 | The travellers |  |
THE TRAVELLERS.
In the month of June, (the jubilee month
of poets and travellers) in the year eighteen
hundred and eighteen, Mr. Sackville,
his wife, and their two children, Edward
and Julia, made the grand tour of Niagara,
the lakes, Montreal, Quebec, &c. Both
parents and children kept journals, in
which they recorded with fidelity whatever
they observed which they deemed worthy
of note. We have been favored with the
perusal of them all, and have been permitted
to make a few extracts from them, which
we intend to combine into a brief narrative,
that we are sure will amuse our young
readers, provided their delicate essence
does not escape our unskilful hands.
First, it will be necessary that our readers
should know into whose society they
are thus unceremoniously introduced.
Mr. Sackville, in the prime of life retired
from the successful practice of the law,
to a beautiful estate in the country. Various
motives were assigned by his acquaintances
for his removal; but as those diligent
inquirers, who so conscientiously investigate
their neighbor's affairs, are apt to pass
over simple and obvious motives, those
which, in this instance, governed Mr. Sackville's
conduct, escaped their observation.
The truth was, he had a strong predilection
for a country life; he was wearied
with briefs and declarations; he loved above
all things, the society of his accomplished
wife, and he ardently desired to participate
with her the happiness of educating their
fine children; and besides, he had many
little plans of utility and benevolence, such
as are naturally suggested to an active
sphere of life.
Mr. Sackville purchased a fine estate in
the town of —, in the state of —.
We have left these blanks, which we are
well aware are very provoking to all, and
especially to young readers, in order to
allow them to locate the amiable Sackvilles
(the name we confess to be fictious) wherever
they choose, north or south of the Potomac,
east or west of the Alleghanies; for
we sincerely believe that such pattern families
are to be found in every section of our
favored country.
Edward was ten, Julia eight years old,
when they removed from town. They felt
a very natural reluctance at leaving the
city, their companions, and the only pleasures
they had ever known. But the state
of their feelings will best appear by a conversation
which occurred between them and
their mother, shortly before their removal,
while Edward was assisting her to pack up
his chemical laboratory.
“You are very good, dear mother,” he
said, kissing her, “to take such pains to
pack up these things: you have been in
such a panic about spontaneous combustion
ever since the night you found the
phosphorus[1]
on fire, that I expected my
little cupboard and all its treasures would
be condemned. But,” he added, with a
sigh, “I suppose you think I shall want
my chemistry more than ever to amuse me
in the country.”
“No, my dear boy, not more than ever.”
“Oh, mother! Bob Eaton's father says
the country is such a bore—and Bob thinks
so too.”
“And what,” asked Mrs. Sackville, “do
Bob Eton's father and Bob Eaton, mean
by a bore?”
“Why, they mean, certainly”—Edward
began in a confident tone, and then
faltered a little: “that is, I suppose they
mean, that—that—that—” Edward
found it as difficult to explain their meaning,
as the original utterers of the profound
remark would have done if suddenly called
on: and he was glad to be interrupted by
a soliloquy of his little sister, who stood in
one corner of the room, wrapping something
in half a dozen envelopes.
“Farewell!” she exclaimed, as the man
says in the play, “`a long farewell' to my
dear dancing shoes—”
“Pardon me, Miss Julia,” said her mother,
“for cutting short such a pretty pathetic
parting: but here is another pair of dancing
shoes, which you will please to put
with those you already have, and I trust
you will have the pleasure of dancing them
both out before you come to town again.”
“Dancing them out, mother! shall we
dance in the country?” exclaimed both the
Edward, “that we should have
nothing to do in the country but get our
lessons; and all work and no play, you
know, mother, makes Jack a dull boy.”
“Oh yes, Ned, I know that favorite proverb
of all children. I am sorry to find
that you have such a dread of the country.
You know, my dear children, that your
father and I are devoted to your welfare,
and that we should do nothing that would
not contribute to your happiness.”
Edward had quick feelings, and he perceived
that there was something reproachful
in his mother's manner. “I am sure,”
he said, “that Julia and I wish to do every
thing that you and papa like.”
“That is not enough, my dear boy, we
wish you to like to do what we like.”
“But surely, mother, you cannot blame
us for not wishing to go and live in the
country.”
“No, Edward, I should as soon think
of blaming poor blind Billy, because he
cannot see. Unhappily you have been
entirely confined to town, and are ignorant
of the pleasures of the country. I only
blame you for thinking that your father and
I would voluntarily do any thing to lessen
your innocent pleasures.”
“Oh, mother!” exclaimed Edward, “we
did not think any thing about that.”
“Well, my dear, perhaps I am wrong in
expecting you to think—reflection is the
habit of a riper age than yours. You
must trust me for one year, and at the expiration
of that period, you and your sister
shall decide whether we return to town or
remain in the country.”
“Oh, mother! how very good you are.
One year—well, one year won't be so very
long—only think, Julia, in one year we
shall be back again.”
“Not quite so fast, Edward,” said his
mother; “you are not to decide till the end
of the year.”
“Oh, I know that, mama, but of course
we shall decide to come back.”
Mrs. Sackville looked incredulous, and
smiled at his childish confidence in his own
constancy. “I see, mother, you don't believe
me; but of course, Julia and I can't
wish to live away from every thing that is
amusing.”
“Come, Julia, your brother has taken it
upon himself to be spokesman, but let me
hear from you, what are the amusements
that you so dread to leave.”
“Why, in the first place, mother, there
is our dancing-school: every time I go to
take my lesson, Mr. Dubois says, `Pauvre,
Miss Julie, point de cotillon; point de gavots
in de country; ah, qu'il est sauvage—
de country.”'
“Dubois for ever!” exclaimed Edward,
as Julia finished her mimickry of her master's
tone and grimace. “Oh, he is the
drollest creature—and Julia is such a mimic—the
them laugh when she is gone.”
Mrs. Sackville secretly rejoiced that Julia
was to be removed, in a great degree,
from the temptation to exercise so mischievous
a faculty. She, however, did not turn
the drift of the conversation to make any
remarks on it. “Console Mr. Dubois,”
she said, “my dear, Julia, with the assurance,
that your mother will take care that
you do not lose the benefit of his labors in
the service of the graces. Your father tells
me, there is in our neighborhood a very
decent musician, who does all the fiddling
for the parish. I have purchased some
cotillon music, and I hope your favorite
tunes will soon resound in our new mansion.”
“Oh, that will be delightful, mother
but Edward and I cannot dance a cotillon
alone.”
“No, but we are not going to a desert.
There are enough clever children in the
you; and now, Julia, that I see by your
brightened eye, that you think the affliction
of leaving the dancing-school will be alleviated,
what is the next subject of your
regret?”
`The next, mother? what is next, Edward?”
“I do not know what you will call next,
Julia, but I think the theatre comes next.”
“O! the theatre—yes, the theatre—how
could I forget the theatre?”
“Well, my children, I think you can
live without the theatre, as you go but once,
or at most twice in a season; a pleasure
that occupies so small a portion of your
time, cannot be very important to your
happiness, or regretted very deeply.”
“A small portion of time, to be sure,
mother,” replied Edward; “but then you
will own it is delightful: you yourself exclaimed
the other night when the curtain
drew up, `what a beautiful spectacle!”'
“Yes, my love, but nature has far more
beautiful spectacles, and I have kept you
too long from them.”
“But, mother,” insisted Edward, “nothing
can be so pleasant and startling, as
when the curtain suddenly draws up and
discovers a beautiful scene.”
“It may be more startling, my dear Ned,
but it is not half so delightful as to see the
curtain of night withdrawn in a clear summer
morning, and the lovely objects of
nature lighting up with the rays of the rising
sun.
“But, mother, there is the orchestra—”
“And in the country, my dear, we have
bands of voluntary musicians on every side
of us, who set all their wants, and all their
pleasures to music, and pour them forth in
the sweetest notes, from morning till night.
These musicians will hover about our house
and garden the entire summer, and ask no
reward, but to share with us our cherries
and raspberries; a small pittance from the
my children, what next?”
“What next, Julia? Let us think—Oh,
there is the museum. I am sure, mother,
you cannot say a word against the museum
—such a variety of curiosities, and elegant
specimens of every thing, and I have heard
you and papa both say, that it is a very instructive
as well as amusing place to visit.”
“Certainly it is, my dear, a vast collection
of natural wonders, and artificial curiosities;
and I am glad you value it sufficiently
to regret it. But, my dear children,
nature has her museums every where: her
productions are all curiosities, and the
more you study them, the more you will
admire the wisdom and goodness of their
Creator. Every vegetable that springs from
the kind bosom of the earth—the earth
itself—the rocks—the pebbles—living creatures,
their instincts and habitudes—are
all a study for you. The volume is open
and outspread before you: God grant
that you may read therein—read with that
enlightened understanding and benevolent
spirit, which prompted a christian philosopher
to say, `the air, the earth, the water,
teem with delighted existence. On whichever
side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy
beings crowd upon my view.”'
Any farther record of the conversation
would be superfluous, and might prove
tedious. It is our purpose to give some
anecdotes of Edward and Julia, and not
their history.
As might have been expected, our young
friends in the country, were like beings
rescued from an artificial mode of existence,
and restored to their native element; and
when their mother, at the expiration of the
year, asked them if they were ready to return
to town—
“Return to town, now, mother!” exclaimed
Edward, “it is impossible.”
“Some time or other, mama, perhaps
said Julia. “We cannot go now, when
we have so much to do. The frost is just
out of the ground, and Ned and I are as
busy as bees in our garden.”
“And, besides,” said Edward, “there is
my brood of ducks, that the old hen has
just brought off; I am so curious to see her
fright when they take to the water; and
there are my bantam pigeons; bantams are
so delicate, that you know, mother, I could
not trust them to any body's care but my
own.”
“I think old Cæsar might take charge
of your bantams, Ned,” said Julia; “but I
am sure my pet lamb—”
“Oh, Julia,” interrupted Edward, laughing,
“give her the sentimental french
name.”
“Very well, I will, and you may laugh
as much you please: Orpheline—I am sure
Orpheline would not relish her food from
any hand but mine, she is so used to me;
trying to bring up to be domestic birds, I
would not leave them before I have made
a `satisfactory experiment,' as papa says;
and then, mother, we did not half fill our
herbariums last summer. Oh, we have a
world of business on our hands,” continued
Julia, with the air of one who duly realized
the importance of her momentous concerns.
Mrs. Sackville smiled, but made no reply,
and Edward said, “I was thinking,
mother, as I sat on the door-step last evening,
and listened to the hum of the happy
little creatures that are waking up for the
season, that I had new eyes and new ears
given to me, since I came to live in the
country. Even the hoarse croaking of the
frogs in our meadow, sounded pleasantly
to me; quite musical.”
“Equal to the music of the orchestra,
my dear Ned.”
“Not quite so fine, mother,” replied Ed
in it.”
“You are right, my dear Edward,” said
Mrs. Sackville; “you have new senses, or
rather, your senses are unlocked to the reception
of the sweet influences of nature.
I have more happiness than I can express
to you, my dear children, in finding that
you have already imbibed a taste for those
pure pleasures, that will remain the same,
whatever change of condition or circumstances
may await you.”[2]
Another year passed to this virtuous
family, full of useful and innocent occupations,
and in the month of the already noted
June, they left their home. The parents
with rational expectations of pleasure, from
visiting some of the most interesting scenes
in our country, and the children with the
of childhood.
Their travelling party included Mr.
Ralph Morris, a bachelor brother of Mrs.
Sackville. Mr. Morris was a man of intelligence
and extreme kindness of disposition,
a little irritable, and when the sky was
clouded, and the wind blew from the wrong
quarter, somewhat whimsical.
As we hope that our young readers will
conceive a friendship for Edward and Julia,
before they part with them, they may have
a natural curiosity to know whether they
were brown or fair, and all the etceteras of
personal appearance. Edward was tall for
his age, (twelve) and stout built, with the rich
ruddy complexion and vigorous muscle of
an English boy. His eyes were large and
dark, and beaming with the bright and
laughing spirit within: his hair was a mass
of fair clustering curls, which he, from a boyish
dread of effeminacy, had in vain tried to
subdue by the discipline of comb and brush.
little prompting from his mother as could
be expected, he kept them with remarkable
neatness. His mouth was distinguished
by nothing but an expression of frankness
and good temper. His nose, (a feature
seldom moulded by the graces) his nose,
we are sorry to confess, was rather thick
and quite unclassical. His character and
manners preserved all the frankness and
purity of childhood, with a little of that
chivalrous spirit which is such a grace to
dawning manhood. For the rest, we will
leave him to speak for himself.
The sister's person was extremely delicate
and symmetrical, with too little of the Hebe
beauty for childhood, but full of grace and
gentillesse.
Her complexion was not as rich as her
brother's; but it had an ever-varying hue,
which indicated the sensibility that sometimes
suddenly swelled the veins of her clear open
brow, lit up her hazle eyes with electrifying
about her mouth; in short, though she was
not beautiful, she had an expression of purity,
truth, and gentleness, far more attractive
than mere beauty; an expression that
was once happily described by a French
lady, who said to Mrs. Sackville, “when
your daughter smiles, it seems to me, that
it is frankness and virtue that smile.”
