the slaves have to mourn over the want of freedom, the planters may
lament the want of truth in their opponents; and it must be admitted
that they have submitted to the atrocious calumnies that have been so
liberally heaped upon them of late years, with a contempt that is the
best refutation of falsehood, or a meekness and forbearance that
contrast very favourably with the violence and fury of their
adversaries.”

My object however, Squire, is not to write a lecture on emancipation,
but to give you a receipt for cooking “a dish of clams.”

CHAPTER XXIII.
THE DEVIL’S HOLE; OR, FISH AND FLESH.

“Sorrow,” said the doctor, “seems to me to consider women, from the way
he flatters his mistress, as if she was not unlike the grupers at
Bermuda. There is a natural fish-pond there near Flats Village, in
which there is a great lot of these critters, which are about the size
of the cod. They will rise to the surface, and approach the bank for
you to tickle their sides, which seems to afford them particular
delight.”

“It is what you would call, I suppose, practical soft sawdering.”

“But it is an operation of which the rest are exceedingly jealous, and
while you are thus amusing one of them, you must take care others do
not feel offended, and make a dash at your fingers. With true feminine
jealousy too they change colour when excited, for envy seems to pervade
all animate nature.”

“It’s called the Devil’s Hole where they are, ain’t it?” sais I.

“Yes,” said he, “it is, and it is situated not far from Moore’s
favourite tree, under whose shade he used to recline while writing his
poetry, at a time when his deputy was equally idle, and instead of
keeping his accounts, kept his money. Bermuda is a fatal place to
poets. Moore lost his purse there, and Waller his favourite ring; the
latter has been recently found, the former was never recovered. In one
thing these two celebrated authors greatly resembled each other, they
both fawned and flattered on the great.”

“Yes,” said Cutler, “and both have met their reward. Everybody regrets
that anything was known of either, but his poetry—”

“Well,” sais I, “I am glad I am not an Englishman, or as true as the
world, a chap like Lord John Russell would ruin me for ever. I am not a
poet, and can’t write poetry, but I am a Clockmaker, and write common
sense. Now a biographer like that man, that knows as little of one as
he does of the other, would ruin me for everlastingly. It ain’t
pleasant to have such a burr as that stick on to your tail, especially
if you have no comb to get it off, is it? A politician is like a bee;
he travels a zig-zag course every way, turnin’ first to the right and
then to the left, now makin’ a dive at the wild honeysuckle, and then
at the sweet briar; now at the buck-wheat blossom, and then at the
rose; he is here and there and everywhere; you don’t know where the
plague to find him; he courts all and is constant to none. But when his
point is gained and he has wooed and deceived all, attained his object,
and his bag is filled, he then shows plain enough what he was after all
the time. He returns as straight as a chalk line, or as we say, as the
crow flies to his home, and neither looks to the right or to the left,
or knows or cares for any of them who contributed to his success. His
object is to enrich himself and make a family name. A politician
therefore is the last man in the world to write a biography. Having a
kind of sneakin’ regard for a winding, wavy way himself, he sees more
beauty in the in and out line of a Varginny fence, than the stiff
straight formal post and rail one of New England. As long as a partizan
critter is a thorn in the flesh of the adverse party, he don’t care
whether he is Jew or Gentile. He overlooks little peccadilloes, as he
calls the worst stories, and thinks everybody else will be just as
indulgent as himself. He uses romanists, dissenters, republicans, and
evangelicals at his own great log-rolling1 frollicks, and rolls for
them in return.

1 Log-rolling.—In the lumber regions of Maine, it is customary for men
of different logging camps to appoint days for helping each other in
rolling the logs to the river after they are felled and trimmed, this
rolling being about the hardest work incident to the business. Thus the
men of three or four different camps will unite, say on Monday, to roll
for camp No. 1, on Tuesday, for camp No. 2, on Wednesday, for camp No.
3, and so on through the whole number of camps within convenient
distance of each other. The term has been adopted in legislation to
signify a little system of mutual co-operation. For instance, a member
from St Lawrence has a pet bill for a plank-road which he wants pushed
through. He accordingly makes a bargain with a member from Onondaga,
who is coaxing along a charter for a bank, by which St Lawrence agrees
to vote for Onondaga’s bank if Onondaga will vote St Lawrence’s
plank-road. This is legislative log-rolling, and there is abundance of
it carried on at Albany every winter. Generally speaking, the subject
of the log-rolling is some merely local project, interesting only to
the people of a certain district; but sometimes there is party
log-rolling, where the Whigs, for instance, will come to an
understanding with the Democrats that the former shall not oppose a
certain democratic measure merely on party grounds, provided the
Democrats will be equally tender to some Whig measure in return.—J.
INMAN.

“Who the plague hain’t done something, said something, or thought
something he is sorry for, and prays may be forgot and forgiven; big
brag as I am, I know I can’t say I haven’t over and over again
offended. Well, if it’s the part of a friend to go and rake all these
things up, and expose ’em to the public, and if it’s agreeable to my
wife, sposin’ I had one, to have ’em published because the stained
paper will sell, all I can sais is, I wish he had shown his regard for
me by running away with my wife and letting me alone. It’s astonishing
how many friends Moore’s disloyalty made him. A seditious song or a
treasonable speech finds more favour with some people in the old
country than building a church, that’s a fact. Howsomever, I think I am
safe from him, for first, I am a Yankee, secondly, I ain’t married,
thirdly, I am a Clockmaker, and fourthly, my biography is written by
myself in my book, fifthly, I write no letters I can help, and never
answer one except on business.”

“This is a hint father gave me: ‘Sam,’ said he, ‘never talk to a woman,
for others may hear you; only whisper to her, and never write to her,
or your own letters may rise up in judgment against you some day or
another. Many a man afore now has had reason to wish he had never seen
a pen in his life;’ so I ain’t afeard therefore that he can write
himself up or me down, and make me look skuywoniky, no how he can fix
it. If he does, we will declare war again England, and blow the little
darned thing out of the map of Europe; for it ain’t much bigger than
the little island Cronstadt is built on after all, is it? It’s just a
little dot and nothin’ more, dad fetch my buttons if it is.

“But to go back to the grupers and the devil’s hole; I have been there
myself and seen it, Doctor,” sais I, “but there is other fish besides
these in it; there is the parrot-fish, and they are like the feminine
gender too; if the grupers are fond of being tickled, parrots are fond
of hearing their own voices. Then there is the angel-fish, they have
fins like wings of a pale blue colour; but they must be fallen angels
to be in such a place as that hole too, musn’t they? and yet they are
handsome even now. Gracious! what must they have been before the fall!
and how many humans has beauty caused to fall, Doctor, hasn’t it? and
how many there are that the sound of that old song, ‘My face is my
fortune, Sir, she said,’ would make their hearts swell till they would
almost burst.

“Well, then there is another fish there, and those Mudians sartainly
must have a good deal of fun in them, to make such a capital and
comical assortment of queer ones for that pond. There is the
lawyer-fish—can anything under the sun be more appropriate than the
devil’s hole for a lawyer? What a nice place for him to hang out his
shingle in, ain’t it? it’s no wonder his old friend the landlord finds
him an office in it—rent free, is it? What mischief he must brood
there; bringing actions of slander against the foolish parrot-fish that
will let their tongues run, ticklin’ the grupers, and while they are
smirking and smiling, devour their food, and prosecute the fallen
angels for violating the Maine law and disturbing the peace. The
devil’s hole, like Westminster Hall, is a dangerous place for a fellow
of substance to get into, I can tell you; the way they fleece him is a
caution to sinners.

“My dog fell into that fish-pond, and they nearly fixed his flint
before I got him out, I tell you; his coat was almost stripped off when
I rescued him.”

“Why, Mr Slick,” said the doctor, “what in the world took you to
Bermuda?”

