 | II.—LAKE ONTARIO. Inklings of adventure |  |
2. II.—LAKE ONTARIO.
The next bravest achievement to venturing behind
the sheet of Niagara, is to cross the river in a small
boat, at some distance below the Phlegethon of the
abyss. I should imagine it was something like riding
in a howdah on a swimming elephant. The immense
masses of water driven under by the Fall, rise
splashing and fuming far down the river; and they
are as unlike a common wave, to ride, as a horse and
a camel. You are, perhaps, ten or fifteen minutes
pulling across, and you may get two or three of these
lifts, which shove you straight into the air about ten
feet, and then drop you into the cup of an eddy, as
if some long-armed Titan had his hand under the
water, and were tossing you up and down for his
amusement. It imports lovers to take heed how their
mistresses are seated, as all ladies, on these occasions,
throw themselves into the arms of the nearest “hose
and doublet.”
Job and I went over to dine on the American side
and refresh our patriotism. We dined under a hickory-tree
on Goat Island, just over the glassy curve of the
cataract; and as we grew joyous with our champagne,
we strolled up to the point where the waters divide
for the American and British Falls; and Job harangued
the “mistaken gentlemen on his right,” in
eloquence that would have turned a division in the
House of Commons. The deluded multitude, however,
rolled away in crowds for the monarchy, and at
the close of his speech the British Fall was still, by a
melancholy majority, the largest. We walked back
to our bottle like foiled patriots, and soon after, hopeless
of our principles, went over to the other side too!
I advise all people going to Niagara to suspend making
visit. You might as well teach a child the magnitude
of the heavens by pointing to the sky with your
finger, as comprehend Niagara in a day. It has to
create its own mighty place in your mind. You have
no comparison through which it can enter. It is too
vast. The imagination shrinks from it. It rolls in
gradually, thunder upon thunder, and plunge upon
plunge; and the mind labours with it to an exhaustion
such as is created only by the extremest intellectual
effort. I have seen men sit and gaze upon it in a cool
day of autumn, with the perspiration standing on
their foreheads in large beads, from the unconscious
but toilsome agony of its conception. After haunting
its precipices, and looking on its solemn waters for
seven days, sleeping with its wind-played monotony
in your ears, dreaming, and returning to it till it has
grown the one object, as it will, of your perpetual
thought, you feel, all at once, like one who has compassed
the span of some almighty problem. It has
stretched itself within you. Your capacity has attained
the gigantic standard, and you feel an elevation
and breadth of nature that could measure girth and
stature with a seraph. We had fairly “done” Niagara.
We had seen it by sunrise, sunset, moonlight;
from top and bottom; fasting and full; alone and together.
We had learned by heart every green path
on the island of perpetual dew, which is set like an
imperial emerald on its front, (a poetical idea of my
own, much admired by Job,)—we had been grave,
gay, tender, and sublime in its mighty neighbourhood,
we had become so accustomed to the bass of its
broad thunder, that it seemed to us like a natural property
in the air, and we were unconscious of it for
hours; our voices had become so tuned to its key,
and our thoughts so tinged by its grand and perpetual
reach of its vibrations would not agonize us with its
unnatural silence, and the common features of the
world seem of an unutterable and frivolous littleness.
We were eating our last breakfast there, in tender
melancholy:—mine for the Falls, and Job's for the
Falls and Miss —, to whom I had a half suspicion
that he had made a declaration.
“Job!” said I.
He looked up from his egg.
“My dear Job!”
“Don't allude to it, my dear chum,” said he, dropping
his spoon, and rushing to the window to hide his
agitation. It was quite clear.
I could scarce restrain a smile. Psyche in the embrace
of a respectable giraffe would be the first thought
in any body's mind who should see them together.
And yet why should he not woo her—and win her
too? He had saved her life in the extremest peril, at
the most extreme hazard of his own; he had a heart
as high and worthy, and as capable of an undying
worship of her as she would find in a wilderness of
lovers; he felt like a graceful man, and acted like a
brave one, and was sans peur et sans reproche, and
why should he not love like other men? My dear
Job! I fear thou wilt go down to thy grave, and but
one woman in this wide world will have loved thee—
thy mother! Thou art the soul of a preux chevalier
in the body of some worthy grave-digger, who is strutting
about the world, perhaps, in thy more proper carcass.
These angels are so o'er hasty in packing!
We got upon our horses, and had a pleasant amble
before us of fifteen miles, on the British side of the
river. We cantered off stoutly for a mile to settle our
regrets, and then I pulled up, and requested Job to ride
near me, as I had something to say to him.