We are well aware that young people
do not like to be harangued about scenery;
therefore, though our travellers sailed up
the Hudson we shall resist every temptation
to describe its beautiful features, features
as well known and loved as the familiar
face of a friend; neither will we detain
them on the scarcely less beautiful Mohawk,
though we are sure they are not rebels
against nature, and that their hearts would
dilate if we had the power to present to
their imaginations this lovely stream, winding
through the valley it enriches, as it
looked to the eyes of our young travellers,
living mirror the verdant banks, the overhanging
trees, the richly-wooded hills, and
the clear heaven.
It would be impossible to record the exclamations
of the children. “It is a perfect
picture, mother, all the way,” said Julia.
“I like every thing but these dronish
farmers,” said Edward. “See, papa,” he
continued, (not, perhaps, unwilling to display
his agricultural observation) “see,
that groupe of men, black and white, all
leaning on their hoes, and staring at us,
and they will stand and look just so, until
the next carriage comes along, while their
corn is trying in vain to shoot above the
weeds that choke it. They seem to have
no more soul than the clods they stand upon.
I wish some of the farmers on the cold
desolate hills of New-England had this
fine soil.”
“My dear Ned,” replied Mrs. Sackville,
“I do not wonder at your indignation. I
poet says, `Nature should waste her wonders
on such men;' but there is compensation
every where, or, as your mother would
say, there `are divers gifts.' The man born
to the inheritance of cold and sterile hills,
is compelled to be industrious, frugal,
vigorous, and resolute to live, and thus the
advantages of his moral condition are more
than an equivalent for the physical advantages
of a fine soil or climate, or both.”
“Ah, well, papa,” replied Edward, “if I
had my choice, I should take this fine soil
on the Mohawk, and cultivate it with the
mountain virtues, industry, resolution, &c.
and I might make a paradise here.”
“A paradise, Ned!” exclaimed Mrs. Sackville,
“do you remember that Milton says,
Now morn her rosy steps in the eastern clime
Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl,
When Adam wak'd?
you must learn to like early rising and hard
work, better than you do now, and not go
on living so like the lilies of the field, that
are clothed, though they toil not.” Edward
looked a little crest-fallen.
“Your self-confidence provoked a gentle
rebuke,” said his father; “but it is a very
common mistake, my dear son, for those
much older than you are, to fancy they
should avoid the faults others commit, if
placed in their situation. But, before you
permit such a presumption, be sure that
you have resisted all the temptations in your
own path, and have performed all the duties
which belong to the sphere Providence has
assigned to you. Here we are at the close
of our day's journey, and my admonition
comes in very well, like the moral at the
end of a tale; this I think is one of the
prettiest places on the river. If I mistake
not, the village opposite to us is Palatine.”
The party alighted at Mrs. B's inn. The
children entreated their mother to take her
port-folio, and stroll with them along the
bank of the river, while the tea was getting
in readiness.
As they came opposite the ferry, they
stopped for a moment to look at a scow approaching
the shore. There were several
men in it, and among them a black lad, who,
at the moment the boat touched the shore,
either by accident, or by the contrivance of
his mischievous companions, fell overboard.
While they gave way to a burst of merriment,
the poor blackey regained a footing
on terra firma, and shook the water from his
woolly locks and dripping garments.
“You an't white yet, Cuffee,” said one
of his persecutors. “Look if he has dyed the
water,” said another.
“Don't laugh,” said Julia to Edward,
who, with a boyish love of fun, had joined
in the laugh; “it is too bad to laugh at the poor fellow.”
“You are right, Julia,” said Mrs. Sackville.
“It is hard to belong to a degraded
caste, to be born to the inheritance of jibes
and jokes.”
They continued their walk a little farther
down the bank, discovering new beauties
at every step, till they came to a spot which
Julia insisted could not be surpassed; and
arranging a nice cushion on the grass with
her shawl, she begged her mother to make
a sketch there. “Now, mama,” she said,
you must take both sides of the river.”
“You forget, Julia, that I cannot take a
panorama view.”
“Then you must leave out the inn, and
the beautiful hill behind it, with its sycamores
and locusts, and the road that winds
along the bank of the river.”
“Yes, my dear, here is the boundary of
your picture:—this magnificent elm-tree,
that seems to pay its debt to the nourishing
waters, by extending its graceful branches
over them.”
“And don't fail, mother,” said Edward,
“to mark the deep shadow it casts on that
pier of the bridge they are building—and
oh, do put in that little skiff so snugly moored
in the shade, and hooked to the tree—
and that taper church spire that stretches
above the thick wood on the left;—oh, if
you could but paint it as it looks now, with
that bright gleam from the setting sun on it.
And see, mother, just at this instant, what a
golden mist there is in the topmost branches
of that tree.”
“Stop your chattering one moment, Ned,
till I get in this little brook on the left, that
is creeping so softly into the bosom of the
Mohawk. Oh, my children, it is an easy
task to draw these lines so as to convey a
correct idea of forms and distances, but very
difficult to imitate the colouring of nature,
the delicate touch of her skilful hand. How
shall I represent the freshness and purity
that marks the youth of the year?—like
as yet unchanged by time.”
“If not changed, not perfected by time,
dear mother,” said Edward, kissing his mother.
His manner expressed a mixture of
admiration and tenderness that went to her
heart.
“You have spoiled my picture, Ned,”
she said, “I cannot make another straight
line. Come, Julia, take up the port-folio,
and we will return to the inn.”
We hope our readers will not complain
that we have not kept good faith with them,
if we have been tempted to loiter longer than
we promised on the banks of the Mohawk.
To reward them for their patience (if perchance
they have exercised that difficult virtue,
without availing themselves of the skipping
right—the readers inalienable right)
we shall make but one stage of it from Palatine
to Oneida, not once halting at any of
that intervene.
It was mid-day, and a hot day too, when
our travellers entered this Indian town,
which presents a striking aspect, situated as
it is in the heart of a cultivated and civilized
country.
Huts are planted irregularly at some distance
from the road, in fields overgrown with
rank grass. Half-naked Indians, yelling and
hallooing, were riding to and fro without
saddles or bridles, on horses that looked as
wild as themselves. Some were stretched
along the road-side, in a state of brutal intoxication;
others were lying under the
shadows of the noblest patriarchs of their
woods, showing their patent right to indolence
as lords of the creation, while their
women and girls were sitting around them,
busily making baskets and brooms. On the
green were groupes of men shooting arrows
at a mark, playing at jack-straws, football,
and the various games of skill and
demon that persecutes most fiercely
at the extremes of the human condition.
“One might almost fancy here,” said Mr.
Sackville, that the march of time had been
stayed, and the land spell-bound, by some
mighty magician. The log-huts of these
poor Indians are as rude structures as the
bark wigwams of their forefathers, and these
rich lands are a complete waste, except
where we see here and there a little patch of
corn or potatoes. The savages certainly
evince their faith in the traditionary saying,
that `the Great Spirit gave a plough to the
white man, and a bow and arrow to the Indian.”'
“And there,” said Mrs. Sackville, pointing
to some women who were hoeing, “there
is an illustration of another of their proverbs—`men
were made for war and hunting,
and squaws and hedge-hogs to scratch
the ground.”'
Edward interrupted the conversation, to
beg his father to stop in the village long
enough to allow him time to look into the
interior of some of the huts. While Mr.
Sackville hesitated whether to incur the delay
necessary to afford this gratification to
his son, the driver announced that his offleader
had lost his shoe, and asked leave to
stop at a blacksmith's to have it replaced.
This request was readily granted; and
while Mrs. Sackville entered into some conversation
with the blacksmith, who was a
white man, Edward bounded over a fence
and across a field, towards a hut which was
scarcely perceptible except by a smoke that
rose from it, and curled through the branches
of a lofty oak which stood before it.
As he drew near the hut, he heard a low
voice, broken by sobs; he paused for a
moment, and then cautiously and softly advanced,
till he came so near as to hear distinctly
what was said, and to see enough,
through a small aperture where the clay had
proceeding farther, and to excite his curiosity
to its highest pitch. An old Indian
woman was sitting on the hearth-stone, her
arms folded, and her blanket wrapped close
around her. It appeared that she had seated
herself there for the purpose of watching an
Indian cake that was baking on a shovel
before the fire; but her attention had been
so abstracted, that the cake was burnt to a
cinder. Her face and person were withered
by age; but her eye, as if lit up by an undying
spark, retained a wild brightness, and
was steadfastly fixed on two young persons
who stood before her, apparently too much
occupied with their own emotion to notice
her observation of them. The one was a
young girl, dressed in a riding habit and
Leghorn travelling bonnet. Edward was
not very well situated for accurate observation;
but though he was at the first glance
deceived by the brilliancy of the girl's
colour, heightened as it was by the excitement
soon detected unequivocal marks of the
Indian race, accompanied and softened
by traits of fairer blood. A young Indian
stood beside her, who, as Edward fancied,
had a certain air of dignity and heroism,
that characterised a warrior chief;—
still there was something in his attitude and
motions, that bespoke the habits of civilized
life. His dress, too, was a singular mixture
of the European and Indian costumes. He
wore a jacket with long sleeves made of deer
skin, and closely fitted to his arms and
breast. He had a mantle of blue broad
cloth, lined with crimson, made long and
full, hanging over one shoulder, and confined
at the waist by a wampum belt. On
a table beside him was lying a cap, like the
military undress cap of a British officer, with
a plume of black feathers tinged with crimson,
and attached to the cap by a silver arrow.
The conversation between him and the
and vehement protestations, from which
Edward could not at first gather any thing
intelligible to him. The girl wept excessively;
the Indian's passion seemed too
powerful for such an expression.
“You promise,” he said, “Felice; but
our old men say the winds are not more
changing than a woman's mind.”
“Others may change; I cannot, Nahatton;
you know I would not leave you if I
could help it.”
“Could help it! can your father's right
control nature's law? Oh, Felice!” he
added, smiting his breast, “that which I feel
for you is like the fires from the sun—the
hurricane from the south—the tide of the
ocean;—I cannot resist it.”
“Nahatton! Nahatton! you know I will
return to you.”
“Let me place this around your neck
then,” said he, detaching from his own a
chain made of porcupine quills, and curiously
was a charm, and would keep me true to my
own people. I wore it in France, and I
have returned to my tribe.”
“Not about my neck, Nahatton,” said
Felice, as he raised his hands to clasp the
chain; “it looks too savage—bind it on my
arm.—Why do you hesitate?” she asked,
as she stood with her arm extended, and her
sleeve pushed up.
“It looks too savage! Already ashamed
of your mother's blood! Oh, there is poison
in your veins!” and as he said this he
broke the chain, threw it down, and crushed
it under his foot.
“Oh, Nahatton, I did not mean that;—
I am not ashamed of my indian blood—I
will make you any promise—I will swear,
on my knees I will swear to return to you.”
“Swear then upon this,” said he; and he
took from his bosom a silver crucifix, and
offered it to her lips.
At this moment the old woman, who, as
much as she could interpret from their gestures,
rose, and darting towards them, she
laid her hand on the crucifix. “No, no,
Felice; swear not!” she said; “the oath
will be written there,” and she pointed upward,
“when you have broken and forgotten
it.”
Edward, in the intensity of his interest in
the scene, had forgotten the necessity of secrecy.
He carelessly leaned his arm on some
rails that had been placed against the hut,
one of them fell; the party within started and
looked around them, and Edward instinctively
retreated. If he went as swiftly as
the wind, and once or twice thought he heard
an arrow whirring through the air behind
him, we hope our readers will impute it to
the excited state of his imagination, and not
deem him a coward, `even upon instinct.'
“Just in time, Edward, my son,” said
Mr. Sackville, who was standing by the
carriage in which the rest of the party were
you? you look as wild as if you had met
a bear up in the wood there.”
“Oh, you would look wild too, father,
if you had seen and heard what I have.
Oh, mother! Oh, Julia! you never will believe
what I have to tell you.”
“I have something to tell you, too, Mr.
Edward,” said his mother; “and as you
are out of breath, and out of your wits, I
will tell my story first, which I assure you
is quite a romantic little tale to pick up by
the way-side.”
“Well, do be quick, mother, if you please,
for what I have to say is so wonderful.”
“No doubt; each one always thinks his
own wonder the most wonderful. But I
will not try your patience any longer. Do
you remember our speculating on an empty
carriage, which we saw drawn up under a
tree with a man standing by it, about half
a mile back?”
“Yes, very well—but what of that,
mother?”
“It was an idle inquiry about that
carriage of the good-natured communicative
blacksmith that led to the story, which
I am going to tell you. It seems that carriage
is to convey a young woman to New-York,
whence she sails for France.”
“Oh, I saw her—I saw her,” exclaimed
Edward. “It can be none other.”
“Well, Edward,” said Mrs. Sackville,
“I will give place to you; for I see you
are in such a state of fermentation, that I am
afraid your story will evaporate in exclamations,
while I am telling mine.”