“Why,” sais I, “I had heard a great deal about it. It is a beautiful
spot and very healthy. It is all that has ever been said or sung of it,
and more too, and that’s sayin’ a great deal, for most celebrated
places disappoint you; you expect too much, and few crack parts of the
world come up to the idea you form of them beforehand. Well, I went
down there to see if there was anything to be done in the way of
business, but it was too small a field for me, although I made a spec
that paid me very well too. There is a passage through the reefs there,
and it’s not every pilot knows it, but there was a manuscript chart of
it made by a captain of a tradin’ vessel. When he died his widow
offered it to the government, but they hummed and hawed about the
price, and was for gitting it for half nothing, as they always do. So
what does I do, but just steps in and buys it, for in war time it is of
the greatest importance to know this passage, and I sold it to our
navy-board, and I think if ever we are at loggerheads with the British,
we shall astonish the weak nerves of the folks at the summer islands
some fine day.

“I had a charming visit. There are some magnificent caves there, and in
that climate they are grand places, I do assure you. I never saw
anything so beautiful. The ceiling is covered with splendiferous
spary-like icicles, or chandelier drops. What do you call that word,
Doctor?”

“Stalactites.”

“Exactly, that’s it, glorious stalactites reaching to the bottom and
forming fluted pillars. In one of those caves where the water runs, the
admiral floored over the bottom and gave a ball in it, and it was the
most Arabian Night’s entertainment kind of thing that I ever saw. It
looked like a diamond hall, and didn’t it show off the Mudian galls to
advantage, lick! I guess it did, for they are the handsomest Creoles in
all creation. There is more substance in ’em than in the tropical
ladies. I don’t mean worldly (though that ain’t to be sneered at,
neither, by them that ain’t got none themselves). When the people used
to build small clippers there for the West Indian trade, cedar was very
valuable, and a gall’s fortune was reckoned, not by pounds, but by so
many cedars. Now it is banana trees. But dear me, somehow or another we
have drifted away down to Bermuda, we must stretch back again to the
Nova Scotian coast east of Chesencook, or, like Jerry Boudrot, we shall
be out of sight of land, and lost at sea.”

On going up on the deck, my attention was naturally attracted to my new
purchase, the Canadian horse.

“To my mind,” said the doctor, “Jerry’s knee action does not merit the
extravagant praise you bestowed upon it. It is not high enough to
please me.”

“There you are wrong,” sais I, “that’s the mistake most people make. It
is not the height of the action, but the nature of it, that is to be
regarded. A high-stepping horse pleases the eye more than the judgment.
He seems to go faster than he does. There is not only power wasted in
it, but it injures the foot. My idea is this; you may compare a man to
a man, and a woman to a woman, for the two, including young and old,
make the world. You see more of them and know more about ’em than
horses, for you have your own structure to examine and compare them by,
and can talk to them, and if they are of the feminine gender, hear
their own account of themselves. They can speak, for they were not
behind the door when tongues were given out, I can tell you. The range
of your experience is larger, for you are always with them, but how few
hosses does a man own in his life. How few he examines, and how little
he knows about other folk’s beasts. They don’t live with you, you only
see them when you mount, drive, or visit the stable. They have separate
houses of their own, and pretty buildings they are too in general,
containin’ about as much space for sleepin’ as a berth on board a ship,
and about as much ventilation too, and the poor critters get about as
little exercise as passengers, and are just about worth as much as they
are when they land for a day’s hard tramp. Poor critters, they have to
be on their taps most all the time.1 The Arab and the Canadian have the
best horses, not only because they have the best breed, but because one
has no stalls, and t’other has no stable treatment.

1 On their feet.

“Now in judging of a horse’s action, I compare him not with other
horses, but with animals of a different species. Did you ever know a
fox stumble, or a cat make a false step? I guess not; but haven’t you
seen a bear when chased and tired go head over heels? A dog in a
general way is a sure-footed critter, but he trips now and then, and if
he was as big as a horse, would throw his rider sometimes. Now then I
look to these animals, and I find there are two actions to be combined,
the knee and the foot action. The fox and the cat bend the knee easy
and supply, but don’t arch ’em, and though they go near the ground,
they don’t trip. I take that then as a sort of standard. I like my
beast, especially if he is for the saddle, to be said to trot like a
fox. Now, if he lifts too high, you see, he describes half a circle,
and don’t go ahead as he ought, and then he pounds his frog into a sort
of mortar at every step, for the horny shell of a foot is just like
one. Well then, if he sends his fore leg away out in front, and his
hind leg away out behind like a hen scratchin’ gravel, he moves more
like an ox than anything else, and hainte sufficient power to fetch
them home quick enough for fast movement. Then the foot action is a
great point, I looked at this critter’s tracks on the pasture and asked
myself, Does he cut turf, or squash it flat? If he cuts it as a
gardener does weeds with his spade, then good bye, Mr Jerry, you won’t
suit me, it’s very well to dance on your toes, but it don’t convene to
_travel on ’em,_ or you’re apt to make somersets.

“Now, a neck is a valuable thing. We have two legs, two eyes, two
hands, two ears, two nostrils, and so on, but we have only one neck,
which makes it so easy to hang a fellow, or to break it by a chuck from
your saddle; and besides, we can’t mend it, as we do a leg or an arm.
When it’s broken it’s done for; and what use is it if it’s insured? The
money don’t go to you, but to your heirs, and half the time they
wouldn’t cry, except for decency sake, if you did break it. Indeed, I
knew a great man once, who got his neck broke, and all his friends
said, for his own reputation, it was a pity he hadn’t broke it ten
years sooner. The Lord save me from such friends, I say. Fact is, a
broken neck is only a nine days’ wonder after all, and is soon
forgotten.

“Now, the fox has the right knee action, and the leg is ‘thar.’ In the
real knee movement, there is a peculiar spring, that must be seen to be
known and valued, words don’t give you the idea of it. It’s like the
wire end of a pair of galluses—oh, it’s charming. It’s down and off in
a jiffy, like a gall’s finger on a piano when she is doin’ chromatic
runs. Fact is, if I am walking out, and see a critter with it, I have
to stop and stare; and, Doctor, I will tell you a queer thing. Halt and
look at a splendid movin’ hoss, and the rider is pleased; he thinks
half the admiration is for him, as rider and owner, and t’other half
for his trotter. The gony’s delighted, chirups his beast, gives him a
sly touch up with the off heel, and shows him off to advantage. But
stop and look at a woman, and she is as mad as a hatter. She don’t care
how much you look at her, as long as you don’t stand still or turn your
head round. She wouldn’t mind slackin’ her pace if you only attended to
that.

“Now the fox has that special springy movement I speak of, and he puts
his foot down flat, he bends the grass rather to him, than from him, if
anything, but most commonly crumples it flat; but you never see it
inclinin’ in the line of the course he is runnin’—never. Fact is, they
never get a hoist, and that is a very curious word, it has a very
different meanin’ at sea from what it has on land. In one case it means
to haul up, in the other to fall down. The term ‘look out’ is just the
same.

“A canal boat was once passing through a narrow lock on the Erie line,
and the captain hailed the passengers and said, ‘Look out.’ Well, a
Frenchman thinking something strange was to be seen, popt his head out,
and it was cut off in a minute. ‘Oh, mon Dieu!’ said his comrade, ‘dat
is a very _striking_ lesson in English. On land, look out means, open
de window and see what you will see. On board canal boat it means, haul
your head in, and don’t look at nothin’.’

“Well, the worst hoist that I ever had was from a very high-actioned
mare, the down foot slipped, and t’other was too high to be back in
time for her to recover, and over both of us went kerlash in the mud. I
was skeered more about her than myself, lest she should git the skin of
her knee cut, for to a knowing one’s eye that’s an awful blemish. It’s
a long story to tell how such a blemish warn’t the hoss’s fault, for
I’d rather praise than apologize for a critter any time. And there is
one thing few-people knows. _Let the cut come which way it will, the
animal is never so safe afterwards. Nature’s bandage, the skin, is
severed, and that leg is the weakest._

“Well, as I was a sayin’, Doctor, there is the knee action and the foot
action, and then there is a third thing. The leg must be just _thar_.”