“You are entering,” said I, “my dear Job, upon your
first journey in a foreign land. You will see other
manners than your own, which are not therefore laughable,
and hear a different pronunciation from your own,
which is not therefore vulgar. You are to mix with
British subjects, whom you have attacked vigorously
in your school declamations as `the enemy,' but who
are not therefore to be bullied in their own country,
and who have certain tastes of their own, upon which
you had better reserve your judgment. We have no
doubt that we are the greatest country that ever was,
is, or ever shall be; but, as this is an unpalatable piece
of information to other nations, we will not stuff it into
their teeth, unless by particular request. John Bull
likes his coat too small. Let him wear it. John Bull
prefers his beefsteak to a fricandeau. Let him eat it.
John Bull will leave no stone unturned to serve you
in his own country, if you will let him. Let him. John
Bull will suffer you to find fault for ever with King,
Lords, and Commons, if you do not compare them invidiously
with other governments. Let the comparison
alone. In short, my dear chum, as we insist that
foreigners should adopt our manners while they are
travelling in the United States, we had better adopt
theirs when we return the visit. They are doubtless
quite wrong throughout, but it is not worth while to
bristle one's back against the opinions of some score
millions.”
The foam disappeared from the stream, as we followed
it on, and the roar of the Falls
Like a ring of bells, whose sound the wind still alters,”
lessened with the increasing distance till it was
lost. Job began to look around him, and see something
road, and the historian of this memorable journey,
who never had but one sorrow that “would not budge
with a fillip,” rose in his stirrups as he descried the
broad blue bosom of Lake Ontario, and gave vent to
his feelings in (he begs the reader to believe) the most
suitable quotation.
Seeing any celebrated water for the first time was
always, to me, an event. River, waterfall, or lake, if
I have heard of it and thought of it for years, has a sensible
presence, that I feel like the approach of a human
being in whom I am interested. My heart flutters to
it. It is thereafter an acquaintance, and I defend its
beauty or its grandeur as I would the fair fame and
worth of a woman that had shown me a preference.
My dear reader, do you love water? Not to drink,
for I own it is detestable in small quantities—but water,
running or falling, sleeping or gliding, tinged by
the sunset glow, or silvered by the gentle alchymist
of the midnight heaven? Do you love a lake? Do
you love a river? Do you “affect” any one laughing
and sparkling brook that has flashed on your eye like
a fay overtaken by the cock-crowing, and tripping away
slily to dream-land? As you see four sisters, and but
one to love; so, in the family of the elements, I have
a tenderness for water.
Lake Ontario spread away to the horizon, glittering
in the summer sun, boundless to the eye as the
Atlantic; and directly beneath us lay the small town
of Fort Niagara, with the steamer at the pier, in which
we promised ourselves a passage down the St. Lawrence.
We rode on to the hotel, which we found to
our surprise crowded with English officers, and having
disposed of our Narragansetts, we inquired the hour
of departure, and what we could eat meantime, in as
nearly the same breath as possible.
“Cold leg of mutton and the steam-boat's engaged,
sir!”
The mercury in Job's Britishometer fell plump to
zero. The idea of a monopoly of the whole steamer
by a colonel and his staff, and no boat again for a
week!
There was a government to live under!
We sat down to our mutton, and presently enter
the waiter.
“Colonel —'s compliments; hearing that two
gentlemen have arrived who expected to go by the
steamer, he is happy to offer them a passage if they
can put up with rather crowded accommodations.”
“Well, Job! what do you think now of England,
politically, morally, and religiously? Has not the
gentlemanlike courtesy of one individual materially
changed your opinions upon every subject connected
with the United Kingdom of Great Britain?”
“It has.”
“Then, my dear Job, I recommend you never
again to read a book of travels without writing down
on the margin of every bilious chapter, `probably lost
his passage in the steamer,' or `had no mustard to his
mutton,' or `could find no ginger-nuts for the interesting
little traveller,' or some similar annotation. Depend
upon it, that dear delightful Mrs. Trollope would
never have written so agreeable a book, if she had
thriven with her bazaar in Cincinnati.”
We paid our respects to the Colonel, and at six
o'clock in the evening got on board. Part of an Irish
regiment was bivouacked on the deck, and happier
fellows I never saw. They had completed their nine
years' service on the three Canadian stations, and
were returning to the ould country, wives, children,
and all. A line was drawn across the deck, reserving
the after quarter for the officers; the sick were
boat, and the band stood ready to play the farewell
air to the cold shores of Upper Canada.
The line was cast off, when a boy of thirteen rushed
down to the pier, and springing on board with a
desperate leap, flew from one end of the deck to the
other, and flung himself at last upon the neck of a
pretty girl sitting on the knee of one of the privates.
“Mary, dear Mary!” was all he could utter. His
sobs choked him.
“Avast with the line, there!” shouted the captain,
who had no wish to carry off this unexpected passenger.
The boat was again swung to the wharf, and
the boy very roughly ordered ashore. His only answer
was to cling closer to the girl, and redouble his tears,
and by this time the Colonel had stepped aft, and the
case seemed sure of a fair trial. The pretty Canadian
dropped her head on her bosom, and seemed divided
between contending emotions, and the soldier stood up
and raised his cap to his commanding officer, but held
firmly by her hand. The boy threw himself on his
knees to the Colonel, but tried in vain to speak.