Edward thus relieved from restriction,
proceeded to recount with the animation of
an eye-witness, all he had seen and heard.
His audience listened to him with the most
flattering attention, and at the conclusion,
repaid him with exclamations, that proved
they were adequately impressed with the
extraordinary scene he had witnessed.
Julia wished he had noticed whether the
chief (for thus he had chosen throughout his
narrative to designate his hero) wore moccasins
or shoes, and whether his legs below
his mantle, were bare, or covered with leggins.
She thought too, he might just have
staid to see whether the girl made the vow
or not: and his mother congratulated him
that the Indians had not executed summary
justice on him, and shot him flying for a
spy.
“My story,” said Mrs. Sackville, “will
serve, Ned, as a sequel to yours, or rather,
an explanation of it. It seems that this
young girl, who is a Miss Bernard, had
left the carriage when we saw it, on the
pretence of going to take leave of her
mother's sister, who is doubtless the old
woman you saw. You were so fortunate
as to discover her real errand. She is the
daughter of a Frenchman—Rodolph Bernard.
His family was noble and rich:
they and their fortunes were sacrificed in
and Bernard alone escaped and reached
America, with nothing but his life. It appears
from my blacksmith's story, that
young Bernard had a good deal of spirit
and enterprise, and more education than
most of the young nobles of that time. I
wish you to observe, my children, that
knowledge is a treasure not impaired by a
change of circumstances, but an immutable
good in every extreme of fortune. Bernard
remained in New-York for a year or two,
and subsisted by teaching French to some
Americans, and mathematics to his own
countrymen. He was then employed by a
company of French gentlemen, to explore
the western part of this State, then a wilderness,
and to furnish them such information
as should enable them to make an advantageous
purchase of the government. This
was not quite thirty years ago: and then
the cultivated country and beautiful villages
the most part a trackless wilderness.
“At a wigman in Oneida, where he had
been compelled to ask for such hospitality
as it afforded, he was seized with the fever
of the country that usually attacked strangers.
For weeks and months he was nursed
by an indian girl, famed among her
people for her skill in such remedies as their
native wilds supply. You know, that in
the history of the early periods of all ages,
we find the healing art assigned to women.
You will remember, Ned, in your favorite
old ballads, many a kill or cure, performed
by cruel or tender leeches.
“Whether it was the indian maid's skill
in medicine, that prevailed over the disease
at last, or her devoted kindness, it might
be difficult to determine; probably, Bernard
thought the latter; for though she
was, as my narrator's tradition says, `an
uncouth maiden to look upon,' he declared
his love to her, and asked her hand of her
after some delay, nor till he had ascertained
that Bernard's rank entitled him to wed the
daughter of a distinguished chief. She was
an only child too, and she was heir to
enough land within this Oneida reservation,
to make a principality.
“The Frenchman understood how to
manage it. His ties to his own country
were broken. All his affections and interests
were concentrated here. He has been a
good husband and father—so indulgent as
to permit his wife on ordinary occasions,
to wear her indian dress, to which it seems
she has a bigoted attachment. His children
are well educated: and, Ned, our blacksmith
thinks, that your heroine Felice, would
be a perfect beauty, if she had such hair as
your sister's, and the olive tinge could be
washed out of her skin.
“Bernard, since the late reverses in
France, has returned there, and recovered
by Napoleon.
“Last year his family received dispatches
from him, by your `chief,' Ned—who, if
not in reality a chief, is the son of a distinguished
sachem of the Seneca tribe, which is
located some where on the shores of Lake
Erie. The old Seneca chief was converted
to the Romish religion, by a Catholic missionary,
who persuaded him to resign his
son into his hands, to be educated a priest.
“It appears that neither European intercourse,
nor the strict discipline of a catholic
school, have overcome the young man's
preference of the wild and lawless life of his
tribe. As I said, on his return from
France, he brought letters from Bernard to
his family, and here he has played successfully
the part of Othello the Moor, with this
young Desdemona; and the blacksmith
thinks that Bernard will play the enraged father
to the life, as it has been his declared
resolution from his daughter's birth, that she
should not wed an indian.
“For the rest of my story, it is explained
by what you have witnessed, Edward.
The Seneca youth has visited his people,
and returned here just as Felice is on the
eve of departure for France, in compliance
with her father's requisition. As to the
future, whether she will remain constant to
her lover, as we are not seers, we cannot
predict—we can only guess.”
Edward and Julia professed unbounded
confidence in Felice's fidelity. Mr. Morris
did not see what the girl could do better.
Indian she undoubtedly was, and he thought
it was a clear case for the application of the
Scottish proverb, `hawks won't pick out
hawks' een;' at any rate it would be a
piece of effrontery for her to turn her back
upon her indian lover, and expect to win a
white one.
Mr. and Mrs. Sackville thought it possible
that Julia might find Frenchmen in
whose estimation an ample fortune would
ancestry.
Our travellers proceeded without accident
or adventure along the accustomed route
through fine villages, whose rapid growth to
maturity remind one of the construction of
a fairy palace by the touch of a magician's
wand. A few years ago this country was
unexplored save by the indian hunter, or
perhaps a devoted missionary, or lawless
trader. A wheel had never entered it—
a shodden horse was a curiosity; now, the
road is thronged with market-waggons,
stage coaches; and carriages filled with
idle, curious, or classic travellers, who go
to `the Falls' to kill time, to increase their
stores of knowledge, or to gratify taste.
Mr. Sackville was constantly directing
his children's observation to the prompt enterprise
and industry so conspicuous in a
new country, and stimulating their patriotism
by pointing out to them the increasing
“For my own part,” he said, “I prefer the
sentiment that is inspired by the peaceful
triumphs of man over nature, to the patriotism
that is kindled on battle-grounds—if
not as romantic, it is certainly more innocent.”
“Then I suppose, papa,” said Edward,
“that you prefer Virgil's georgies to his
epic.”
“Thank you, Ned,” replied his father,
“for an illustration which proves that your
travels have not quite put your school out of
your head. I certainly do prefer the aspect of
our cheerful dwellings, blooming gardens,
and fruitful fields, associated as they are in my
mind with innocent occupation and moral
cultivation; to the ivy-mantled towers and
triumphal arches of the old world—they
are the records of feudal grandeur and
high heroic deeds, but deeds too often of
doubtful virtue, and of fatal consequences.
the `spectres that sit and sigh' amid
their ruins; but if I had the gifted eye, my
children, I should rather look upon the
spirit of Contentment that hovers over our
land, and her sweet sister Hope, who points
with her finger of promise to the smiling
prosperity produced by busy hands and
active independent minds.”
When the travellers reached Black-rock,
where they were to cross the Niagara, they
were compelled to await for some time the
return of the ferry-boat, which was then
plying towards the Canada shore. While
they were detained, they amused themselves
with a company of Irish people—raw
emigrants, who had just entered our territory,
and were awaiting the departure of the
Erie steam-boat to convey them to the State
of Ohio. They had spread tents for their
Julia went from one to another, asking
questions, and giving cakes and dried fruit
from their travelling stores to the children.
They were particularly struck with one
buxom young girl with laughing eyes and
ruddy cheeks, who seeemed to be a favorite
with the whole company, and not to belong
to any one; for she went from tent to
tent kneading an oat-meal cake for one
woman—dressing a lame arm for another,
and performing sundry miscellaneous offices
that always fall to the lot of those most useful
people who have nothing in particular
to do. Julia offered her a piece of cake,
by way of introduction, and then asked her
name:—“My name is Biddy Burns, an
please you, miss.”
“And who did you come with, Biddy?”
“I left home with my cousin; but it pleased
the Lord to take her to himself before
we came to Quebec, and she has left such a
pretty complement of children to her husband
for myself.”
“Do you like our country, Biddy?”
asked Edward.
“Och, my master, I could not miss liking
it, ye are all so free and hospitable.”
“But Biddy,” said Julia, “how could
you leave your father and mother, and all
your friends?”
“Sure it is, miss, if it thrives well with me
they will all come after.”
“Sure enough,” said Mrs. Sackville,
“these poor Irish do all come after, sooner
or later. Are you a catholic, Biddy?”
“I come from the north of Ireland, my
leddy.”
“You are a protestant, then?”
“Yes, my leddy; thank God and my
mother, that taught me the resonable
truth.”
“Can you read, my good girl?”
“Indeed can I, my leddy. Thanks to the
Sunday school, I could read in the bible if I
had one, without a blunder.”
“Well, Biddy,” said Mrs. Sackville, who
thought it a good opportunity to give a
God-speed to the girl's pilgrimage—“here
is a bible in my basket—take it, and may it
be the guide of your life.”
Biddy poured forth her thanks in many a
God-reward-ye, and then after hesitating for a
moment, she said, “I wish my leddy would
condescend to walk up here a bit, to a poor
woman who needs a kind christian word,
poor crater.” Mrs. Sackville and the children
followed Biddy to a tree which stood
a little above the encampment of the Irish,
where a woman was sitting on a log with a
sick child in her arms, and a boy of five or
six beside her.
She was a middle-aged woman, with a
face originally plain, and deeply seamed
with the small-pox; but withal, there was
an expression of honesty and goodness, and
of deep sadness, that interested Mrs. Sackville,
though at first it failed to draw the
attention of the children from their good-humored
blithe companion.
“Does this woman belong to your company,
Biddy?”
“Bless you, no, my leddy.”—“I thought
not,” said Mrs. Sackville, who was struck
with the extreme neatness of the woman's
appearance, which presented a striking contrast
to all the Irish, even to our friend Biddy.—Her
child's head was covered with a
linen handkerchief—coarse and patched,
but white as the driven snow. There was
scarcely a thread of the original cloth in
her children's clothes—neither was there a
hole in them—their faces and hands were
perfectly clean, and their hair neatly combed.
“You seem to find it possible, my friend,”
said Mrs. Sackville, patting the little boy's
face, “to keep your children clean in the
most difficult circumstances.” “I try my
best, ma'am,” replied the woman. “And
a slave, my leddy,” interposed Biddy, “she
makes of herself for it. Do you know that
when I offered this morning to stay by the
instead of resting her soul and body, she
went and washed her things in the river, and
got leave to iron in the house yonder, and
did it all as particular as it might have been
done for you, my leddy.”
The poor woman was wetting the sick
child's lips from a cup of water that stood
by her; and she took no notice of Biddy's
remark. Mrs. Sackville inquired into the
particulars of the child's sickness, which she
thought would yield to some common restoratives
which she had at hand; and just as she
was dispatching Julia for the dressing case
which contained them, a little rugged impish
looking boy came towards them, throwing
himself heels over head, with a segar in his
mouth, which he continued smoking while he
was making his somersets.—“Come, come,
Goody Barton,” said he, without heeding
Mrs. Sackville's presence, “come, we must
be up and moving. If we don't get over in
this boat, I shall disappoint the company at
Chippewa to-night.”
“Don't speak so loud, Tristy,” replied
the woman, “but take the pack to the boat,
and I will follow you.”
“That surely is not your child?” said
Mrs. Sackville, as the boy walked off with
the bundle singing, at the top of his voice, a
very vulgar song, and affecting to reel like
a drunken man.
“No, thank God,” said the woman, “he
is a poor heaven-forsaken lad, who is going
into Canada. He has helped me along
from Buffalo, and has offered to carry my
bundle to Chippewa.”
It occurred to Mrs. Sackville to caution
the woman to be on her guard, for she
thought Tristy looked wicked enough for
any mischief; but a signal from the boat
obliged them all to hasten to the shore.
Biddy good naturedly took the eldest boy
by the hand and led him to the boat, and
then took leave of all her new friends,
pouring forth a shower of prayers that God
would bless them all, rich and poor.
The woman, whom we shall henceforth
call by her name, Mrs. Barton, was reserved
in the expression of her feelings; but the
tear of gratitude she dropped on Biddy's
hand at parting, was an equivalent for the
girl's voluble expressions.
There was, in all the poor woman's manner,
an unobtrusiveness and reserve uncommon
in a person of her humble degree, and
it interested Mrs. Sackville more than any
solicitation could have done. She ascertained
that Mrs. Barton was on her way to
Quebec, where she hoped to find her husband.
“And have you the means of getting
there?” asked Mrs. Sackville. “It is a great
distance, my friend, and you cannot get
across Ontario and down the St. Lawrence
for a trifle.”
“I know that, madam; but I have some
money; and if I find my own country poeple
as kind to me as the people in the States
have been, I shall do very well. Every
children. If it please God to mend my little
girl, I shall go on with good courage.”
Mrs. Sackville commended the poor woman's
resolution, and busied herself putting
up some medicines for the child, and giving
directions about them, and was so occupied
with her benevolent duty, that she gave little
heed to Edward's continued exclamations.
“Oh, mother! how beautiful the
colour of the water of the Niagara is!”
“Mother, does not it give you sublime feelings
to think you are on the Niagara?”