“Where?” said the doctor.

“_Thar_,” said I, “there is only one place for that, and that is
‘thar,’ well forward at the shoulder-point, and not where it most
commonly is, too much under the body—for if it’s too far back he
stumbles, or too forward he can’t ‘pick chips quick stick.’ Doctor, I
am a borin’ of you, but the fact is, when I get a goin’ ‘talkin’ hoss,’
I never know where to stop. How much better tempered they are than half
the women in the world, ain’t they? and I don’t mean to undervally the
dear critters neither by no manner of means, and how much more sense
they have than half the men either, after all their cracking and
bragging! How grateful they are for kindness, how attached to you they
get. How willin’ they are to race like dry dust in a thunder squall,
till they die for you! I do love them, that is a fact, and when I see a
feller a ill-usin’ of one of ’em, it makes me feel as cross as two
crooked gate-posts, I tell you.

“Indeed, a man that don’t love a hoss is no man at all. I don’t think
he can be religious. A hoss makes a man humane and tender-hearted,
teaches him to feel for others, to share his food, and be unselfish; to
anticipate wants and supply them; to be gentle and patient. Then the
hoss improves him otherwise. He makes him rise early, attend to meal
hours, and to be cleanly. He softens and improves the heart. Who is
there that ever went into a stable of a morning, and his critter
whinnered to him and played his ears back and forward, and turned his
head affectionately to him, and lifted his fore-feet short and moved
his tail, and tried all he could to express his delight, and say,
‘Morning to you, master,’ or when he went up to the manger and patted
his neck, and the lovin’ critter rubbed his head agin him in return,
that didn’t think within himself, well, after all, the hoss is a noble
critter? I do love him. Is it nothin’ to make a man love at all? How
many fellers get more kicks than coppers in their life—have no home,
nobody to love them and nobody to love, in whose breast all the
affections are pent up, until they get unwholesome and want
ventilation. Is it nothin’ to such an unfortunate critter to be made a
stable help? Why, it elevates him in the scale of humanity. He
discovers at last he has a head to think and a heart to feel. He is a
new man. Hosses warn’t given to us, Doctor, to ride steeple-chases, or
run races, or brutify a man, but to add new powers and lend new speed
to him. He was destined for nobler uses.

“Is it any wonder that a man that has owned old Clay likes to talk
hoss? I guess not. If I was a gall I wouldn’t have nothin’ to say to a
man that didn’t love a hoss and know all about him. I wouldn’t touch
him with a pair of tongs. I’d scorn him as I would a nigger. Sportsmen
breed pheasants to kill, and amature huntsmen shoot dear for the
pleasure of the slaughter. The angler hooks salmon for the cruel
delight he has in witnessing the strength of their dying struggles. The
black-leg gentleman runs his hoss agin time, and wins the race, and
kills his noble steed, and sometimes loses both money and hoss, I wish
to gracious he always did; but the rail hossman, Doctor, is a rail
_man,_ every inch of him, stock, lock, and barrel.”

“Massa,” said Sorrow, who stood listenin’ to me as I was warmin’ on the
subject. “Massa, dis hoss will be no manner of remaginable use under de
blessed light ob de sun.”

“Why, Sorrow?”

“Cause, Massa, he don’t understand one word of English, and de French
he knows no libbin’ soul can understand but a Cheesencooker, yah, yah,
yah! Dey called him a ‘_shovel_,’ and his tail a ‘_queue_.’ “

“What a goose you are, Sorrow,” sais I.

“Fac, Massa,” he said, “fac I do ressure you, and dey called de little
piggy doctor fell over, ‘_a coach_.’ Dod drat my hide if they didn’t
yah, yah, yah!”

“The English ought to import, Doctor,” sais I, “some of these into
their country, for as to ridin’ and drivin’ there is nothin’ like them.
But catch Britishers admitting there is anything good in Canada, but
the office of Governor-General, the military commands, and other pieces
of patronage, which they keep to themselves, and then say they have
nothing left. Ah me! times is altered, as Elgin knows. The pillory and
the peerage have changed places. Once, a man who did wrong was first
elevated, and then pelted. A peer is now assailed with eggs, and then
exalted.”

“_Palmam qui meruit ferat_,” said the doctor.

“Is that the Latin for how many hands high the horse is?” sais I.
“Well, on an average, say fifteen, perhaps oftener less than more. It’s
the old Norman horse of two centuries ago, a compound of the Flemish
stock and the Barb, introduced into the Low Countries by the Spaniards.
Havin’ been transported to Canada at that early period, it has remained
unchanged, and now may be called a distinct breed, differing widely in
many respects from those found at the present day in the locations from
which they originally came. But look at the amazin’ strength of his
hip, look at the lines, and anatomical formation (as you would say) of
his frame, which fit him for both a saddle and a gig hoss. Look at his
chest, not too wide to make him paddle in his gait, nor too narrow to
limit his wind. Observe all the points of strength. Do you see the bone
below the knee and the freedom of the cord there. Do you mark the eye
and head of the Barb. Twig the shoulder, the identical medium for a
hoss of all work, and the enormous power to shove him ahead. This
fellow is a picture, and I am glad they have not mutilated or broken
him. He is just the hoss I have been looking for, for our folks go in
to the handle for fast trotters, and drive so much and ride so little,
it ain’t easy to get the right saddle beast in our State. The Cape
Breton pony is of the same breed, though poor feed, exposure to the
weather, and rough usage has caused him to dwindle in size; but they
are the toughest, hardiest, strongest, and most serviceable of their
inches, I know anywhere.”

I always feel scared when I git on the subject of hosses for fear I
should ear-wig people, so I stopt short; “And,” sais I, “Doctor, I
think I have done pretty well with the talking tacks, spose you give me
some of your experience in the trapping line, you must have had some
strange adventures in your time.”

“Well, I have,” said he, “but I have listened with pleasure to you, for
although I am not experienced in horses, performing most of my journeys
on foot, I see you know what you are talking about, for I am familiar
with the anatomy of the horse. My road is the trackless forest, and I
am more at home there than in a city. Like you I am fond of nature, but
unlike you I know little of human nature, and I would rather listen to
your experience than undergo the labour of acquiring it. Man is an
artificial animal, but all the inhabitants of the forest are natural.
The study of their habits, propensities, and instincts is very
interesting, and in this country the only one that is formidable is the
bear, for he is not only strong and courageous, but he has the power to
climb trees, which no other animal will attempt in pursuit of man in
Nova Scotia. The bear therefore is an ugly customer, particularly the
female when she has her cubs about her, and a man requires to have his
wits about him when she turns the table on him and hunts him. But you
know these things as well as I do, and to tell you the truth there is
little or nothing that is new to be said on the subject; one bear hunt
is like another. The interest of these things is not so much in their
incidents or accidents, as in the mode of telling them.”

“That’s a fact,” sais I, “Doctor. But what do you suppose was the
object Providence had in view in filling the world with beasts of prey?
The east has its lions, tigers, and boa-constrictors; the south its
panthers and catamounts; the north its bears and wolves; and the west
its crocodiles and rattle-snakes. We read that dominion was given over
the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and the beast of the forest,
and yet no man in a state of nature scarcely is a match for any one of
these creatures; they don’t minister to his wants, and he can’t tame
them to his uses.”

