was a schooner provided by Government to take us on board,
and we had rations provided, and that brought us on to Port Stanley, far
below Port Talbot; and then they put us ashore, and we had to find our
way, and pay our way, to Delaware, where our lot of land was: that cost
eight dollars; and then we had nothing left--nothing at all. There were
nine hundred emigrants encamped about Delaware, no better off then
ourselves."
"What did you do then? Had you not to build a house?"
"No; the Government built each family a house, that is to say, a
log-hut, eighteen feet long, with a hole for the chimney; no glass in
the windows, and empty of course; not a bit of furniture, not even a
table or a chair."
"And how did you live?"
"Why, the first year, my father and us, we cleared a couple of acres,
and sowed wheat enough for next year."
"But meantime you must have existed--and without food or money--?"
"O, why we worked meantime on the roads, and got half a dollar a day and
rations."
"It must have been rather a hard life?"
"_Hard!_ yes, I believe it was; why, many of them couldn't stand it, no
ways. Some died; and then there were the poor children and the women--it
was very bad for them. Some wouldn't sit down on their land at all; they
lost all heart to see everywhere trees, and trees, and nothing besides.
And then they didn't know nothing of farming--how should they? being
soldiers by trade. There was one Jim Grey, of father's regiment--he
didn't know how to handle his axe, but he could handle his gun well; so
he went and shot deer, and sold them to the others; but one day we
missed him, and he never came back; and we thought the bears had got
him, or may be he cleared off to Michigan--there's no knowing."
"And your father?"
"O, _he_ stuck to his land, and he has now five acres cleared: and he's
planted a bit of a garden, and he has two cows and a calf, and two pigs;
and he's got his house comfortable--and stopped up the holes, and built
himself a chimney."
"That's well; but why are you not with him?"
"O, he married again, and he's got two children, and I didn't like my
stepmother, because she didn't use my sisters well, and so I came away."
"Where are your sisters now?"
"Both out at service, and they get good wages; one gets four, and the
other gets five dollars a month. Then I've a brother younger than
myself, and he's gone to work with a shoe-maker at London. But the man
drinks hard--like a great many here--and I'm afeard my brother will
learn to drink, and that frets me; and he won't come away, though I
could get him a good place any day--no want of places here and good
wages too."
"What wages do you receive?"
"Seven dollars a month and my board. Next month I shall have eight."
"I hope you put by some of your wages?"
"Why, I bought a yoke of steers for my father last fall, as cost me
thirty dollars, but they wont be fit for ploughing these two years."
(I should inform you, perhaps, that a yoke of oxen fit for ploughing
costs about eighty dollars.)
I pointed out to him the advantages of his present situation, compared
with what might have been his fate in the old country, and urged him to
avoid all temptations to drink, which he promised.
"You can read, I suppose?"
He hesitated and looked down. "I can read in the Testament a little. I
never had no other book. But this winter," looking up brightly,--"I
intend to give myself some schooling. A man who has reading and writing,
and a pair of hands, and keeps sober, may make a fortune here--and so
will I, with God's blessing!"
Here he gave his whip a very expressive flourish. We were now near the
summit of a hill, which he called Bear Hill; the people, he said, gave
it that name because of the number of bears which used to be found here.
Nothing could exceed the beauty and variety of the timber trees,
intermingled with most luxuriant underwood, and festooned with the wild
grape and flowering creepers. It was some time, he said, since a bear
had been shot in these woods; but only last spring one of his comrades
had found a bear's cub, which he had fed and taken care of, and had sold
within the last few weeks to a travelling menagerie of wild beasts for
five dollars.
[Footnote 10: Of the commuted pensioners, and their fate in Canada, more
will be said hereafter.]