“Mother, does not Lake Erie look grand
from here?” &c. &c. &c. Suddenly his
attention was diverted, and he was attracted
to the extremity of the boat, where Tristy,
the little “Flibbertigibbet” we have before
mentioned, was exhibiting various feats for
the amusement of the passengers. He was a
little, pale, wizzened-face fellow, with a bleared
and blood-shot eye, his hair black, strait,
and matted to his head, his mouth defiled
indicating the depravity of one experienced
in vice. He dislocated the joints of
his fingers, stood firmly on his head, and
performed some of the difficult exploits of a
tumbler; and when he had done all this,
“Come, gentlemen,” said he, “shall I sing
you a song, or pray you a prayer? I'll suit
your fancy with either for a sixpence.”
“No, no; none of your prayers, you little
son of the old one,” said one of the men;
“we shall have your master with the cloven
foot after us before we get to the shore:
you may sing us a song, though, only let it
be a decent one.”
“Oh, well gentlemen, suit yourselves—I
am a Jack at all trades, you know—that is
to say, at any of the trades my father, that
is dead and gone, followed before me.”
“Trades! your father followed no trade,
but the trade of the light-fingered gentry.”
“I beg your pardon, sir; my dad was a
noted man in his day:—a carpenter, joiner,
dancing-master, whipping-master,
fiddling-master, school-master, music-master,
play-actor, &c. &c.—all of which I am
yours gentlemen to command. Now for the
song:—there is Erie, and my song is Perry's
glorious victory.” He then half sung,
half recited, a ballad recounting Perry's gallant
exploits on the lake.
It was impossible for a compassionate being
to see the little outcast without an emotion
of pity; or not to be affected by the
weak and almost infantine tones of his voice.
“How old are you, child?” asked Mr.
Sackville, as the boy concluded his song,
and opened his mouth to catch the sixpence
that was tossed to him.
“How old?” I do not justly remember;
but there is my age set down in our family
Bible, as my father called it, by his own
honored hand, on the day he got through,
as I have heard him say, his fourth term of
service at the state-castle.”
Mr. Sackville took from the child's hand a
filthy little dream-book, on the title-page of
which was scrawled, and scarcely legible,—
“Tristram McPhelan, born in the Bride-well,
city of New-York, on Friday—bad
luck to him—March 1807.”
“You are then but eleven years old.”
“Yes sir; and in that time I have seen
more of life than many of my betters twice
my age. I have been in every state in the
Union, and in every city of every state. I
have been in six alms-houses, two work-houses,
and ten jails, on my own account,
besides the privilege of visiting my father in
two different state prisons. While my father
lived we travelled in company, and
now I am obliged (he concluded, bowing to
Mr. Sackville,) to put up with what company
chance throws in my way.”
Mr. Sackville took Edward by the hand,
and turned away, grieved and disgusted.
His eye fell on his daughter, who was sitting
beside Mrs. Barton, carefully sheltering
while she nicely prepared an orange and
offered it to her. The little sufferer seized
it eagerly and devoured it, and then fixed
her eyes on Julia and smiled. The first
smile of a sick child is electrifying.
“Oh! miss,” said the mother, “does not
she seem to say, `God bless you,' though she
cannot speak it?”
Julia was delighted with the revival of the
child, and with the mother's gratitude, which
was even more manifest in her brightened
countenance than in her words.
“My medicine,” said Julia, “has worked
wonders; if I could but find one more orange,
I should quite cure my little patient;”
and she zealously ransacked the carriage,
and turned out every basket and bag in the
hope of finding another, but all in vain.
Disappointed, she turned to her mother,—
“Cannot we, mama,” she said, “do something
more for this poor woman before we
leave her?”
“I do not see that we can, my dear,” replied
Mrs. Sackville,” I have offered to pay
her stage fare hence to Newark, but she says
she has money, and declines receiving any
thing.”
“Oh, then she is not obliged to go on
foot—I could not endure to think of the
child's being exposed to this hot sun.”
“That, I am afraid, cannot be helped;
for the mother does go to Newark on foot.
I could not persuade her to ride. She insists
that she is very strong, and that her
child is so wasted she scarcely feels the burthen
of it; and besides, she travels but a
very short distance in a day.”
Julia paused for a moment. She was very
reluctant to give up the point, and finally,
as the last resource of her ingenuity, she
proposed that her mother should take the
woman into the carriage. “We can just
squeeze her in for a few miles, mama; she
looks so perfectly nice, that even uncle can't
girl continues to get better.”
Mrs. Sackville could scarcely refrain
from smiling at Julia's odd proposition to
take in a way-faring woman and two children,
but it had its source in such kind feelings,
that she would not ridicule it. “I am
afraid, my dear Julia,” she said, “that it is
quite impossible to gratify you. You know
your uncle already complains of wanting
elbow-room.”
“Well then, mother, just listen to one
more proposal:—take the woman into the
carriage, and let Edward and me walk two or
three miles. Three miles will be quite a lift
to her, and Ned will lead the little boy.”
Mrs. Sackville could not resist Julia's
eagerness, and after some consultation
with her husband and brother, she consented
to the arrangement, though it involved
them in some inconvenience and
delay. It was as much a matter of principle
as feeling with her, never to permit her
with the claims of humanity. A child is
more impressed with a single example of
disinterestedness, than with a hundred admonitions
on the subject. Mrs. Sackville
had some difficulty in overcoming the scruples
of Mrs. Barton, who felt a modest
awkwardness at seating herself in the carriage
with her superiors; but when they
reached the Canada shore, the necessary arrangements
were made, and she being at
last persuaded, on the ground of gratifying
the children, took their place in the carriage,
and it drove off and left Edward and
Julia to follow with little Richard Barton,
and Tristram with the wallet.
Mr. Morris was one of those thrifty people,
who can never see any necessity of poverty,
and though he was in the main kind hearted,
he was rather inclined to be severe in
his judgment of the wretched. Poverty
was always suspicious in his eyes. No
sooner were they seated and well under way,
good woman, why people who have not any
spare cash should always be travelling.
Sometimes they are going up country to
see a relation—and sometimes down country.
All their kindred are sure to live at
their antipodes.”
Mrs. Barton kept her eyes downcast on
her child, and made no reply. “Now,”
continued Mr. Morris, “what use or pleasure
there can be in lugging children from
Dan to Beersheba, is more than I can imagine.”
“God knows, I do not travel for the
pleasure of it,” meekly replied the poor
woman.
“Oh, no, no—I dare say not—I dare
say not”—said Mr. Morris, who had whiffed
away his pet with the first breath. “You
are of another sort. But, pray, my friend,
what are you travelling for?”
“To join my husband at Quebec.”
“Your husband at Quebec—and you
here! how the deuce came that about?”
“My child has fallen asleep,” replied
Mrs. Bartou, turning to Mrs. Sackville;
“and if you, ma'am, will condescend to
hear the cause of my being here—there is
no reason that I should be loath to tell it;
only you know, ma'am, one does not like to
be forward about speaking of troubles to
strangers—and those so kind as you, it
seems like begging, which I am not forward
to do.”
Mrs. Sackville assured Mrs. Barton, that
she felt great interest in knowing how she
came into her present circumstances.
“My husband,” she said, “was a corporal
in the fortieth —. We were in
Spain through all Wellington's campaigns,
and had just crossed the Pyrennees into
France, and were thinking of going home
to England again, when the regiment was
ordered to America. This was no great disappointment
to me—I have no known relation
—then I had but the one. My husband is
a sober man, who fears God and serves his
king with all his heart: and his pay with
my earnings, (for I did up all the linen of
our officers) furnished us a decent living.
When we arrived at Quebec, our regiment
was sent into Upper Canada.
“Soon after we came to Newark, a detachment
from the De Watteville regiment was
ordered to make an attack on Fort Erie.
In this detachment was a corporal, a great
friend to us, who once saved my boy from
drowning. At the moment he was ordered
off, he had a child seemingly at the last
gasp. The poor man was distracted like,
and my husband, who had that tender heart
that he could never bide to look on misery,
offered to go as his substitute, and he went.
You've doubtless heard of the sortie of Erie:
that dreadful night my husband was taken
prisoner. He got a letter written to me from
Buffalo, to tell me all his ill-fortune. He
for a deserter from the American army;
and not being with his own regiment when
he was taken, or even among his acquaintance,
he could not prove who he was. He
had been ironed, and was to be taken to
Greenbush, near Albany.
“He entreated me to procure from his
captain, the necessary papers to prove that
he was a true man, and to forward them to
him. Our captain was a great friend to
us; he gave me the writings, and I determined
myself to go to Greenbush. I met
with some troubles, and much kindness by
the way. The people in your States, ma'am,
are the freest and the kindest I have ever
seen. They seemed to me like God's stewards,
always ready to open their store-houses
to the naked and hungry. I had
money enough to pay for my boy's riding
the most of the way; for myself I seldom
felt weary, but pressed on beyond my
strength; still I did not feel it till I got to
escaped from confinement the week before.
Whither he had gone, no one knew, but all
told me that if he was not retaken, he had
probably reached Canada.
“I would have come straight home again,
but my strength was utterly gone. I have
not much recollection from this time: I
remember having a fear that they would
take my boy from me, but all seems as a
dream, till I came to myself two months
after in the alms-house in Albany. From
that time I remained in a low wretched
state, for four months, when this poor
baby was born into this world of trouble.”
Here the poor woman gave way to a
burst of tears, which seemed to be a relief
to her full heart; for afterwards, she proceeded
with more composure. “Many
months passed before I was able to do any
thing for myself. It pleased God to hear
my prayer for patience; and though I was
often without any hope that times would
You are very kind to feel for me, but I will
not tire you with all my ups and downs for
the last three years. I have sent many
letters into Canada, but have never received
any return. My heart sometimes misgives
me, and I think my husband has gone to
Europe—or maybe is dead.”
“But, why,” asked Mrs. Sackville,
“have you remained so long in the States?”
“O, ma'am, I was afraid to undertake
the journey with my poor baby, who has
always been but delicate, and I was determined
not to leave Albany, where I had
made many kind friends, till I had earned
something to help us on our journey. I
know how to turn my hands to almost any
kind of work; and the last year has prospered
so well with me, that when I left
Albany I had forty dollars. At Buffalo
my poor baby was taken down; and I have
been obliged to spend ten dollars; with the
rest I hope to get to Quebec; and if
friends to send me to Europe.”
The poor woman's story was not one of
unparalleled misfortunes, but it was unusually
interesting to her hearers—there was
so much resolution and mildness blended
in her countenance, such perfect cleanliness
in her coarse apparel, and such an evident
solicitude to avoid any exaggeration, or
even display of her troubles, that could be
an appeal to the charity of her auditors,
that when she concluded, they felt convinced
of her merit, and deeply interested
in her welfare. They were now arrived
at the inn, where they were to await the
children, who arrived in the course of an
hour, heated and dusty—but declaring they
had never a more delightful walk.
“Lord bless you, Miss,” exclaimed Mrs.
Barton, “you've heated yourself to that
degree, that the blood seems ready to burst
from your cheeks. I shall never forgive
myself if you get sick by it.”
“Oh never fear,” replied Julia, “I did
not feel the heat at all.”
“But there is such a thick sickly feeling
in the air to-day.”
“Sickly feeling,” exclaimed Edward,
I am sure I thought the air was never fresher
and sweeter.”
“You can now understand,” said Mrs.
Sackville, speaking in a low voice to her
children, “the charm of the ring in the
Fairy tale, bestowed by the benevolent
Genius; which whenever worn, produced a
clear sky, a smooth path and fragrant air.
There is a happiness, my dear children, in
the simplest act of genuine kindness, which
is much more than a compensation for the
loss of any gratification of taste. The relief
of this poor woman, and the sweet sleep
into which her child has been lulled by the
motion of the carriage, have quite reconciled
me to the delay of the sight of the Falls;
for which I confess I began to feel a little
about something.”
Mr. Morris entered the room in great
perturbation. “Here is a pretty spot of
work,” said he. “I believe in my soul, Mrs.
Barton, that that scamp Tristy has gone off
with your bundle.”
“Gone off with it!—God forbid!” exclaimed
the poor woman,—“my money
was all in it.”
“Oh uncle,” said Edward, “he has not
gone off with it;—he laid himself down under
a tree in the wood just back, and said
he would follow on as soon as he had rested
him.”
“Rested him! a mere pretence to get rid
of you—you should have had more discretion
than to have trusted him, Ned;—but
when was ever discretion found in a boy?”
“But what reason, brother, have you to
think he has gone off?” asked Mrs. Sackville.
Mr. Morris said there had a man just
if he had seen him:—he had not, but
he was certain he should have observed him
if he had been by the road side. Mr. Morris
had despatched a servant on horseback
in pursuit of him, and he begged Mrs. Barton
to calm herself till his return.
The poor woman's agitation could not be
allayed as easily as it had been excited:—
she said nothing; but she became as pale as
death, and trembled so excessively, that Mrs.
Sackville took her child from her arms and
laid it on a bed.
Mr. Morris's compassion once excited,
was never stinted. “Bless you, woman,” he
whispered to Mrs. Barton, “don't tremble
so. If the little imp has really made off, your
loss shall be made up to you. Come, cheer
up—I have engaged a place for you and
your children in a return carriage, and you
will all be in Newark to-night, safe and
snug.”