“I have often asked myself, Slick,” said he, “the same question, for
nothing is made in vain, but it is a query not easy to answer. My own
opinion is, they were designed to enforce civilisation. Without these
terrors attending a sojourn in the wilderness, man would have wandered
off as they do, and lived alone; he would have made no home, dwelt with
no wife, and nurtured no children. His descendants would have done the
same. When he encountered another male, he would have given him battle,
perhaps killed and eat him. His very language would have perished, if
ever he had any, and he would have been no better than an
ourang-outang. The option was not given him. He was so constructed and
so situated, he could not live alone. Individual strength was
insufficient for independent existence. To preserve life he had to herd
with his kind. Thus tribes were first formed, and to preserve one tribe
from the violence of another, they again united and formed nations.
This combination laid the foundation of civilisation, and as that
extended, these beasts of prey retired to the confines of the country,
enforcing while they still remain the observance of that law of nature
which assigned to them this outpost duty.

“Where there is nothing revealed to us on the subject, all is left to
conjecture. Whatever the cause was, we know it was a wise and a
necessary one; and this appears to me to be the most plausible reason I
can assign. Perhaps we may also trace a further purpose in their
creation, in compelling by the terror they inspire the inferior animals
to submit themselves to man, who is alone able to protect them against
their formidable enemies, or to congregate, so that he may easily find
them when he requires food; and may we not further infer that man also
may by a similar sense of weakness be led to invoke in like manner the
aid of Him who made all things and governs all things? Whatever is, is
right,” and then he quoted two Latin lines.

I hate to have a feller do that, it’s like throwin’ an apple into the
water before a boy. He either has to lose it and go off disappointed,
wonderin’ what its flavour is, or else wade out for it, and like as not
get out of his depth afore he knows where he is. So I generally make
him first translate it, and then write it down for me. He ain’t likely
after that to do it a second time. Here are the words:

“Siquid novisti rectius istis
Candidas imperti, si non his utere mecum.”

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE CUCUMBER LAKE.

“Here is a place under the lee bow,” said the pilot, “in which there
are sure to be some coasters, among whom the mate may find a market for
his wares, and make a good exchange for his mackarel.”

So we accordingly entered and cast anchor among a fleet of
fore-and-afters in one of those magnificent ports with which the
eastern coast is so liberally supplied.

“There is some good salmon-fishing in the stream that falls into the
harbour,” said the doctor, “suppose we try our rods;” and while Cutler
and his people were occupied in traffic, we rowed up the river beyond
the little settlement, which had nothing attractive in it, and landed
at the last habitation we could see. Some thirty or forty acres had
been cleared of the wood, the fields were well fenced, and a small
stock of horned cattle, principally young ones, and a few sheep, were
grazing in the pasture. A substantial rough log hut and barn were the
only buildings. With the exception of two little children playing about
the door, there were none of the family to be seen.

On entering the house, we found a young woman, who appeared to be its
sole occupant. She was about twenty-five years of age; tall, well
formed, strong, and apparently in the enjoyment of good health and
spirits. She had a fine open countenance, an artless and prepossessing
manner, and was plainly but comfortably clad in the ordinary homespun
of the country, and not only looked neat herself, but everything around
her was beautifully clean. It was manifest she had been brought up in
one of the older townships of the province, for there was an ease and
air about her somewhat superior to the log hut in which we found her.
The furniture was simple and of rude manufacture, but sufficient for
the wants of a small family, though here and there was an article of a
different kind and old-fashioned shape, that looked as if it had once
graced a substantial farm-house, probably a present from the inmates of
the old homestead.

We soon found from her that she and her husband were as she said new
beginners, who, like most persons in the wilderness, had had many
difficulties to contend with, which from accidental causes had during
the past year been greatly increased. The weavil had destroyed their
grain crop and the rot their potatoes, their main dependence, and they
had felt the pressure of hard times. She had good hopes however she
said for the present season, for they had sowed the golden straw wheat,
which they heard was exempt from the ravages of insects, and their
potatoes had been planted early on burnt land without barn manure, and
she was confident they would thereby be rescued from the disease. Her
husband, she informed us, in order to earn some money to make up for
their losses, had entered on board of an American fishing vessel, and
she was in daily expectation of his arrival, to remain at home until
the captain should call for him again, after he had landed his cargo at
Portland. All this was told in a simple and unaffected manner, but
there was a total absence of complaint or despondency, which often
accompany the recital of such severe trials.

Having sent Sorrow back in the boat with an injunction to watch our
signal of recall, we proceeded further up the river, and commenced
fishing. In a short time we killed two beautiful salmon, but the black
flies and musquitoes were so intolerably troublesome, we were compelled
to return to the log hut. I asked permission of our cheerful, tidy
young hostess to broil a piece of the salmon by her fire, more for the
purpose of leaving the fish with her than anything else, when she
immediately offered to perform that friendly office for us herself.

“I believe,” she said, “I have a drawing of tea left,” and taking from
the shelf a small mahogany caddy, emptied it of its contents. It was
all she had. The flour-barrel was also examined and enough was
gathered, as she said by great good luck, to make a few cakes. Her old
man, she remarked, for so she termed her young husband, would be back
in a day or two and bring a fresh supply. To relieve her of our
presence, while she was busied in those preparations, we strolled to
the bank of the river, where the breeze in the open ground swept away
our tormentors, the venomous and ravenous flies, and by the time our
meal was ready, returned almost loaded with trout. I do not know that I
ever enjoyed anything more than this unexpected meal. The cloth was
snowy white, the butter delicious, and the eggs fresh laid. In addition
to this, and what rendered it so acceptable, it was a free offering of
the heart.

In the course of conversation I learned from her, that the first year
they had been settled there they had been burnt out, and lost nearly
all they had, but she didn’t mind that she said, for, thank God, she
had saved her children, and she believed they had originally put up
their building in the wrong place. The neighbours had been very kind to
them, helped them to erect a new and larger house, near the beautiful
spring we saw in the green; and besides, she and her husband were both
young, and she really believed they were better off than they were
before the accident.

Poor thing, she didn’t need words of comfort, her reliance on
Providence and their own exertions was so great, she seemed to have no
doubt as to their ultimate success. Still, though she did not require
encouragement, confirmation of her hopes, I knew, would be grateful to
her, and I told her to tell her husband on no account to think of
parting with or removing from the place, for I observed there was an
extensive intervale of capital quality, an excellent mill privilege on
the stream where I caught the salmon, and as he had the advantage of
water carriage, that the wood on the place, which was of a quality to
suit the Halifax market, would soon place him in independent
circumstances.

“He will be glad to hear you think so, Sir,” she replied, “for he has
often said the very same thing himself; but the folks at the settlement
laugh at him when he talks that way, and say he is too sanguine. But I
am sure he ain’t, for it is very much like my poor father’s place in
Colchester, only it has the privilege of a harbour which he had not,
and that is a great thing.”

The signal for Sorrow having been hung out for some time, we rose to
take leave, and wishing to find an excuse for leaving some money behind
me, and recollecting having seen some cows in the field, I asked her if
she could sell me some of her excellent butter for the use of the
cabin. She said she could not do so, for the cows all had calves, and
she made but little; but she had five or six small prints, if I would
accept them, and she could fill me a bottle or two with cream.

I felt much hurt—I didn’t know what to do. She had given me her last
ounce of tea, baked her last cake, and presented me with all the butter
she had in the house. “Could or would you have done that?” said I to
myself, “come, Sam, speak the truth now.” Well, Squire, I only brag
when I have a right to boast, though you do say I am always brim full
of it, and I won’t go for to deceive you or myself either, I know I
couldn’t, that’s a fact. I have mixed too much with the world, my
feelings have got blunted, and my heart ain’t no longer as soft as it
used to did to be. I can give, and give liberally, because I am able,
but I give what I don’t want and what I don’t miss; but to give as this
poor woman did all she had of these two indispensable articles, tea and
flour, is a thing, there is no two ways about it, I could not.

I must say I was in a fix; if I was to offer to pay her, I knew I
should only wound her feelings. She derived pleasure from her
hospitality, why should I deprive her of that gratification? If she
delighted to give, why should I not in a like feeling be pleased to
accept, when a grateful reception was all that was desired—must I be
outdone in all things? must she teach me how to give freely and accept
gracefully?

