University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
LIFE IN CANADA.

During one of his summer excursions, Mr. Peyton
stopped for a few days at Niagara, on his way, with
his family, to Montreal and Quebec. While walking
about on the Canada side of the Falls, stopping now
and then to examine and admire the grand spectacle
from some new point of view, Mrs. Peyton's eye was
caught by a beautiful flower swaying on its slender
stem on a steep slope, high above her head.

The hillside was covered with broken, shingling
rocks, and from the midst of these, without even a
blade of grass to bear it company, grew up this little
delicate flower. Unheeding the overshadowing
grandeur of its mighty rival, yet strengthened and
refreshed by the few drops of spray now and then
flung upon it out of the profusion of its abundance,
it went on gathering in some mysterious way every
day new strength and beauty from the uncongenial

earth around, until at last it lifted its blue eye to
the clear sky and soft air of that delicious June day,
a perfect flower, speaking its Maker's praise as clearly
with its still small voice, as did its glorious rival,
whose grand anthem went pealing ceaselessly on
day and night, winter and summer.

There was a vein of poetry in Virginia's mind
leading her to invest material objects with conscious
life and meaning, and the voices of the flower and
the cataract spoke as distinctly to her heart as if
her ear had heard their uttered words. She was
fond too of memorials, and had retained her girlish
habit of collecting and preserving flowers and leaves,
or some other characteristic memento, from all places
of note she visited.

She wished to obtain this flower, which had awakened
such a train of pleasant thoughts in her heart;
and as Mr. Peyton was a little distance in advance
with an elderly lady on his arm, she attempted to
climb the slope herself. But the stones slipped under
her feet, and, recalling a fatal accident that had
occurred near there not long before, she reluctantly
gave up the attempt.

“I will get it for you, ma'am,” said a voice behind
her, and a man sprang up the difficult ascent,
and, returning, offered her the little blossom.

She took it, and looking at him to thank him,
recognized an old acquaintance.

“Why, Edward,” she exclaimed, “is it possible!”

“Yes, Mrs. Peyton,” said he; “I knew you as
soon as I saw you walking across the bridge, and I
ran down to ask you about all the people in Clinton.
I was afraid, if I waited, you might get over the other
side.”

“You wouldn't venture over there, Edward?”
asked Mrs. Peyton, with a smile.

“No, indeed, ma'am, I had too hard work to get
here to put myself in the least danger again.”

Mrs. Peyton gave him all the information she
could recall of their mutual acquaintances in Clinton,
for they had been born and brought up in the
same town; and though the broad gulf that separates
the serf from the freeborn, the black from the white
race, lay between them, yet integrity and a manliness
that commanded respect on the one hand, with
a kind and sympathetic nature on the other, spanned
the gulf, and made them meet with a degree of
pleasure and interest that only those can understand
who have been brought up from their infancy
to look upon the negro as a member of the same
household.

“And now,” said Mrs. Peyton, when she had
finished telling him of the welfare of his mother and
sisters, as well as of all his other friends, “how did
you manage to get here?”

“It was a great deal more easy than I thought
it would be,” replied Edward; “do you remember
Miss Lucy's wedding, Miss Virginia?” unconsciously
using the most familiar name.

“Yes, it was not long after mine.”

“Well, my old master sent me two or three days
befoehand with her silver, up in the country whar
she was going to live. The other servants had been
taking up every thing else to make the house comfortable,
and I was to take care of every thing, and
have it all in order for her when she came. I had
been contriving ways and means for a long time for
running away, and had had, I reckon, twenty different
plans, but they didn't come to any thing. Still,
my mind was made up, that if I had to wait forty
year, I would run away at the end of it, if I had a
fair chance, for my old master treated me so bad
that I never had a happy moment. He didn't beat
me so much, but he didn't give me a minute's peace,
and he used to call me all the hard names he could
lay his tongue to. But, yet, he used to trust me
with all his business, and he had made a standing
order that whenever he got drunk—and he used to
have a frolic every two or three weeks—I should
attend to him. I have had as much as three thousand
dollars in my care at a time, when he had
been selling his crops and got drunk before he put
the money in the bank; and yet, though he never

lost a cent by me, he'd keep on abusing me till my-patience
fairly gave out.”

“I know he was a hard master,” said Virginia;
“there was not a person in Clinton who was not
glad when they found you were really off.”

“I took the silver up to Miss Lucy's place,” continued
Edward, “and then I thought, as they would
all be so busy at home that it would be at least a
week before they would find out that I was gone,
that I could not have a better time, and so I started.
I had ten dollars, that I had earned in different
ways, and had saved unbeknown to my master, or
he would have taken it away, and that, with the
clothes I had on, was all I had in the world. That
lasted me till I got to some little town in New York,
and then when I was not more than a day's journey
from here, I was taken sick, and had to lie there a
week. Some of the colored folks about took me in,
and took care of me till I was well again, and as
soon as I could hold myself up, I set out to finish
my journey on foot. That was the hardest part of
the way, for I was so weak I could hardly crawl
along, and I felt every moment my old master's
hand on my shoulder. But I never heard anything
from him, and I was so glad when my feet touched
this ground, that it seemed to me I felt well right
away. I have been mighty homesick too, since I
have been here, and wanted to see all the people in

Clinton but one. I have never heard the first word
from my mother or sisters, or any one else there,
since I left till now, and 'deed it does me good to
hear all about them.”