“God bless you, sir,” replied Mrs. Barton.
courage and strength seem quite spent.”
At this instant, Edward, who had gone
out on the first notice of the boy's delinquency,
returned, shouting, “He's coming, he's
coming;” and directly the messenger made
his appearance with the wallet unharmed,
and followed by Tristram, who came doggedly
on muttering, “that it was a poor reward
for lugging the old woman's bundle
to be hunted for a thief.”
“Stop your clamor, Tristy,” said Mr.
Morris, “the devil shall have his due; there
is a shilling for you, which is full as much
as your character is worth.”
“I don't know as to that,” replied the boy,
pocketing the shilling: “those that have
much character can do as they please, but
I have so little, that I set a high price on
it.”
The carriage was now ready in which
Mrs. Barton was to proceed, and her friends
saw her depart cheered and comforted by
the opportunity they had improved of imitating
our heavenly Benefactor by `raising
the sinking heart, and strengthening the
knees that were ready to fail.'
After our travellers were again on their
way, Mr. Morris said he did not at all like
Tristram's look, when he said Goody Barton
would remember him the next time she
felt the weight of her wallet. “The little
rascal said too, that he had changed his
mind, and was going back to the States—
putting that and that together, I am afraid
his evil fingers have been inside the poor
woman's bundle.”
Julia was sure he could not be so wicked
—she had herself observed the bundle, and
that it was very nicely sewed.
Mrs. Sackville hoped and believed that
there was no harm done to the poor woman's
property; and the concern of the party for
their protegée, gradually gave place to
their admiration of the beauties of their ride,
Falls.
Edward declared that his ears already
began to tingle,—and after they passed
Chippewa, Julia resolutely shut her eyes,
for fear of having the first impression weakened
by the imperfect glimpses that could
be caught of the cataract from the road.
We hope our young readers do not think
us so presumptuous as to attempt to give
them a description of the Falls of Niagara;
one of the sublimest spectacles with which
this fair earth is embellished. Neither can
we attempt to define the emotions of our
travellers. We find in Edward's and Julia's
journals, noted with an accuracy and taste
that does them great credit, all the constituent
parts of this great whole—a poet or a
painter might perhaps weave them into a
beautiful picture.
The vehement dashing of the rapids—the
of waters—the snowy whiteness, and the
deep bright green—the billowy spray that
veils in deep obscurity the depths below—
the verdant island that interposes between
the two falls, half veiled in a misty mantle,
and placed there, it would seem, that the eye
and the spirit may repose on it—the little
island on the brink of the American fall, that
looks amidst the commotion of the waters
like the sylvan vessel of a woodland nymph
gaily sailing onward; or as if the wish of
the Persian girl were realized, and the `little
isle had wings;'—a thing of life and motion
that the spirit of the waters had inspired.
The profound caverns with their over-arching
rocks—the quiet habitations along
the margin of the river—peaceful amid all
the uproar, as if the voice of the Creator
had been heard, saying “It is I, be not
afraid.”—The green hill, with its graceful
projections, that skirts and overlooks Table-rock—the
deep and bright verdure of the
the crevices of the rocks, gemmed by
the humid atmosphere, and sparkling in the
sun-beams—the rainbow that rests on the
mighty torrent—a symbol of the smile of
God upon his wondrous work.
“What is it, mother?” asked Edward, as
he stood with his friends on Table-rock,
where they had remained gazing on the
magnificent scene for fifteen minutes without
uttering a syllable, “what is it, mother,
that makes us all so silent?”
“It is the spirit of God moving on the
face of the waters—it is this new revelation
to our senses of his power and majesty
which ushers us, as it were, into his visible
presence, and exalts our affections above
language.
“What, my dear, children, should we be,
without the religious sentiment that is to us
as a second sight, by which we see in all this
beauty the hand of the Creator; by which
we are permitted to join in this hymn of nature;
to enter into the joy of our Lord? Without
it we should be like those sheep, who are at
this moment grazing on the verge of this sublime
precipice, alike unconscious of all these
wonders, and of their divine Original. This
religious sentiment is in truth, Edward, that
promethean fire that kindles nature with a
living spirit, infuses life and expression into
inert matter, and invests the mortal with immortality.”
Mrs. Sackville's eye was upraised,
and her countenance illumined with
a glow of devotion that harmonized with the
scene. “It is, my dear children,” she continued,
“this religious sentiment, enlightened
and directed by reason, that allies you
to external nature, that should govern your
affections, direct your pursuits, exalt and
purify your pleasures, and make you feel,
by its celestial influence, that the kingdom
is within you; but,” she added smiling, after
a momentary pause, “this temple does not
need a preacher.”
“Perhaps not,” said Mr. Sackville; “but
the language of nature sometimes needs an
interpreter to such young observers as Ned
and Julia.”
“That it does, papa,” exclaimed Edward,
whose exalted feeling was gradually subsiding
to its natural level; “and there are
people, too, older than Julia and I, that I
think need an interpretrer. That Yorkshireman,
for instance, who lives in the stone
house just at the turn of the road as we came
down from Forsyth's, said to me, `Well,
young master, this is a mighty fine sight to
come and see, but you would be sick enough
of it if you lived here. It seems, when I am
lying on my bed at night, like an everlasting
thunder-storm, such a roaring from the
Falls and dropping from the trees: and in
winter my poor beasts are covered with
icicles. I wish some of the quality that cry
the place up, and come half the world over
to see it, would change births with my wife
away from him to overtake you.”
“Poor fellow!” said Mr. Sackville; “the
sentiment, `Il n'y a rien de beau que
l'utile,'[3]
is quite excusable in a laborer. I
think, Ned, I feel more disposed to pity than
to blame your Yorkshireman.”
“Well, papa, what do you think of that
party of city shop-keepers who dined at the
inn with us to-day? I heard one of the
ladies say, `I have been so disappointed in
my journey.' I dropped my knife and fork,
and exclaimed, `Disappointed, madam!
does not the fall look as high as you expected?'
`Oh, child,' she replied, laughing, `I
was not speaking of the fall; but I find it is
quite too early in the season to travel in the
country. I have not seen a roast pig or a
broiled chicken since I left the city.' What
do you think of that, papa?”
“Why I think, my dear, she is a vulgar
woman, who travels because others do; and
is naturally disappointed in not meeting with
pleasure.”
“There's Mrs. Hilton, papa, who, I am
sure, is not vulgar—at least she is as rich as
Crœsus—and I heard her say to a gentleman,
that if she could have remained at the
Springs, and then could have gone home
and said she had been to the Falls, she
should have been glad; for she was sure no
one came here but for the name of it.”
“Mrs. Hilton is of the class of the vulgar
rich, among whom vulgarity is 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 pharasaic 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
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,
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
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 head-land,
where Fort Niagara guards the American
shore, and enters Lake Ontario, which
stretches, sparkling in the distance,
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 themi n tofields 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,
“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
of shame with her other misfortunes;
but though a soldier's wife, she has an Enlish
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,
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,
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
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
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
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?”
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
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 dont,” 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 protegée.
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
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
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;
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
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
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
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
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.
“When I was seven years old, don't
laugh at me, Miss Julia, I was called a
beauty. My skin was as smooth as yours;
and my hair hung in curls about my neck
and face. At this time a whimsical gentleman,
who had a fancy to bring up a
wife to his own liking, came to the alms-house:
he was pleased with my appearance,
and selected me. He taught me himself,
and procured teachers for me, and from
morning till night I was poring over hard
tasks: this lasted for three years, and perhaps
Mr. Leslie, for that was the gentleman's
name, might have remained constant
to his purpose, but then I took the small-pox;
and after lying at the gates of death
for weeks, I recovered, but with my face
many months my eye-sight and hearing
were gone, and when I could see, my eyes
had this cast in them, which looks as if I
were born cross-eyed.
“No one could blame Mr. Leslie for
giving me up. I am sure I never did. He
placed me with a poor widow, and paid my
lodging with her till I was one and twenty,
and gave me a draft on him for a hundred
pounds, which was to be paid when I came
of age. With Mrs. Gordon I was happier
than I had ever been in my life. My book
tasks I never had liked, but I sewed or
spun with Mrs. Gordon, from morning till
night, without ever being weary or discontented.
She taught me her own ways,
and she was noted through the whole town,
for her industry and neatness. She was a
good christian too, and she brought me up
to fear God and to love his service. She
had one child—an only son, two years
younger than myself. He was sometimes
she was resolute with every thing else,
could never deny him. He was sometimes
as I said, wild and wilful—but when he was
himself, he was the pleasantest lad in the
village, and the best. Mrs. Gordon was as
a mother to me; and you know it was
natural I should love her son Richard; and
I thought I but loved him as a sister should,
till one Sunday I saw him come up the little
path-way that led to our cottage, with a
blue ribband bow in his hand, which he
kissed again and again, and then thrust it
into his bosom. I knew it was a love token
from Sally Wilton the miller's daughter,
for I had seen it that day in her hat, and I
felt a pang at my heart, that told me it was
not as a brother I loved Richard.
“I have skipped over many years, for I
would not weary you. I was now one and
twenty, and my draft on Mr. Leslie was due.
Mrs. Gordon began to talk to me of marrying
Richard. I only answered her with
another's heart, and she knew what was in
mine; and she, poor woman, thought to
make all right by taking it into her own
hands.
“It so happened one night, that I was in
an adjoining room when she supposed I
was absent from the cottage, and she put
many questions to Richard about me, but
she could get no satisfaction from him. She
then told him (oh, at the moment I thought I
could never forgive her for it) she was sure
I loved him. She said much in my favor,
ma'am, that I cannot repeat, and tried with
it all to put a veil over my poor ugly face,
and then concluded with saying, for she
was a thrifty woman, and never lost sight
of the main chance, that I should not
come empty handed. At this his spirit
rose—he said, he would not be bought by
all the gold in the king's coffers. My
heart rose to my lips, but I held my breath,
for his mother grew very angry, and said
my being the virtuous woman whose price
was far above rubies. Then Richard burst
into tears, and said he knew that, and he
would go round the world to serve me, but
he could not marry me. He confessed that
he had already plighted his truth to Sally
Wilton; and he declared that he never
would marry any body but Sally Wilton.
His mother lost all patience—she said he
would make a beggar of himself for life—
that the Wiltons were an idle race, and that
none of the name had ever come to any
good.
“A great deal more she said, but it
seemed to me the more she talked, the firmer
Richard was in his own mind.
“You may be sure ma'am I did not close
my eyes that night; my love had been
blasted, and my pride cast down. It was
long before I could think of any one but
myself, or compose my mind to any good
thoughts; but when I began to see things in
a right light, it seemed to me a pity we
began to contrive some way to make Richard
happy. He had just served his time
with a shoemaker, but he had no capital to
enable him to set up for himself. I knew
Sally Wilton was a gay thoughtless thing;
but so were most girls, and I believed that
when she was married, she would do her
duty; to me it seemed, that duty would be
all pleasure with such a husband as Richard.
I had some struggles with my own heart, but
before the morning light dawned, I had
made up my mind what to do. When I
met Richard and his mother in the morning,
I was far the happiest of the three. She
was angry, he was sullen and downcast;
but I had that feeling which I need not
describe to you ma'am, who have so often
the power and the will to make others happy.
Immediately after our morning meal,
I went and presented my draft to Mr.
Leslie's agent, and received my hundred
pounds. Half the sum I returned to him
the hands of the shoemaker, with whom
Richard had served his time, and with
whom he was a great favorite, and I requested
him to lay it out in tools and stock
for Richard. The purchase was made—a
little shop hired, and every thing in readiness;
and then I told Richard in the presence
of his mother what I had done. At
first he said he never could accept so much
from me; but I told him, (and I smothered
my feelings, and smiled when I said it,) that
in spite of his mother's fancies, it was as a
sister I loved him, and as a sister and older
than himself too, I had a right to provide
for him. He was far more grateful and
happy than I expected. His mother gave
her consent to his marriage, though grudgingly,
for she was a set woman, and she had
no faith in Sally Wilton. They were married.
Richard was industrious, and we hoped
would be prosperous, but as it proved Mrs.
Barton's distrust of Sally was too well
and such a wife soon ruins a poor man. In
five years Richard was reduced to such
straits, that in a fit of desperation he enlisted.
From the sorrowful day he came to
take leave of us, for his regiment was
soon after sent to the East-Indies, his mother
never had a well day or a happy hour.
After he went away, his wife led a vicious
life; and four years after she came to our
door to beg a crust of bread—a poor,
wasted, sick, half-famished creature. We
took her in. To be sure she had been a sad
sinner, but she was Richard's wife, and besides
it is always better to pity than condemn,
and it is not for the like of us ma'am
you know, who have no hope but because
God's compassions fail not, to turn our
backs upon a fellow-creature in sin and
misery.
“For a whole year she laid in a distressing
sickness. Mrs. Barton had become
so old and feeble, that she could do nothing
a toilsome life of it; but I was as I
trusted, doing my duty, and that makes a
light heart, and according to my experience
ma'am, no one can be very wretched that
has enough to do, and that tries to do their
duty faithfully, be that duty ever so humble.