She shall have her way this hitch, and so will I have mine bime by, or
the deuce is in the die. I didn’t surely come to Liscombe Harbour to be
taught those things.

“Tell your husband,” sais I, “I think very highly of his location, and
if hard times continue to pinch him, or he needs a helping hand, I am
both able and willing to assist him, and will have great pleasure in
doing so for her sake who has so kindly entertained us in his absence.
Here is my card and address, if he wants a friend let him come to me,
and if he can’t do that, write to me, and he will find I am on hand.
Any man in Boston will tell him where Sam Slick lives.”

“Who?” said she.

“Sam Slick,” sais I.

“My goodness,” said she, “are you _the_ Mr Slick who used to sell—” She
paused and coloured slightly, thinking perhaps, as many people do, I
would be ashamed to be reminded of pedling.

“Wooden clocks,” sais I, helping her to the word. “Yes,” sais I, “I am
Sam Slick the Clockmaker, at least what is left of me.”

“Goodness gracious, Sir,” said she, advancing and shaking hands
cordially with me, “how glad I am to see you! You don’t recollect me of
course, I have grown so since we met, and I don’t recollect your
features, for it is so long ago, but I mind seeing you at my father’s
old house, Deacon Flint’s, as well as if it was yesterday. We bought a
clock from you; you asked mother’s leave to let you put it up, and
leave it in the room till you called for it. You said you trusted to
‘soft sawder’ to get it into the house, and to ‘human natur’ that it
should never come out of it. How often our folks have laughed over that
story. Dear, dear, only to think we should have ever met again,” and
going to a trunk she took out of a bark-box a silver sixpence with a
hole in it, by which it was suspended on a black ribbon.

“See, Sir, do you recollect that, you gave that to me for a keepsake?
you said it was ‘luck-money.’”

“Well,” sais I, “_if that_ don’t pass, don’t it? Oh, dear, how glad I
am to see you, and yet how sad it makes me too! I am delighted at
meetin’ you so onexpected, and yet it makes me feel so old it scares
me. It only seems as if it was the other day when I was at your
father’s house, and since then yon have growd up from a little girl
into a tall handsome woman, got married, been settled, and are the
mother of two children. Dear me, it’s one o’ the slaps old Father Time
gives me in the face sometimes, as much as to hint, ‘I say, Slick, you
are gettin’ too old now to talk so much nonsense as you do.’ Well,”
sais I, “my words have come true about that silver sixpence.”

“Come here, my little man,” sais I to her pretty curly-headed little
boy; “come here to me,” and I resumed my seat. “Now,” sais I, “my old
friend, I will show you how that prophecy is fulfilled to this child.
That clock I sold to Deacon Flint only cost me five dollars, and five
dollars more would pay duty, freight, and carriage, and all expenses,
which left five pounds clear profit, but that warn’t the least share of
the gain. It introduced my wares all round and through the country, and
it would have paid me well if I had given him a dozen clocks for his
patronage. I always thought I would return him that profit if I could
see him, and as I can’t do that I will give it to this little boy,” so
I took out my pocket-book and gave her twenty dollars for him.

“Come,” sais I, “my friend, that relieves my conscience now of a debt
of gratitude, for that is what I always intended to do if I got a
chance.”

Well, she took it, said it was very kind, and would be a great help to
them; but that she didn’t see what occasion there was to return the
money, for it was nothing but the fair profit of a trade, and the clock
was a most excellent one, kept capital time, and was still standing in
the old house.

Thinks I to myself, “You have taught me two things, my pretty friend;
first, how to give, and second, how to receive.”

Well, we bid her good-bye, and after we had proceeded a short distance
I returned.

Sais I, “Mrs Steele, there is one thing I wish you would do for me; is
there any cranberries in this neighbourhood?”

“Plenty, Sir,” she said; “at the head of this river there is an immense
bog, chock full of them.”

“Well,” sais I, “there is nothin’ in natur I am so fond of as them; I
would give anything in the world for a few bushel. Tell your husband to
employ some people to pick me this fall a barrel of them, and send them
to me by one of our vessels, directed to me to Slickville, and when I
go on board I will send you a barrel of flour to pay for it.

“Dear me, Sir,” said she, “that’s a great deal more than their value;
why they ain’t worth more than two dollars. We will pick them for you
with great pleasure. We don’t want pay.”

“Ain’t they worth that?” said I, “so much the better. Well, then, he
can send me another barrel the next year. Why, they are as cheap as
bull beef at a cent a pound. Good bye; tell him to be sure to come and
see me the first time he goes to the States. Adieu.”

“What do you think of that, Doctor?” said I, as we proceeded to the
boat; “ain’t that a nice woman? how cheerful and uncomplaining she is;
how full of hope and confidence in the future. Her heart is in the
right place, ain’t it? My old mother had that same sort of contentment
about her, only, perhaps, her resignation was stronger than her hope.
When anything ever went wrong about our place to home to Slickville,
she’d always say, ‘Well, Sam, it might have been worse;’ or, ‘Sam, the
darkest hour is always just afore day,’ and so on. But Minister used to
amuse me beyond anything, poor old soul. Once the congregation met and
raised his wages from three to four hundred dollars a-year. Well, it
nearly set him crazy; it bothered him so he could hardly sleep. So
after church was over the next Sunday, he sais, ‘My dear brethren, I
hear you have raised my salary to four hundred dollars. I am greatly
obliged to you for your kindness, but I can’t think of taking it on no
account. First, you can’t afford it no how you can fix it, and I know
it; secondly, I ain’t worth it, and you know it; and thirdly, I am
nearly tired to death collecting my present income; if I have to dun
the same way for that, it will kill me. I can’t stand it; I shall die.
No, no; pay me what you allow me more punctually, and it is all I ask,
or will ever receive.’

“But this poor woman is a fair sample of her class in this country; I
do believe the only true friendship and hospitality is to be found
among them. They ain’t rich enough for ostentation, and are too equal
in condition and circumstances for the action of jealousy or rivalry; I
believe they are the happiest people in the world, but I know they are
the kindest. Their feelings are not chilled by poverty or corrupted by
plenty; their occupations preclude the hope of wealth and forbid the
fear of distress. Dependent on each other for mutual assistance, in
those things that are beyond individual exertion, they interchange
friendly offices, which commencing in necessity, grow into habit, and
soon become the ‘labour of love.’ They are poor, but not destitute, a
region in my opinion in which the heart is more fully developed than in
any other. Those who are situated like Steele and his wife, and
commence a settlement in the woods, with the previous training they
have received in the rural districts, begin at the right end; but they
are the only people who are fit to be pioneers in the forest. How many
there are who begin at the wrong end; perhaps there is no one subject
on which men form such false notions as the mode of settling in the
country, whether they are citizens of a colonial town, or strangers,
from Great Britain.

“Look at that officer at Halifax: he is the best dressed man in the
garrison; he is well got up always; he looks the gentleman every inch
of him; how well his horses are groomed; how perfect his turn-out
looks; how well appointed it is, as he calls it. He and his servant and
his cattle are a little bit of fashion imported from the park, and
astonish the natives. Look at his wife, ain’t she a beautiful creature?
they are proud of, and were just made for each other. This is not
merely all external appearance either: they are accomplished people;
they sing, they play, they sketch, they paint, they speak several
languages, they are well read, they have many resources. Soldiering is
dull, and, in time of peace, only a police service. It has disagreeable
duties; it involves repeated removals, and the alternation of bad
climates—from Hudson’s Bay to Calcutta’s Black Hole. The juniors of the
regimental officers are mere boys, the seniors great empty
cartouch-boxes, and the women have cabals,—there is a sameness even in
its variety; but worse than all, it has no home—in short, the whole
thing is a bore. It is better to sell out and settle in the province;
land is cheap; their means are ample, and more than sufficient for the
requirements of the colony; country society is stupid; there are no
people fit to visit. It is best to be out of the reach of their morning
calls and their gossip. A few miles back in the woods there is a
splendid stream with a beautiful cascade on it; there is a magnificent
lake communicating with several others that form a chain of many miles
in extent. That swelling knoll that slopes so gently to the water would
be such a pretty site for a cottage-_orné_, and the back-ground of
hanging wood has an indescribable beauty in it, especially in the
autumn, when the trees are one complete mass of variegated hues. He
warms on the theme as he dilates on it, and sings as he turns to his
pretty wife:

‘I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled
    Above the green elms that a cottage was near;
And I said, if there’s peace to be found in the world,
    The heart that is humble might hope for it here.’