“Who's this, O'Shane?” asked the officer.
“Sure, my swateheart, your honour.”
“And how dare you bring her on board, sir?”
“Och, she'll go to ould Ireland wid us, your honour.”
“No, no, no!” cried the convulsed boy, clasping
the Colonel's knees, and sobbing as if his heart would
break; “she is my sister! She isn't his wife! Father
'll die if she does! She can't go with him! She
sha'n't go with him!”
Job began to snivel, and I felt warm about the eyes
myself.
“Have you got a wife, O'Shane?” asked the
Colonel.
“Plase your honour, never a bit,” said Paddy. He
was a tight, good-looking fellow, by the way, as you
would wish to see.
“Well—we'll settle this thing at once. Get up, my
little fellow! Come here, my good girl! Do you
love O'Shane well enough to be his wife?”
“Indeed I do, sir!” said Mary, wiping her eyes
with the back of her hand, and stealing a look at the
“six feet one” that stood as straight as a pike beside
her.
“O'Shane! I allow this girl to go with us only on
condition that you marry her at the first place where
we can find a priest. We will make her up a bit of a
dowry, and I will look after her comfort as long as
she follows the regiment. What do you say, sir?
Will you marry her?”
O'Shane began to waver in his military position,
from a full front face getting to very nearly a right-about.
It was plain he was taken by surprise. The
eyes of the company were on him, however, and public
opinion, which, in most human breasts, is considerably
stronger than conscience, had its effect.
“I'll do it, your honour!” said he, bolting it out as
a man volunteers upon a “forlorn hope.”
Tears might as well have been bespoken for the
whole company. The boy was torn from his sister's
neck, and set ashore in the arms of two sailors, and
poor Mary, very much in doubt whether she was
happy or miserable, sank upon a heap of knapsacks,
and buried her eyes in a cotton handkerchief with a
map of London upon it, probably a gage d'amour
from the desaving O'Shane. I did the same myself
with a silk one, and Job item. Item the Colonel and
several officers.
The boat was shoved off, and the wheels spattered
away, but as far as we could hear his voice, the cry
came following on, “Mary, Mary!”
It rung in my ears all night: “Mary, Mary!”
I was up in the morning at sunrise, and was glad
to escape from the confined cabin and get upon deck.
The steamer was booming on through a sea as calm
as a mirror, and no land visible. The fresh dewiness
of the morning air ashore played in my nostrils, and
the smell of grass was perceptible in the mind, but in
all else it was like a calm in mid ocean. The soldiers
were asleep along the decks, with their wives
and children, and the pretty runaway lay with her
head on O'Shane's bosom, her red eyes and soiled
finery showing too plainly how she had passed the
night. Poor Mary! she has enough of following a
soldier, by this, I fear.
I stepped forward, and was not a little surprised to
see standing against the railing on the larboard bow,
the motionless figure of an Indian girl of sixteen.
Her dark eye was fixed on the line of the horizon we
were leaving behind, her arms were folded on her
bosom, and she seemed not even to breathe. A common
shawl was wrapped carelessly around her, and
another glance betrayed to me that she was in a situation
soon to become a mother. Her feet were protected
by a pair of once gaudy but now shabby and
torn moccasins, singularly small; her hands were of a
delicate thinness unusual to her race, and her hollow
cheeks, and forehead marked with an expression of
pain, told all I could have prophesied of the history of
a white man's tender mercies. I approached very
near, quite unperceived. A small burning spot was
just perceptible in the centre of her dark cheek, and
as I looked at her steadfastly, I could see a working of
the muscles of her dusky brow, which betrayed, in
one of a race so trained to stony calmness, an unusual
fever of feeling. I looked around for the place in
which she must have slept. A mantle of wampum-work,
occupied as a pillow by a brutal-looking and sleeping
soldier, told at once the main part of her story. I felt
for her, from my soul!
“You can hear the great waterfall no more,” I said,
touching her arm.
“I hear it when I think of it,” she replied, turning
her eyes upon me as slowly, and with as little surprise,
as if I had been talking to her an hour.
I pointed to the sleeping soldier. “Are you going
with him to his country?”
“Yes.”
“Are you his wife?”
“My father gave me to him.”
“Has he sworn before the priest in the name of the
Great Spirit to be your husband?”
“No.” She looked intently into my eyes as she
answered, as if she tried in vain to read my meaning.
“Is he kind to you?”
She smiled bitterly.
“Why then did you follow him?”
Her eyes dropped upon the burden she bore at her
heart. The answer could not have been clearer if
written with a sunbeam. I said a few words of kindness,
and left her to turn over in my mind how I
could best interfere for her happiness.
| II.—LAKE ONTARIO. Inklings of adventure | |