We never suffered. Sally had some
help from the charitable; and when we had
no other resource, I drew on my fifty
pounds.
“It would have been a great comfort to
us to have seen Sally take hold of religion,
when every thing else failed; but the poor
soul was racked with pains and coughing,
and could only think of her suffering body,
and she was perfectly deaf too, and could
hear nothing that the clergyman said to
her, though Mrs. Barton thought it right
he should talk to her. Oh ma'am, I think
there is not a more mournful sight on the
earth than to see a young creature thus cut
off by her sins.”
“Richard returned to us two days before
she died, but she did not know him, and
could not hear his forgiveness, though he
spoke it over and over again.”
Mrs. Barton paused for a few moments,
quite overcome by the recollection of that
sad period, and then resumed her story.
“And now came brighter days. Richard
had endured many hardships, and past
through many temptations, but he had not
lost his integrity. He had come home in
attendance on an officer who had obtained
a furlough. Not many months passed over
before Richard expressed a wish to marry
me, though my little fortune was gone, and
ten years had not as you may suppose improved
my beauty. Our mother said, our
wedding-day was the happiest of her life.
She did not long survive it. Before my
husband rejoined his regiment she had gone
to her rest. From that time till Richard
was taken prisoner by the Americans,
we have never been separated, and he has
as he is, all the world to me who have
never known other kindred but my little
ones, it cannot seem strange to you, ma'am,
that the world is a lonely place without
him; and that I should be willing to take
the help of your blessed children to get on
my way to him.”
“Oh no indeed, my good friend,” said
Mrs. Sackville, “I am delighted that my
children have found one so worthy of their
assistance; you may rest assured that we
shall not part from you till we arrive at
Quebec. Come now Edward and Julia to
your births—and dream of the `thousand
isles,' or Mrs. Barton, or what you will.”
The children obeyed their mother, and
doubtless had such sweet visions as hover
about the pillow of youth, and health, and
innocence.
Jemmy Chapman had not been an uninterested
listener to this simple tale of patient
virtue; and though Mrs. Barton had
of her narrative, he heard enough to touch
his kind heart. As she rose from the bench
near him, “Stop, stop, good woman,” said
he, and he jerked some tears from off his
cheeks; “it is not much that such as I can
pity you, but a drop is something in a gill-glass,
and (turning his pockets inside out,
and collecting a half handful of small
change,) I should not be my mother's son
if I did not feel for a woman in distress,
and so will you just take this which may
help to raise a little breeze for you when
you are becalmed. Nay, don't haul off,
but take it, and remember the poor sailors
in a stormy night. It is good luck to us to
have a friend a-shore to speak a good word
for us when we have no time to speak for
ourselves.”
Jemmy's heartly kindness was irresistible,
and Mrs. Barton received his gift, scarcely
able to command her voice to utter her
thanks.
The next morning found the steam-boat
at the wharf at Ogdensburg. Edward undertook
to settle with the captain for the
passage of his protegées; but the captain
would receive nothing, and persisted in declaring
that he was amply compensated by
Mrs. Barton's industry. The travellers
parted from him and from our friend Jemmy
with expressions of the esteem which their
virtues even on this short acquaintance had
not failed to produce; and then they proceeded
to make arrangements for their passage
down the St. Lawrence by chartering
and provisioning a Durham boat.
While this was getting in readiness, Mrs.
Sackville, whose curiosity, like that of a
more celebrated traveller, `extended to all
the works of art, all the appearances of
nature, and all the monuments of past
events,' walked with her children to view
a rare curiosity on our continent—an American
antiquity. On a point of land at the
junction of the Oswegatchie with the St.
remains of a French fortification. While
they stood surveying with pleased attention
this monument of the olden time, they were
joined by a gentleman who appeared like
them to have been attracted to the spot by
curiosity. He took off his hat, bowed to
Mrs. Sackville, and asked if he might take
the liberty to inquire of her whether she resided
at Ogdensburg.
When she replied in the negative, he
begged her pardon, and said he had been
extremely anxious to authenticate a traditionary
story he had picked up in his
journey through Canada, some of the events
of which had been located at this place.
He had hoped to find some record of it in
Charlevoix's History, but he had searched
in vain. Mrs. Sackville became in her
turn the inquirer. She said she delighted
in those traditionary tales, which, with the
aid of a little fancy, reconstructed ruins,
and enclosed within their walls living beings
and she should hold herself very much
obliged to the gentleman if he would enrich
her with some interesting associations with
this place. The stranger seemed highly
gratified to have found so ready a sympathy
in his feelings, and he related the following
particulars.
“A commandant of this fort (which was
built by the French to protect their traders
against the savages,) married a young Iroquois
who was before or after the marriage
converted to the Catholic faith. She was
the daughter of a chieftain of her tribe, and
great efforts were made by her people to
induce her to return to them. Her brother
lurked in this neighbourhood, and procured
interviews with her, and attempted to win
her back by all the motives of national
pride and family affection; but all in vain.
The young Garanga, or, to call her by her
baptismal name, Marguerite, was bound by
a threefold cord—her love to her husband,
finding persuasion ineffectual, had recourse
to stratagem. The commandant was in
the habit of going down the river often on
fishing excursions, and when he returned,
he would fire his signal gun, and Marguerite
and her boy would hasten to the shore
to greet him.
“On one occasion he had been gone longer
than usual. Marguerite was filled with apprehensions
natural enough at a time when
imminent dangers and hairbreadth escapes
were of every day occurrence. She had sat
in the tower and watched for the returning
canoe till the last beam of day had faded
from the waters;—the deepening shadows
of twilight played tricks with her imagination.
Once she was startled by the water-fowl,
which, as it skimmed along the surface
of the water, imaged to her fancy the light
canoe impelled by her husband's vigorous
arm—again she heard the leap of the heavy
muskalongi, and the splashing waters sounded
That passed away, and disappointment and
tears followed. Her boy was beside her;
the young Louis, who, though scarcely
twelve years old, already had his imagination
filled with daring deeds. Born and
bred in a fort, he was an adept in the use
of the bow and the musket; courage
seemed to be his instinct, and danger his
element, and battles and wounds were
`household words' with him. He laughed
at his mother's fears; but, in spite of his
boyish ridicule, they strengthened, till apprehension
seemed reality. Suddenly the
sound of the signal gun broke on the stillness
of the night. Both mother and son
sprang on their feet with a cry of joy, and
were pressing hand in hand towards the
outer gate, when a sentinel stopped them to
remind Marguerite it was her husband's
order that no one should venture without
the walls after sunset. She, however, insisted
on passing, and telling the soldier
for his breach of orders—she passed the
outer barrier. Young Louis held up his
bow and arrow before the sentinel, saying
gaily, “I am my mother's body-guard you
know.” Tradition has preserved these trifling
circumstances, as the events that followed
rendered them memorable.
“The distance,” continued the stranger,
“from the fort to the place where the commandant
moored his canoe was trifling, and
quickly passed. Marguerite and Louis
flew along the narrow foot path, reached
the shore, and were in the arms of —
Mecumeh and his fierce companions. Entreaties
and resistance were alike vain.
Resistance was made, with a manly spirit,
by young Louis, who drew a knife from
the girdle of one of the indians, and attempted
to plunge it into the bosom of Mecumeh,
who was roughly binding his wampun
belt over Marguerite's mouth, to deaden
the sound of her screams. The uncle
proudly on him as if he recognised in the
brave boy, a scion from his own stock.
“The indians had two canoes; Marguerite
was conveyed to one, Louis to the
other—and both canoes were rowed into the
Oswegatchie, and up the stream as fast as it
was possible to impel them against the current
of the river.
“Not a word nor cry escaped the boy:
he seemed intent on some purpose, and when
the canoe approached near the shore, he
took off a military cap he wore, and threw
it so skilfully that it lodged, where he
meant it should, on the branch of a tree
which projected over the water. There was
a long white feather in the cap. The indians
had observed the boy's movement—
they held up their oars for a moment, and
seemed to consult whether they should return
and remove the cap; but after a moment,
they again dashed their oars in the
water and proceeded forward. They continued
landed; hid their canoes behind some trees
on the river's bank, and plunged into the
woods with their prisoners. It seems to
have been their intention to have returned
to their canoes in the morning, and they had
not proceeded far from the shore, when
they kindled a fire and prepared some food,
and offered a share of it to Marguerite and
Louis. Poor Marguerite, as you may suppose,
had no mind to eat; but Louis, saith
tradition, ate as heartily as if he had been
safe within the walls of the fort. After
the supper, the indians stretched themselves
before the fire, but not till they had taken
the precaution to bind Marguerite to a tree,
and to compel Louis to lie down in the
arms of his uncle Mecumeh. Neither of
the prisoners, as you may imagine, closed
their eyes. Louis kept his fixed on his
mother. She sat upright beside an oak
tree; the cord was fastened around her
waist, and bound around the tree, which
poured its beams through the naked branches
upon her face convulsed with the agony
of despair and fear. With one hand she
held a crucifix to her lips, the other was on
her rosary. The sight of his mother in
such a situation, stirred up daring thoughts
in the bosom of the heroic boy—but he laid
powerless in his uncle's naked brawny
arms. He tried to disengage himself, but
at the slightest movement, Mecumeh, though
still sleeping, seemed conscious, and strained
him closer to him. At last the strong
sleep, that in the depth of the night steeps
the senses in utter forgetfulness, overpowered
him—his arms relaxed their hold, and
dropped beside him and left Louis free.
He rose cautiously, looked for one instant
on the indians, and assured himself
they all slept profoundly. He then possessed
himself of Mecumeh's knife, which lay
at his feet, and severed the cord that bound
his mother to the tree. Neither of them
sound they resumed the way by which they
had come from the shore. Louis in the
confidence, and Marguerite with the faint
hope of reaching it before they were overtaken.
“You may imagine how often the poor
mother, timid as a fawn, was startled by
the evening breeze stirring the leaves, but
the boy bounded forward as if there were
neither fear nor danger in the world.
“They had nearly attained the margin
of the river, where Louis meant to launch
one of the canoes and drop down the current,
when the indian yell resounding
through the woods, struck on their ears.
They were missed, pursued, and escape
was impossible. Marguerite panic-struck,
sunk to the ground. Nothing could check
the career of Louis. “On—on, mother,”
he cried, “to the shore—to the shore.”
She rose and instinctively followed her boy.
The sound of pursuit came nearer and
beheld three canoes coming swiftly up the
river. Animated with hope, Louis screamed
the watch word of the garrison, and was
answered by his father's voice.
“The possibility of escape, and the certain
approach of her husband, infused new
life into Marguerite. “Your father cannot
see us,” she said, “as we stand here in the
shade of the trees; hide yourself in that
thicket, I will plunge into the water.”
Louis crouched under the bushes, and was
completely hidden by an overhanging
grape-vine, while his mother advanced a
few steps into the water and stood erect,
where she could be distinctly seen. A shout
from the canoes apprised her that she was
recognised, and at the same moment, the indians
who had now reached the shore, rent
the air with their cries of rage and defiance.
They stood for a moment, as if deliberating
what next to do; Mecumeh maintained an
undaunted and resolved air—but with his
force thrice their number, had its usual
effect. They fled. He looked after them,
cried, `shame!' and then, with a desperate
yell, leaped into the water and stood beside
Marguerite. The canoes were now within
a few yards—He put his knife to her bosom
—“The daughter of Tecumseh,” he said,
“should have died by the judgment of our
warriors, but now by her brother's hand
must she perish:” and he drew back his
arm to give vigour to the fatal stroke, when
an arrow pierced his own breast, and he
fell insensible at his sister's side. A moment
after Marguerite was in the arms of her
husband, and Louis, with his bow unstrung,
bounded from the shore, and was received
in his father's canoe; and the wild shores
rung with the acclamations of the soldiers,
while his father's tears of pride and joy
were poured like rain upon his cheek.”
The stranger paused, and Edward breathed
one long breath, expressive of the interest
and then said, “You have not told us, sir,
how the commandant was so fortunate as to
pursue in the right direction.”
“He returned soon after Marguerite's
departure, and of course was at no loss to
determine that she had been taken in the toils
of her brother. He explored the mouth of the
Oswegatchie, thinking it possible that the
savages might have left their canoes moored
there, and taken to the land. Louis's cap
and feather caught his eye, and furnished
him a clue. You have now my whole story,”
concluded the stranger; “and though I
cannot vouch for its accuracy, many similar
circumstances must have occurred, while this
country was a wilderness, and my tradition
is at least supported by probability.”
“You have not told us, sir,” said Julia,
“whether Mecumeh was really killed. I
do not see how Marguerite could leave him
without finding out, for after all, he was her
brother.”
“Marguerite,” replied the stranger,
“justified your opinion of sisterly duty.
Mecumeh was conveyed to the fort—the
arrow was withdrawn, and after a tedious
illness, he recovered from the wound. There
is too a tradition that the pious sister converted
him to the catholic faith; but about
this part of the story there seems to rest
some uncertainty.”