“How sweet to plan, how pleasant to execute. How exciting to see it
grow under one’s own eye, the work of one’s own hand, the creation of
one’s own taste. It is decided on; Dechamps retires, the papers go in,
the hero goes out—what a relief! no inspection of soldiers’ dirty
kits—no parade by day—no guards nor rounds by night—no fatigue parties
of men who never fatigue themselves—no stupid court-martial—no horrid
punishments—no reviews to please a colonel who never is pleased, or a
general who will swear—no marching through streets, to be stared at by
housemaids from upper windows, and by dirty boys in the side paths—no
procession to follow brass instruments, like the train of a circus—no
bearded band-master with his gold cane to lead on his musicians, and no
bearded white goat to march at the head of the regiment. All, all are
gone.

“He is out of livery, he has played at soldiering long enough, he is
tired of the game, he sells out, the man of business is called in,
_his_ lawyer, as he terms him, as if every gentleman kept a lawyer as
he does a footman. He is in a hurry to have the purchase completed with
as little delay as possible. But delays will occur, he is no longer a
centurion and a man of authority, who has nothing to do but to say to
this one, Come, and he cometh; and another, Go, and he goeth; Do this,
and it is done. He can’t put a lawyer under arrest, he is a man of
arrests himself. He never heard of an attachment for contempt, and if
he had, he couldn’t understand it; for, when the devil was an attorney,
he invented the term, as the softest and kindest name for the hardest
and most unkind process there is. _Attachment_ for _contempt,_ what a
mockery of Christian forgiveness!

“A conveyancer is a slow coach, he must proceed cautiously, he has a
long journey to take, he has to travel back to a grant from the crown,
through all the ‘mesne’ conveyances. He don’t want a _mean_ conveyance,
he will pay liberally if it is only done quickly; and is informed
‘mesne’ in law signifies intermediate. It is hard to say what the
language of law does mean. Then there are searches to be made in the
record offices, and the—damn the searches, for he is in a hurry and
loses his patience—search at the bankers, and all will be found right.
Then there are releases and assignments and discharges. He can stand it
no longer, he releases his lawyer, discharges him, and assigns another,
who hints, insinuates, he don’t charge; but gives him to understand his
predecessor was idle. He will lose no time, indeed he has no time to
lose, he is so busy with other clients’ affairs, and is as slow as the
first man was.

“But at last it is done; the titles are completed. He is presented with
a huge pile of foolscap paper, very neatly folded, beautifully
engrossed and endorsed in black letters, and nicely tied up with red
tape, which, with sundry plans, surveys, and grants, are secured in a
large despatch box, on which are inscribed in gold letters the
‘_Epaigwit estate_.’ It is a pretty Indian word that, it means the
‘home on the wave.’ It is the original name of that gem of the western
ocean which the vulgar inhabitants have christened Prince Edward’s
Island.

“But what can you expect of a people whose governor calls the gentry
‘the upper crust of society,’ and who in their turn see an affinity
between a Scotch and a Roman fiddle, and denounce him as a Nero? But
then who looks, as he says, for taste in a colony? it is only us
Englishmen who have any. Yes, he calls this place ‘Epaigwit.’ It has a
_distingué_ appearance on his letters. It has now a name, the next
thing is ‘a local habitation.’ Well, we won’t stop to describe it, but
it has an elegant drawing-room, if there was only company to collect in
it, a spacious dining-room, and though only two plates are on the table
there is room for twenty, and a charming study, only awaiting his
leisure to enjoy it, and so on.

“It is done and the design carried out, though not completed; prudence
forbids a further expenditure just now. It has cost five times as much
as was contemplated, and is not worth a tenth part of the outlay, still
it is very beautiful. Strangers go to see it, and every one pronounces
it the prettiest thing in the Lower provinces. There have been some
little drawbacks, but they are to be expected in a colony, and among
the Goths and Vandals who live there. The contractors have repudiated
their agreement on account of the extensive alterations made in the
design and the nature of the work, and he has found there is law in the
country if not justice. The servants find it too lonely, they have no
taste for the beauties of nature, and remain without work, or quit
without notice. If he refuses to pay he is sued, if he pays he is
cheated. The house leaks, for the materials are green; the chimneys
smoke, for the drafts are in the wrong place. The children are
tormented by black flies and musquitoes, and their eyes are so swelled
they can’t see. The bears make love to his sheep, and the minks and
foxes devour his poultry. The Indians who come to beg are supposed to
come to murder, and the negroes who come to sell wild berries are
suspected of coming to steal. He has no neighbours, he did not desire
any, and if a heavy weight has to be lifted, it is a little, but not
much, inconvenience to send to the town for assistance; and the people
go cheerfully, for they have only five miles to come, and five to
return, and they are not detained more than five minutes, for he never
asks them into his house. The butcher won’t come so far to carry his
meat, nor the baker his bread, nor the postman to deliver his letters.

“The church is too far off, and there is no school. But the clergyman
is not fit to be heard, he is such a drone in the pulpit; and it is a
sweet employment to train one’s own children, who thus avoid
contamination by not associating with vulgar companions.

“These are trifling vexations, and what is there in this life that has
not some little drawback? But there is something very charming in
perfect independence, in living for each other, and in residing in one
of the most delightful spots in America, surrounded by the most
exquisite scenery that was ever beheld. There is one thing however that
is annoying. The country people will not use or adopt that pretty word
Epaigwit, ‘the home of the wave,’ which rivals in beauty of conception
an eastern expression. The place was originally granted to a fellow of
the name of Umber, who was called after the celebrated navigator Cook.
These two words when united soon became corrupted, and the magnificent
sheet of water was designated ‘the Cucumber Lake,’ while its splendid
cataract, known in ancient days by the Indians as the ‘Pan-ook,’ or
‘the River’s Leap,’ is perversely called by way of variation ‘the
Cowcumber Falls;’ can anything be conceived more vulgar or more
vexatious, unless it be their awkward attempt at pronunciation, which
converts Epaigwit into ‘a pig’s wit,’ and Pan-ook into ‘Pond-hook?’

“But then, what can you expect of such boors, and who cares, or what
does it matter? for after all, if you come to that, the ‘Cumberland
Lakes’ is not very euphonious, as he calls it, whatever that means. He
is right in saying it is a beautiful place, and, as he often observes,
what an immense sum of money it would be worth if it were only in
England! but the day is not far distant, now that the Atlantic is
bridged by steamers, when ‘bag-men’ will give place to tourists, and
‘Epaigwit’ will be the ‘Killarney’ of America. He is quite right, that
day will come, and so will the millennium, but it is a good way off
yet; and dear old Minister used to say there was no dependable
authority that it ever would come at all.

“Now and then a brother officer visits him. Elliott is there now, not
the last of the Elliotts, for there is no end of them, and though only
a hundred of them have been heard of in the world, there are a thousand
well known to the Treasury. But he is the last chum from his regiment
he will ever see. As they sit after dinner he hands the olives to his
friend, and suddenly checks himself, saying, I forgot, you never touch
the ‘_after-feed_.’ Then he throws up both eyes and hands, and affects
to look aghast at the mistake. ‘Really,’ he says, ‘I shall soon become
us much of a boor as the people of this country. I hear nothing now but
mowing, browsing, and ‘after-feed,’ until at last I find myself using
the latter word for ‘dessert.’ He says it prettily and acts it well,
and although his wife has often listened to the same joke, she looks as
if it would bear repetition, and her face expresses great pleasure.
Poor Dechamps, if your place is worth nothing, she at least is a
treasure above all price.