“Have you ever wanted to go back?” asked Mrs.
Peyton.

“No, Miss Virginia, I might if I had had a different
master, for I had a very hard time the first
winter here. I 'most froze to death, and starved too.
But I have a good place now, and am doing very
well.”

“Do the people generally treat you better than
they did at home?”

“No, Miss Virginia, nothing like as well. They
don't seem as natural to us, nor we to them, maybe,
as those we were raised with. Somehow, they don't
seem to have the same consideration for us, and I
know some here that would be very glad to get back
if they were sure they would not be punished. But
that's not my feelings. I wouldn't 'vise any one
to come here, though, that wa'n't willing to work
harder, and rough it as much as they ever did in
their lives.”

By this time they had overtaken Mr. Peyton, who
also knew and recognized Edward. He asked him
many questions as to the condition of the colored
people in Canada; and Edward's answers, while
showing that he had observed and thought a great

deal on the subject, gave a faithful, yet sad picture,
of the position of his countrymen in a land which
needed all the amenities and kindnesses of social
life to soften the severities of its climate, so particularly
ill suited to the African.

The same exclusion from all places open to the
meanest white man, the same disregard of their comfort,
and open contempt for their color, made Canada
any thing but a pleasant place of refuge. “It
is impossible,” thought Mr. Peyton, while meditating
on this mysterious dispensation of Providence, this
placing one race in the midst of another, whose
feelings instinctively rebel against all union on the
footing of equality; “it is impossible but that some
great purpose is to be worked out by these great
means.”

“When I was a boy, I accompanied my father to
Quebec,” said Mr. Peyton; “we had a servant with
us, a man named Isaac, who left us soon after we
reached Canada. He must be an old man now.
Have you ever happened to meet him?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Edward; “he is living at a
little village not far from this place. It is a settlement
of colored people, and if you would like to see
how most of them live here, you might go there.
I know Isaac very well. He often talks about old
Virginny to me, and says he was a great fool for
leaving it. But he's most always sick, and that

keeps him down-hearted. He'd be glad to see you,
I know, for he don't talk about any thing else but
old times.”

“I will stop to see him,” said Mr. Peyton, “for
he was a good servant.”

Accordingly, a few days after, taking Edward as
his guide, Mr. Peyton drove over to the little collection
of hovels and wretched tenements that was
dignified with the name of village. There was not
a house in it that seemed able to protect the inmates
from the changes of the weather, even during the
summer months; and it was hard to imagine how
they could make themselves comfortable in the cold
weather.

The nucleus of the place was a large frame house,
that had been built by some wealthy land-owner in
that part of the country. But he had long since
deserted it as untenantable, and it had fallen to its
present occupants as a matter of course. With its
paint washed off, its boards dropping away, and
with hardly a pane of glass left unbroken in the
windows, it still was by far the best dwelling in
the place. The others were mere shantys, or huts,
put up hastily when it was found impossible to obtain
shelter in the big house, and intended at first only
for temporary abodes. But they were never unoccupied,
for as fast as one family vacated them another
made its appearance ready to take their places.

Mr. Peyton could hardly help smiling as he observed
how little change of place or position seemed
to affect the strongly-marked yet unobtrusive characteristics
of the African. Here in Canada he found
the same inertness, the same easy yielding to circumstances
and aversion to labor, and the same
good-nature that had so tried his patience in Virginia.
Every other man and woman had a pipe in
their mouths, and, dirty and ragged, they lounged
about in the warm sun, basking in its beams, and
wearing the placid self-complacent look of those
who had voted care an impertinence, and labor an
unnecessary degradation.

As he observed them with the eye of a philosopher
and philanthropist, they gazed back upon him
with the open-eyed curiosity of the vacant mind.
Not often had such a presence dignified the path
they fondly called a street. Mr. Peyton had the
true patrician stamp, and it gave a value to his
least word or act far above its intrinsic worth.
From the inexplicable charm of this influence, at
once innate and adventitious, no one can wholly
free themselves, much less the uneducated, who
yield to its sweet authority an obedience not the
less entire that it springs as much from love as
fear.

It was easy for the gazers to discover that he
was a Southern planter; many of them knew the

little signs and tokens which gave so distinct a
character to that class, too well to be mistaken.
The carelessly-fitting, yet scrupulously neat dress,
with its abundance of spotless linen, the slow and
dignified movement, the air at once commanding
and benign, told a story easily read by the least
observant.

“If I didn't know dat old mas'r had been dead
dese many years, I should say dat was him,”
thought old Isaac, as Mr. Peyton drew near the
door in which he was sitting. When the strange
gentleman stopped before him, the old man raised
his trembling form, and gazed with the anxious,
uncertain look of age in his face.