“And don't you know, sir,” asked Edward,
“what became of Louis afterwards?”
“I really do not,” replied the gentleman,
smiling; “but I doubt not that the man
kept the promise of the heroic boy; and I
think it extremely probable that he has led
some gallant fellows to those deeds of high
emprise which were achieved by the armies
of Louis fourteenth.”
“My dear children,” said Mrs. Sackville,
“you must really ask no more questions.
You will be good enough to pardon,” she
added, turning to the stranger, “the eagerness
of their youthful curiosity.”
“Oh, madam,” he replied, “the evidence
of curiosity is the most grateful reward to
a story-teller, and I feel that my acknowledgements
are due to your children for
their patient listening.”
A few more courteous words passed, and
the stranger bowed and departed.
“This was a lucky meeting, mother,”
said Edward; “this crazed leaning wall
looks quite interesting to me now. I can
almost fancy I see Marguerite and Louis
issuing from the gate—Louis holding up
the bow and arrow that was to do such
memorable service that night.”
“You have had a good lesson this morning,
my children, on the pleasures of association.
When we first saw that ruin, it
looked to you like any other stone wall—
mere mason-work: and you, Julia, afraid
of being buried in its shadow, wondered
what interest any one could feel in looking
at it; and now, I see you are venturing on
the most tottering part of it for a piece of
treasured in your herbal.”
“Yes, mama, as a keep-sake for Marguerite
and Louis.”
We shall not condemn our readers to
attend the travellers in their tedious passage
down the St. Lawrence. Sometimes a
favoring breeze filled the single sail of their
little boat, and aided by the oars of the lazy
boatmen, wafted them gently forward, till,
coming to a more rapid descent in the
river, their light vessel seemed urged on by
an irresistible force to the `rapids,' where
the waves, fretting and foaming over the invisible
rocks, threatened to engulph it.
The boatmen threw themselves prostrate on
the bottom of the boat to avoid the splashing
of the waves; their oars lay useless beside
them, while the pilot strained every
nerve to guide the boat in safety through
the perilous channel. These passages, like
brief, and are succeeded by the sleepy lakes
of the river, bordered by shores uniformly
low and monotonous, save where the
green mountains of Vermont dimly define
the eastern horizon.
Arrived at Montreal, Mrs. Sackville, from
consideration for Mrs. Barton, determined
to avoid delay, and therefore deferred the
examination of this city, so singular and
picturesque to an American eye, till their
return from Quebec. There was, however,
no boat to sail before the evening, and a
half day of leisure afforded our industrious
travellers an opportunity to visit the churches
and convents of Montreal.
The churches are spacious, and decorated
with gaudy tinselled ornaments, and indifferent
pictures. Edward and Julia were
dazzled and delighted with the seeming
splendor. A little demure Presbyterian
girl, who acted as their guide, smiled at the
animated expressions of their wonder.
often says, just fit for a baby-house
for children.”
This remark caused a sudden revulsion
in Edward's mind. He had a truly manly,
or rather boyish aversion to be suspected of
a juvenile taste, and averting his eye from
his conductor, it fell on a miserable, half-famished
looking old woman, who was
kneeling in one of the aisles absorbed in her
devotions.
“Look there, mother,” said he, pointing
to the wretched object, “what a contrast
to all this pomp.—It reminds me of an
anecdote I have somewhere read of a pious
pilgrim to whom one of the popes was
ostentatiously displaying the decorations of
the Vatican.
“Dites à ces ornemens,” said the pilgrim,
“de se changer en pain.”[4]
Quite satisfied with this display of his
superiority to the childishness indirectly
ascribed to him by his conductor, though it
was entirely lost on her, Edward left the
church, and attended his friends to the
Hotel Dieu, the convent of the black nuns.
They were shown the different apartments
by one of the sisterhood, a well-bred Irish
lady, whose fine intelligent dark eyes, benevolent
and happy expression of countenance,
and short plump figure, made a delightful
impression on Edward and Julia,
who had always fancied a nun must be tall
and thin, with a sad solemn face, condemned
to wither under an immoveable veil. She
led them to the hospital where the sick of
every nation are received and treated with
equal kindness according to the law of
christian benevolence, which is of universal
obligation.
“Do the rules of your order, (the order
of St. Joseph I believe,”) inquired Mr.
performance of severe penances?”
“No,” she replied, “we are exempted
from extraordinary penances, on account of
the fatiguing and often loathsome offices
that we have to perform for the sick; these
are received as sufficient mortifications. We
open our doors to the sick mendicant and
wounded soldiers. We had in this apartment
at one time during the late war seventeen
American soldiers.”
“My countrymen,” replied Mr. Sackville,
“had abundant reason to be grateful
that they fell into your skilful and benevolent
hands,—the beautiful order and neatness
of your hospital prove with what fidelity
your samaritan duties are performed.”
While the nun, courteously bowing her
head at this merited compliment, led the
way to an adjoining anti-room appropriated
to medicines, surgical instruments, &c.
Mrs. Sackville said in a low voice to Edward,
“Take notice, my dear son, that
are strictly applied they produce the same
fruits; no matter by what name the particular
faith is called, Catholic or Protestant.”
“Oh look there, mother,” exclaimed Julia,
pointing to large cases with glass doors
which contained the medicines, “I am sure
that in spite of your laws of association,
those vials and gallipots look quite beautiful.”
“And I suspect they contain nothing
very disagreeable,” replied her mother;
“these sisters do not appear to deal in the
harsh medicines of our daring doctors, but
content themselves with emollients and palliatives.
See those labels, `eau hysterique'
—`eau celeste;' even you, Julia, would
have no objection to medicines that deserve
such pretty appellatives.”
From the Hotel Dieu they went to the
chapel and sacristie. Julia pointed to the
altars on which were standing vases filled
where, mother,” she said, “we see these
beautiful flowers, even in the churches.”
“And they are certainly not inappropriate,
Julia,” replied her mother, “in His
temple whose pencil paints and breath perfumes
them.”
After all had been shown that is usually
exhibited, the sister invited her visiters to
go to the garden. Mrs. Sackville said that
though she had heard it much extolled, their
time would not permit them the pleasure of
seeing it, but she said there was a farther
trouble that she must venture on imposing.
She understood the sisters sometimes permitted
their visiters to buy specimens of
their work; and she was anxious to carry
some to their friends.
Their conductor seemed gratified with
this hint, and directly left them, and returned
with a large basket filled with embroidered
needle-books, reticules, workboxes,
purses, scissor-cases, &c. &c.
Edward and Julia eagerly examined
the beautiful productions of the taste and
industry of the cloistered sisters. Edward
was particularly struck with a sack or purse,
made of birch bark, and wrought with porcupine
quills of the richest dyes. On one side
of it was an indian woman, carrying an infant
according to the aboriginal fashion, laced to
a board which was laid on her back; the
little creature's head was just visible, peeping
over her shoulder. A boy was standing
beside her with a bow and arrow, on the reverse
was a group of indians seated under
an oak tree, smoking the long feathered
and beaded pipe, which they call the calumet
of peace. “Oh, mother,” said Edward,
holding up the sack, “is not this very
valuable?”
“It is certainly very handsome,” replied
his mother.
“But that is not all, mother—it is certainly
very valuable, as an illustration of
paused.
“What do you wish, Ned?” asked his
mother.
“Nothing, mama,” he replied, sighing,
laying down the sack, and turning away;
“I only wish I had not seen it.”
Julia was all this time looking at a very
curious work-basket, which she thought a
masterpiece. She turned it from side to
side, examined the roses, carnations, jessamines,
and violets, that had been wrought
with such exquisite skill as to represent to
the life the peerless flowers they were made
to imitate; and for one moment she too
wished that her five dollars was still at her
own disposal. Mrs. Sackville read what
was passing in the minds of her children.
She took them aside: “My dear Ned and
Julia,” she said, “I fear you may be regretting
your hasty benevolence, when you
devoted to a charitable purpose all the
money your father gave you for such gratifications
did it from a sudden impulse of generosity:
you have, I believe, as yet expended but a
small portion of your money, and if you
now prefer to appropriate it to the purchase
of these very tempting articles, I will myself
assume the expense of getting Mrs. Barton
to Quebec.”
Edward and Julia looked at their mother,
and at one another without replying a
word. Mrs. Sackville returned to the table
to make some selections for herself.
“What had we best do, Ned?” whispered
Julia.
“Why do you ask me, Julia? you know
as well as I. I should like to have something
to show that I had been in Canada.”
“So should I excessively—but then”—
“But what, Julia? I am sure mama
says it shall make no difference to Mrs.
Barton.”
“No, that is true—it will make no difference
to her; but it will make a great
difference to us.”
The last member of Julia's sentence was
quite lost on Edward, for he had abruptly
returned to the table, and to the examination
of the coveted purse. Julia stood for
one half instant wavering, and then walked
to a window, and kept her eye steadily
fixed on the garden it overlooked. Mrs.
Sackville ventured one glance at her children.
`Ah,' thought she, `Julia, you will
prove faithful, but Ned I fear for you; `he
who deliberates is lost.” Her mind was
more intent on her children than on the
little traffic she was making, and when she
had set aside articles to a considerable
amount, and was about to pay for them,
the nun said, “I think, madam, you might
make a better selection—allow me to exchange
this basket for the awkward one
you have there. I am a little vain of this,
for I made it myself, and I should have
begged your daughter to accept it when I
saw her admiring it, but these articles are
devoted to a specific object, and I have no
particularly gratified if you would purchase
this for Miss Julia, instead of that
you have taken.”
“You are very good,” replied Mrs. Sackville,
“but I have permitted my daughter
to select for herself. Julia, do you hear
what this lady says?”
“Yes, mama.”
“Will you look at the basket, my love?”
“No, I thank you, mama.”
This last reply was uttered in a faltering
voice, and caught Edward's attention. He
had just taken out his pocket-book to pay
for the purse. He looked towards Julia,
and then to his mother. Mrs. Sackville's
eyes were fixed on Julia with an expression
of love and approbation which flashed to Edward's
heart; he dropped the purse, put up
his pocket-book, and going up to his sister,
whispered a proposal that they should return
to the inn, without waiting for their mother
to finish her business.
They then took a respectful, though
rather a hurried leave of the kind sister, impatient
to be out of sight of a temptation,
which no one will deride as inconsiderable,
when it is remembered that Edward was
twelve, Julia ten years old.
“What upon earth ails the children?”
asked Mr. Morris, who saw that something
agitated them. Mrs. Sackville explained
as far as she could without making a display
of their charity. “They are good
children, very good children,” said Mr.
Morris, “and I think you have tried them
a little too far, sister; but, dear souls, it
shall all be made up to them. Where is
that purse poor Ned was fingering? and
that basket for Julia? I'll buy them both;
they shall have them.”
“No, my dear brother, you must not
indeed interpose your kindness—you will
spoil all. The result has proved that I did
not try them too far, though I confess I
was at one time a little afraid I had done
up the flower in trying to ascertain whether
it had taken root. I have now more confidence
that their hearts have that good soil
into which the roots of virtue may strike
deeply; and they now know the full cost of
a charitable action which is performed by
the voluntary and deliberate sacrifice of
personal indulgence.”
“You are right, perfectly right my dear,”
said Mr. Sackville.
“Yes, I believe you are right,” said Mr.
Morris, reluctantly replacing the articles,
“but it's deuced hard upon the children.”
“It is more blessed to give than to receive,”
said the nun, in a sweet tone of
voice, and added, “I assure you madam, I
never missed a sale of our little wares with
so much satisfaction.”
The visiters then took leave of the amiable
sister, and in the course of the evening
embarked on board the steam-boat. When
they arose in the morning, they had already
one of the most beautiful of all the bright
days of summer. A gentle west wind
tempered the sun's heat, and if, as saith the
good book, `a cheerful countenance betokeneth
the heart in prosperity,' it might
be inferred from the happy faces of our
friends, that their minds were as bright and
clear as the cloudless sky. Even Mrs.
Barton had lost her downcast despondent
look, and the pleasant light of gratitude
and hope was diffused over her honest
countenance. Edward and Julia were unusually
animated, and their mother observed
their joyous step as they bounded over the
decks, their sparkling glances, and their
gleeful chatterings which fell like music on
her ear: she traced their uncommon spirits
to the little struggle and victory of the preceding
day, and rightly, for it is active goodness
that commands the secret spring of
joy—virtue that opens all the sweet fountains
of happiness within us.
It was late in the afternoon when the level
and uniform shores of the river, studded
with an unbroken line of white-washed
houses, or only broken where they clustered
around a catholic church, as children
gather under the wing of a parent, began
to assume more picturesque forms. Bold
promontories stretched into the river, and
beautiful hills presented their verdant and
graceful slopes to the clear mirror. There
was a band of musicians on board the boat,
who at the command of the captain, (who
understood the laws of international courtesy,)
had been playing yankee doodle.
Edward was far enough from home to feel
grateful for this tribute from the English
captain, and when the music suddenly
changed, at a signal from him, to a mournful
requiem, Edward inquired with a look
of disappointment, the cause of the transition.