“Presently Elliott sais, ‘By-the-by, Dechamps, have you heard we are
ordered to Corfu, and embark immediately?’

“Dear me, what magic there is in a word. Sometimes it discloses in
painful distinctness the past, at others it reveals a prophetic page of
the future; who would ever suppose there was anything in that little
insignificant word to occasion a thought, unless it was whether it is
pronounced Corfoo or Corfew, and it’s so little consequence which, I
always give it the go by and say Ionian Isles.

“But it startled Dechamps. He had hoped before he left the army to have
been ordered there, and from thence to have visited the classic coasts
of Greece. Alas, that vision has gone, and there is a slight sigh of
regret, for possession seldom equals expectation, and always cloys. He
can never more see his regiment, they have parted for ever. Time and
distance have softened some of the rougher features of military life.
He thinks of the joyous days of youth, the varied scenes of life, his
profession exposed to his view, and the friends he has left behind him.
The service he thinks not so intolerable after all, and though
regimental society is certainly not what he should choose, especially
as a married man, yet, except in a rollicking corps, it may at least
negatively be said to be ‘not bad.’

“From this review of the past he turns to the prospect before him. But
he discerns something that he does not like to contemplate, a slight
shadow passes over his face, and he asks Elliott to pass the wine. His
wife, with the quickness of perception so natural to a woman, sees at
once what is passing in his mind; for similar, but deeper, far deeper
thoughts, like unbidden guests, have occupied hers many an anxious
hour. Poor thing, she at once perceives her duty and resolves to fulfil
it. She will be more cheerful. She at least will never murmur. After
all, Doctor, it’s no great exaggeration to call a woman that has a good
head and kind heart, and the right shape, build, and bearings, an
angel, is it? But let us mark their progress, for we shall be better
able to judge then.

“Let us visit Epaigwit again in a few years. Who is that man near the
gate that looks unlike a servant, unlike a farmer, unlike a gentleman,
unlike a sportsman, and yet has a touch of all four characters about
him? He has a shocking bad hat on but what’s the use of a good hat in
the woods, as poor Jackson said, where there is no one to see it. He
has not been shaved since last sheep-shearing, and has a short black
pipe in his mouth, and the tobacco smells like nigger-head or pig-tail.
He wears a coarse check shirt without a collar, a black silk neck-cloth
frayed at the edge, that looks like a rope of old ribbons. His coat
appears as if it had once been new, but had been on its travels, until
at last it had got pawned to a Jew at Rag-alley. His waistcoat was
formerly buff, but now resembles yellow flannel, and the buttons,
though complete in number are of different sorts. The trowsers are
homespun, much worn, and his boots coarse enough to swap with a
fisherman for mackarel. His air and look betokens pride rendered sour
by poverty.

“But there is something worse than all this, something one never sees
without disgust or pain, because it is the sure precursor of a diseased
body, a shattered intellect, and voluntary degradation. There is a
bright red colour that extends over the whole face, and reaches behind
the ears. The whiskers are prematurely tipt with white, as if the
heated skin refused to nourish them any longer. The lips are slightly
swelled, and the inflamed skin indicates inward fever, while the eyes
are bloodshot, the under lids distended, and incline to shrink from
contact with the heated orbs they were destined to protect. He is a
dram-drinker; and the poison that he imbibes with New England rum is as
fatal, and nearly as rapid in its destruction, as strikline.

“Who is he; can you guess? do you give it up? He is that handsome
officer, the Laird of Epaigwit as the Scotch would say, the general as
we should call him, for we are liberal of titles, and the man that
lives at Cowcumber Falls, as they say here. Poor fellow, he has made
the same discovery Sergeant Jackson did, that there is no use of good
things in the woods where there is no one to see them. He is about to
order you off his premises, but it occurs to him that would be absurd,
for he has nothing now worth seeing. He scrutinises you however to
ascertain if he has ever seen you before. He fears recognition, for he
dreads both your pity and your ridicule; so he strolls leisurely back
to the house with a certain bull-dog air of defiance.

“Let us follow him thither; but before we enter, observe there is some
glass out of the window, and its place supplied by shingles. The
stanhope is in the coach-house, but the by-road was so full of stumps
and cradle-hills, it was impossible to drive in it, and the moths have
eaten the lining out. The carriage has been broken so often it is not
worth repairing, and the double harness has been cut up to patch the
tacklin’ of the horse-team. The shrubbery has been browsed away by the
cattle, and the rank grass has choked all the rose bushes and pretty
little flowers. What is the use of these things in the woods? That
remark was on a level with the old dragoon’s intellect; but I am
surprised that this intelligent officer; this man of the world, this
martinet, didn’t also discover, that he who neglects himself soon
becomes so careless as to neglect his other duties, and that to lose
sight of them is to create and invite certain ruin. But let us look at
the interior.

“There are some pictures on the walls, and there are yellow stains
where others hung. Where are they? for I think I heard a man say he
bought them on account of their handsome frames, from that
crack-brained officer at Cucumber Lake; and he shut his eye, and looked
knowing and whispered, ‘Something wrong there, had to sell out of the
army; some queer story about another wife still living; don’t know
particulars.’ Poor Dechamps, you are guiltless of that charge at any
rate, to my certain knowledge; _but how often does slander bequeath to
folly that which of right belongs to crime!_ The nick-knacks, the
antique china, the Apostles’ spoons, the queer little old-fashioned
silver ornaments, the French clock, the illustrated works, and all that
sort of thing,—all, all are gone. The housemaids broke some, the
children destroyed others, and the rest were sent to auction, merely to
_secure their preservation._ The paper is stained in some places, in
others has peeled off; but where under the sun have all the
accomplishments gone to?

“The piano got out of tune, and there was nobody to put it in order: it
was no use; the strings were taken out, and the case was converted into
a cupboard. The machinery of the harp became rusty, and the cords were
wanted for something else. But what is the use of these things in the
woods where there is nobody to see them? But here is Mrs Dechamps. Is
it possible! My goody gracious as I am a living sinner! Well I never in
all my born days! what a dreadful wreck! you know how handsome she was.
Well, I won’t describe her now, I pity her too much. You know I said
they were counterparts, just made for each other, and so they were; but
they are of different sexes, made of different stuff, and trouble has
had a different effect on them. He has neglected himself, and she is
negligent of her dress too, but not in the same way. She is still neat,
but utterly regardless of what her attire is; but let it be what it
may, and let her put on what she will, still she looks like a lady. But
her health is gone, and her spirits too; and in their place a little,
delicate hectic spot has settled in her cheek, beautiful to look at,
but painful to think of. This faint blush is kindly sent to conceal
consumption, and the faint smile is assumed to hide the broken heart.
If it didn’t sound unfeelin’, I should say she was booked for an early
train; but I think so if I don’t say so. The hour is fixed, the
departure certain; she is glad to leave Epaigwit.

“Somehow though I must say I am a little disappointed in her. She was a
soldier’s wife; I thought she was made of better stuff, and if she had
died would have at least died game. Suppose they have been unfortunate
in pitching their tent ‘on the home of the wave,’ and got aground, and
their effects have been thrown overboard; what is that, after all?
Thousands hare done the same; there is still hope for them. They are
more than a match for these casualties; how is it she has given up so
soon? Well, don’t allude to it, but there is a sad tragical story
connected with that lake. Do you recollect that beautiful curly-headed
child, her eldest daughter, that she used to walk with at Halifax?
Well, she grew up into a magnificent girl; she was full of health and
spirits, and as fleet and as wild as a hare. She lived in the woods and
on the lake. She didn’t shoot, and she didn’t fish, but she accompanied
those who did. The beautiful but dangerous bark canoe was her delight;
she never was happy but when she was in it. Tom Hodges, the orphan boy
they had brought with them from the regiment, who alone of all their
servants had remained faithful in their voluntary exile, was the only
one permitted to accompany her; for he was so careful, so expert, and
so good a swimmer. Alas! one night the canoe returned not. What a long,
eager, anxious night was that! but towards noon the next day the
upturned bark drifted by the shore, and then it was but too evident
that that sad event which the anxious mother had so often dreaded and
predicted had come to pass. They had met a watery grave. Often and
often were the whole chain of lakes explored, but their bodies were
never found. Entangled in the long grass and sunken driftwood that
covered the bottom of these basins, it was not likely they would ever
rise to the surface.