“Don't you remember me, Isaac?” asked Mr.
Peyton.

“Oh! it's Mas'r Charles! it's Mas'r Charles!”
and Isaac's whole face was convulsed with emotion,
while tears streamed down his cheeks. “I never
tought to see you or any of de fam'ly dis side de
grave again, Mas'r Charles; and you was a little
boy when I lef you; but I know'd you as soon as
you smiled; and I should ha' know'd you by dat
any whar.”

“You have had a long life given to you, Isaac,”
continued Mr. Peyton.

“Yes, Mas'r Charles, I knows dat; but mostly
I feels like saying, with ole father Jacob, `Few and

evil have the days of the years of my life been,'
for I has had mo' trouble than I know'd how to
bar; but de Lord has helped me, and now I's so
near to Him that I feels sometimes as if I could
look straight into glory.”

“You are happy now, then,” said Mr. Peyton.

“Yes, Mas'r Charles, my fight is mos' over, and
now I'm waitin' with patience for de comin' of de
Lord. I feel fo' true that He won't try me much
longer.”

“Is your wife still living?”

“No, Mas'r Charles; dat was my fust great
'fliction. I had worked hard five years to get
money enough to buy her freedom, and den she
came here and took sick directly, and only lived
seven month. Den I bought my two boys; dey
was little boys, and I didn't have much trouble in
gettin' 'em here; but one of 'em died two year ago,
and I has his two chillun to see to, while dere
mother and my other son works for dem and me
too. But 'tain't much to work for me now, and
dough dey's as willin' as can be, I feels dat I sha'n't
trouble dem long.”

“Have you lived here ever since you left us?”
asked Mr. Peyton.

“Oh, no, Mas'r Charles! dis is a mighty poor
place to live in. I used to be a waiter at hotels and
gentlemen's families till I was too old, and den I

lived in the city, and did mos' any thin' I could get
to do. At last, when I couldn't do no more, I went
to live in a house jus' at the edge of de town, where
a great many colored folks used to come. Dey used
to live in de woods, and wander about all summer,
and den crowd as many as de could in dat house, and
some oders near it, when de col' weather came on.
I didn't like it much; but it was better dan dis, for
white ladies used to come and talk to us sometimes,
and see if we wanted any thin'; and we had a
church to go to, which we haven't here—and de
Sabber day is just like any oder day; but de people
roun' us said that it was a nuisance havin' so
many niggers in de houses about; for dar was some
on 'em dat didn't do nothin' but beg, and maybe
steal a little; and so one cold night, when it was
rainin' hard, dey set de houses on fire and burned
'em down to the groun', and I had to take de chillun
in my ole arms and hol' em close up to me all
night to keep 'em warm, and in de mornin' my son
hunted us up and brought us here, and I 'spects to
finish my life in dis spot. 'Tain't much matter 'bout
me now; but I can't bar to tink dat de chillun will
grow up where dey hear so little 'bout de blessed
Jesus.”

Mr. Peyton remained some time longer talking
with this old servant of his house, and left him at
last cheered by a visit from one of that family he

revered so truly, though a natural instinct had led
him to desert their protection. Neither were his
bodily wants forgotten, and the money his old master's
son left with him provided for his few necessities
during the rest of his life, which lasted, indeed,
but about six weeks after this interview.

When a person's thoughts are turned steadily in
one direction, it is wonderful how much can be seen
in a short space of time; and Mr. Peyton's investigations,
thorough and patient as they were, only
served to convince him more and more that Canada
was no pleasant abiding-place for the blacks, and
that, held far apart from all intercourse and communion
with those who occupied the superior position,
regarded as machines rather than as living souls,
with little attention paid to their religious training,
it was fully as probable that they would deteriorate
as improve by a residence in that country. He saw
nothing to make him feel that it would be any advantage
to the laborers on his plantation to change
their residence from Virginia to Canada. On the
contrary, he became daily more convinced that his
servants held decidedly the most advantageous position,
both for their comfort in this world and opportunity
for preparation for the next. He felt that
he would not be willing to expose those who had
been given into his charge—for whose temporal and
eternal welfare he had been trained from his childhood

to feel responsible—to the temptations, difficulties,
and privations that hedged them in one every
side in the land whose proud boast it is “that no
slave can breathe its air.”

With a single, earnest wish to benefit his servants
at any self-sacrifice—a wish that time, and thought,
and patient endeavor had elevated almost to a holy
passion, and made one of the ruling motives of his
life—he felt that it would be unjust, both to whites
and blacks, to throw upon society those who have as
yet proved themselves a burden and a drain, rather
than an assistance, whenever the conduct of their
life is given in their own hands.

Of course, only the masses are here intended.
There have been noble exceptions; and, freed from
the crushing superiority of the white man, they
have risen up more quickly and in greater numbers
than their best friends could have ventured to hope
—but not in America.