“Look there,” he replied, “my young
friend, at that pretty grassy point. It is
point you see a thicket of tall trees, which
extend their shadows now beyond the church.
Under those trees were buried three beautiful
girls, the daughters of the honourable
Mrs. Laboniére. The young ladies were
called by the villagers, `Les sœurs de la
charité;' and are now, I am told, reckoned
as their guardian saints by these poor
catholic peasants. I happened to be there
when the last was buried. You know the
catholics have great pomp and expense at
their funerals; but I believe the childless
parents had no heart for this, for though the
father is seignior of the place, and a man of
great wealth, he granted the request of the
poor villagers who went in a body to him,
to beg permission to bury their beloved
benefactress. I saw the procession—every
one in it was a mourner. The girls strewed
the grave with white roses, and all, even the
old men and the little children, shed tears
on the turf that covered it; and I could not
water were these tears of gratitude.
We call the place the `Three sisters,' now,”
concluded the captain, “and I never pass it
without some tribute of respect.”
Before nine o'clock the steamboat was
gliding along under the heights of Quebec.
Having, as Mr. Morris (who kept strict
note of time) remarked, achieved a sail of
180 miles in 18 hours. Edward stood on
the deck beside his mother, straining his
eyes to the proud summit of Cape Diamond,
where the British flag waved in a flood of
moonlight. “Oh, mother,” he exclaimed,
“what a kind friend the moon has been to
us.”
“She has indeed,” replied Mrs. Sackville;
“and I am very glad that you notice
and enjoy her favors; her pale crescent
was reflected in the waters of Ontario—her
beams revealed to us some of the secret
spires of Montreal sent back her silver
rays, and now she pours a flood of light from
her full orb, upon these fortified heights.
But, come, dear Ned, I believe it is time
for us to leave the moon, and attend to our
sublunary concerns. Your uncle has gone
to settle our bill, and you had best attend
to yours.” Julia poured the contents of
her purse into Edward's, and he left them,
and returned in a few moments holding a
single shilling between his fingers; “here
is all we have left,” he said; “what is to
be done now, mother? I cannot bear to turn
poor Mrs. Barton adrift the moment we
arrive.”
“No, dear Ned,” replied his mother;
“she shall be cared for still further. I had
too much respect for good examples,” she
continued, smiling, “to spend all my money
for fancy articles, and I shall take Mrs.
Barton to the City Hotel with us, till she
can make some provisions for herself. I
the governor will think proper to do any
thing for her, but your father has letters to
him, and he will call at the Chateau to-morrow,
and say and do what he can in her
behalf.” Mrs. Barton received this additional
kindness with unfeigned gratitude;
“But after to-morrow, ma'am,” she said,
“I will trouble you no further, for I am sure
to find some acquaintance here, who will
help me to shift for myself.”
The next morning passports were procured
to visit the fortifications. Edward,
who had a great regard to our own heroes
and patriots, had previously sallied forth in
quest of the spot where the gallant Montgomery
fell in our cause; and his father,
after awaiting his return for some time,
proceeded without him, leaving a note of
directions how he should follow him.
Edward obeyed the directions. He
reached Cape Diamond without meeting
his friends, and he was biting his lips with
celebrated fortification alone, without any
one to explain it to him, and must leave it
as ignorant as he had entered; when he
was accosted by a good natured looking
soldier, who, doffing his military cap and
making a slight bow, said, “This is a
pleasant place, young gentleman, of a sunny
summer's day.”
Edward turned his bright glance on the
man, delighted to have found any one who
could answer the questions that were rushing
to his lips. “Is not that,” he said,
pointing to the island opposite, “the island
of Orleans?”
“The very same, sir: and the point
there, is point Levi, which Wolfe fortified,
and destroyed from it all the lower town of
Quebec: but brave as he was, I think he
never would have come within the rampart,
if Montcalme had not been the fool to go
out and meet him on the Plains of Abraham—once
there, you know, we beat of
Englishman is as good as two Frenchmen
any day—and that's what every English
soldier knows.”
“But,” replied Edward, with a smile,
“what every French soldier does not admit
I suspect.”
“No—no—not exactly—for you know
they are a bragging nation.”
“Well,” said Edward, “they seem to
have something to brag of about you here
in these beautiful villages:” and he pointed
towards Beauport and Charlebourg, whose
white houses, green fields, and churches,
seem to promise every thing that poets have
dreamed of village simplicity, peace, and
contentment.
“Yes, sir,” said the soldier, “those have
a decent genteel appearance from here,
but if you were once to go to them, and see
the houses like painted pigeon-holes—
white without, but within full of all manner
of uncleanliness; the bits of gardens with
with Canada thistles; and then the
little bits of dowdy images that they worship;
and slivers of wood set in frames, that
they call pieces of the true cross, and
there are enough of them, as I have heard
said, to build a seventy-four. If you were
to see all this, my young master, you would
agree with me, they were but a set of poor
ignorant superstitious deluded creatures,
far enough behind us English, or even the
Americans.” The soldier then proceeded
to point out and name the most attractive
objects from this commanding point of view.
The deep black ravine, through which the
Montmorenci, after taking its graceful and
wondrous leap, passes into the St. Lawrence;
and the indentation of the shore
beyond the Plains of Abraham, called
Wolfe's Cove, where he landed his forces on
the morning of his victory and death. Edward
found it very difficult to tear himself
from a spot which has so much natural
to follow his friends, he offered the soldier
a few pieces of change, and asked him if
he was willing to show him the fortification,
and then guide him to the Plains of
Abraham, whither his father had gone.
The soldier civilly, and indeed thankfully
assented, and they proceeded together.
The man, evidently pleased with the intelligent
questions put to him by Edward,
which he answered in a way that indicated a
knowledge of his profession quite unusual
in a common soldier. Edward inquired
the design of the Martello towers, of
the bastions, scarps and counterscarps, of
this fosse, that glacis, &c. &c. at last,
stopping suddenly, while his dilating form
and beaming face expressed the youthful
heroism that glowed in his breast, he
said, “It is a strong place, a very strong
place indeed; but I do think we could take
it.”
“We!” exclaimed the soldier, darting at
him a look of eager inquiry; “who are we?”
“Why, we Americans.”
“Americans!” echoed the soldier, and
then starting back and dashing the silver
Edward had given him to the ground.
“Have I,” he said, served my king four
and twenty years, to be bribed by an American
boy at last? has it come to this,
Richard Barton?”
“Richard Barton!” echoed Edward in
his turn.
“Yes, my young man, Richard Barton;
a poor name, but an honest one, thank
God.”
“Richard Barton!” again repeated Edward.
“But it cannot be the Richard Barton
I mean.”
“I don't know who you mean, sir, but I
shall take care and report you to my officer,
and clear myself of all blame.”
“Do not be so hasty, my good friend,”
said Edward, with an expression of innocence
the honest soldier's suspicions; “it is
true I have troubled you with a great many
questions, but I had no motive but curiosity;
we yankees, you know, are a curious
race. Come, I shall hold you to your
agreement; take up the money and go
along with me.”
“No—no—I never will touch the money;
but I will go with you, there can be no
harm in that.”
“Well,” said Edward, picking up the
pieces, “if you won't take it, I know a
Richard Barton that will, and he shall have
it too; and now, if I was not afraid you
would take me to the guard-house, I would
put some more questions to you.”
“Oh, put them and welcome, young man;
now I know that you are an American, I
can use my discretion in my answers. You
do not look as if you could do wrong yourself,
or tempt another: but I have lived
long enough to know that it is not all gold
true metal can bear the stamp that is on
your face.”
“We are friends again then, are we?
Can you tell me where the 40th regiment is
stationed now?”
“That I cannot; they have been gone
from here three years this July.”
“Had you any acquaintance in that regiment?”
“Indeed had I. I served with them
more than twenty years.”
Edward stopped, jumped at least three
feet from the ground, (as the soldier afterwards
averred) clapped his hands, and exclaimed,
“It must be—it must be.”
“Why, what is the matter now?” asked
the soldier, amazed at his emotion.
“Tell me,” continued Edward, with all
the calmness he could summon, “why you
are here, if your regiment has returned?”
“I got myself transferred to this regiment,
to finish my term of service in America,
and little boy, who followed me to the
States when I was a prisoner.”
There was no longer any room in Edward's
mind for doubt that his companion
was the husband of Mrs. Barton. His
natural and first impulse was, to make
known to the husband the happiness that
was in store for him. He began to speak,
half laughing, half crying; then checked
himself, and considered what a beautiful
surprise it would be if they should meet
without any preparation: he took the soldier's
hand, and said, “I see my friends;
you need go no farther; but come in one
hour to the City Hotel, and my mother will
tell you good news of your wife.”
“News of my wife! are you an angel
from heaven?”
“Oh, no,” replied Edward, laughing;
“nothing but an American boy.”
“God bless you, my lad, tell me now—
joy had already gathered in his eyes.
"No, not another word now," said Edward
bounding away from him; "in one
hour you shall know all."
The soldier gazed after Edward with an
intense curiosity: vague expectations of
some good, and then more defined hopes
filled his mind. 'That boy never could
have deceived me,' he said, to himself:
'what did he mean by exclaiming when he
first heard my name? what, by saying he
knew another Richard Barton? Is it possible
that he has seen my wife and boy?
The result of all his deliberations was, that
he would go instantly to the Hotel—to wait
an hour was impossible—an hour was an
age. In the mean time, Edward joined his
party, who were already on the return, and
was chid for his delay; without giving the
least heed to the rebuke, he drew Julia
aside, and communicated his discovery to
her. They then laid their heads together,
They would first show Barton the little
girl; he could not remember her of course,
for she had been born some months after he
was separated from his wife; but then he
might find her out from her resemblance to
her mother; Julia remembered many stories
she had read of similar discoveries, and
Edward affirmed his belief in natural affection,
though he allowed that his father said,
that Dr. Franklin and many other philosophers
laughed at the idea. If the little
girl proved an insufficient clew, Dickey was
to be brought into the room, as if accidentally,
and with many cautions by no means
to tell his name; and finally the door was
to be thrown open, and good Mrs. Barton,
all unprepared for the sight, was to behold
her long-lost husband. Mrs. Sackville saw
in the truth-telling faces of her children,
that something in their viewvery important
was in agitation; but she seemed to take
pace, till Mr. Morris called out, “Fall back
children, one would think we were walking
for a wager; remember we carry weight
of years.”
“Oh,” whispered Julia, “uncle Morris
is such a snail; but there is no use in our
hurrying, because you know we should
lose half the pleasure if papa and mama
and uncle were not there.” Edward assented,
and patience had her perfect work
while the children made their feet, which
seemed suddenly to have been furnished
with the wings of Mercury, to keep time
with the dignified movements of their parents.
When they turned into St. John's-street,
and came in sight of the hotel, Edward saw
the soldier standing by the step to the front
entrance, and looking eagerly towards him,
“there he is!” said he to Julia, and they
both involuntarily changed their pace from
a walk to a run, but before they reached
and disappeared from their sight. He had
caught the sound of his wife's voice, and
their first joyful recognition had passed before
the children entered the door.
Our youthful readers have, we trust,
been entire strangers to those joys that are
preceded by suffering, and which remind
us of some clouds that send down their
showers after the sun has broken through.
They would have been as much surprised
as were Edward and Julia, if they had seen,
instead of smiles and ecstasies, the death-like
paleness of Mrs. Barton her husband
dashing the tear from his eyes that he
might gaze upon his children; Dickey
looking timidly at him, and the little girl
burying her face in her mother's gown.
Yet this was joy—joy that no words could
express; the joy of kind and faithful hearts
—joy with which a stranger cannot intermeddle;
such, for when she saw the family group,
she drew her children into the parlour, and
left their humble friends to themselves.
It was our intention to have described
the soldier's gratitude—the contentment
and thankfulness of his wife—the neat little
cottage in which she was immediately
placed by the officers of the regiment, who
seemed delighted thus to manifest their regard
for their corporal Barton. The emotion
of this good family at parting with their
benefactors—little Dickey's resolution, that
when he grew to be a man, he would go
and live with Mr. Edward—the hospitable
honors rendered to the Sackville party by
the officers of the regiment, who felt their
beneficence to the British soldier's wife as
a personal obligation—to which was to have
been added, a particular description of some
very beautiful curiosities presented to Edward
we fear our young readers will think we
have already protracted a dull tale to an
unconscionable length; and we will therefore
take our leave of them, with simply
expressing a wish, that if they should ever
travel to Quebec, or indeed in any other
direction, they will remember that after the
delightful but evanescent pleasures of their
jaunt had faded, and were almost effaced
from the minds of Edward and Julia, they
possessed a treasure that fadeth not away in
the consciousness of having rendered an
essential service to a fellow-creature. A
consciousness that strews roses in the path
of youth and age—not `the perfume and
suppliance of a moment,' but those amaranthine
flowers that exhale incense to
Heaven.
Phosphorus is a matter which shines or even
burns spontaneously, and without the application of
any sensible fire.
| The travellers | |