“It was impossible to contemplate that fearful lake without a shudder.
They must leave the place soon and for ever. Oh, had Emily’s life been
spared, she could have endured any and everything for her sake. Poor
thing! how little she knew what she was a talking about, as she broke
the seal of a letter in a well-known hand. Her life was spared; it
never was endangered. She had eloped with Tom Hodges—she had reached
Boston—she was very happy—Tom was all kindness to her. She hoped they
would forgive her and write to her, for they were going to California,
where they proposed to be married as soon as they arrived. Who ever
appealed to a mother for forgiveness in vain? Everything appeared in a
new light. The child had been neglected; she ought not to have been
suffered to spend so much of her time with that boy; both her parents
had strangely forgotten that they had grown up, and—it was no use to
say more. Her father had locked her out of his heart, and thrown away
the key for ever. He wished she had been drowned, for in that case she
would have died innocent; and he poured out such a torrent of
imprecations, that the poor mother was terrified lest, as the Persians
say, these curses, like fowls, might return home to roost, or like
prayers, might be heard, and procure more than was asked.

“You may grieve over the conduct of a child, and lament its untimely
death, and trust in God for his mercy; but no human being can reverse
the order of things, and first mourn the decease of a child, and then
grieve for its disgraceful life; for there is a grave again to be dug,
and who knoweth whether the end shall be peace? We can endure much, but
there is a load that crusheth. Poor thing! you were right, and your
husband wrong. Woman-like, your judgment was correct, your impulses
good, and your heart in the right place. The child was not to be
blamed, but its parents. You could, if you thought proper, give up
society and live for each other; you had proved it, and knew how hollow
and false it was; but your children could not resign what they never
had, nor ignore feelings which God had implanted within them. Nature
has laws which must and will be obeyed. The swallow selects its mate,
builds its nest, and occupies itself in nurturing its young. The heart
must have something to love, and if it is restricted in its choice, it
will bestow its affections not on what it would approve and select, but
upon what it may chance to find; you are not singular in your domestic
affliction; it is the natural consequence of your isolation, and I have
known it happen over and over again.

“Now, Doctor, let us return, after the lapse of a few years, as I did,
to Epaigwit. I shall never forget the impression it made upon me. It
was about this season of the year I went there to fish, intending to
spend the night in a camp, so as to be ready for the morning sport:
‘Why, where am I?’ sais I to myself, when I reached the place. ‘Why,
surely this ain’t Cucumber Lake! where is that beautiful hanging wood,
the temptation in the wilderness that ruined poor Dechamps? gone, not
cleared, but destroyed; not subdued to cultivation, but reduced to
desolation.’ Tall gaunt black trees stretch out their withered arms on
either side, as if balancing themselves against a fall, while huge
trunks lie scattered over the ground, where they fell in their fierce
conflict with the devouring fire that overthrew them. The ground is
thickly covered with ashes, and large white glistening granite rocks,
which had formerly been concealed by moss, the creeping evergreen, and
the smiling, blushing may-flower, now rear their cold snowy heads that
contrast so strangely with the funereal pall that envelopes all around
them. No living thing is seen there, nor bird, nor animal, nor insect,
nor verdant plant; even the hardy fire-weed has not yet ventured to
intrude on this scene of desolation, and the woodpecker, afraid of the
atmosphere which charcoal has deprived of vitality, shrinks back in
terror when he approaches it. Poor Dechamps, had you remained to
witness this awful conflagration, you would have observed in those
impenetrable boulders of granite a type of the hard, cold, unfeeling
world around you, and in that withered and blackened forest, a fitting
emblem of your blighted and blasted prospects.

“But if the trees had disappeared from that side of the lake, they had
been reproduced on the other. The fields, the lawn, and the garden were
over-run with a second growth of wood that had nearly concealed the
house from view. It was with some difficulty I forced my way through
the chaparel (thicket), which was rendered almost impenetrable by
thorns, Virginia creepers, honeysuckles, and sweet-briars, that had
spread in the wildest profusion. The windows, doors, mantle-pieces,
bannisters, and every portable thing had been removed from the house by
the blacks, who had squatted in the neighbourhood; even the chimneys
had been taken down for the bricks. The swallows were the sole tenants;
the barn had fallen a prey to decay and storms, and the roof lay
comparatively uninjured at some distance on the ground. A pair of
glistening eyes, peeping through a broken board at the end, showed me
that the foxes had appropriated it to their own use. The horse-stable,
coach-house, and other buildings were in a similar state of
dilapidation.

“I returned to the camp, and learned that Mrs Dechamps was reposing in
peace in the village church-yard, the children had been sent to England
to their relatives, and the captain was residing in California with his
daughter and Tom Hodges, who were the richest people in St Francisco.”

“What a sad picture!” said the doctor.

“Well, it’s true though,” said I, “ain’t it?”

“I never was at Cucumber Lake,” said he, smiling, “but I have known
several similar failures. The truth is, Mr Slick, though I needn’t tell
you, for you know better than I do, our friend Steele began at the
right and Dechamps at the wrong end. The poor native ought always to go
to the woods, the emigrant or gentleman never; the one is a rough and
ready man; he is at home with an axe, and is conversant as well with
the privations and requirements as with the expedients and shifts of
forest life; his condition is ameliorated every year, and in his latter
days he can afford to rest from his labours; whereas, if he buys what
is called a half-improved farm, and is unable to pay for it at the time
of the purchase, the mortgage is almost sure to ruin him at last. Now a
man of means who retires to the country is wholly unfit for a pioneer,
and should never attempt to become one; he should purchase a farm ready
made to his hands, and then he has nothing to do but to cultivate and
adorn it. It takes two generations, at least, to make such a place as
he requires. The native, again is one of a class, and the most
necessary one too in the country; the people sympathise with him, aid
and encourage him. The emigrant-gentleman belongs to no class, and wins
no affection; he is kindly received and judiciously advised by people
of his own standing in life, but he affects to consider their counsel
obtrusive and their society a bore; he is therefore suffered to proceed
his own way, which they all well know, as it has been so often
travelled before, leads to ruin. They pity, but they can’t assist him.
Yes, yes, your sketch of ‘Epaigwit’ is so close to nature, I shouldn’t
wonder if many a man who reads it should think he sees the history of
his own place under the name of ‘the Cucumber Lake.’”

CHAPTER XXV.
THE RECALL.

In compiling this Journal, Squire, my object has been less to give you
the details of my cruise, than to furnish you with my remarks on men
and things in general. Climate, locality, and occupation form or vary
character, but man is the same sort of critter everywhere. To know him
thoroughly, he must be studied in his various aspects. When I learned
drawing, I had an India-rubber figure, with springs in it, and I used
to put it into all sorts of attitudes. Sometimes it had its arms up,
and sometimes down, now a-kimbo, and then in a boxing posture. I stuck
out its legs or made it stand bolt upright, and put its head every way
I could think of, and so on. It taught me to draw, and showed me the
effect of light and shade. So in sketching human character, feelings,
prejudices, and motives of action, I have considered man at one time as
a politician, a preacher, or a trader, and at another as a countryman
or a citizen, as ignorant or wise, and so on. In this way I soon
learned to take his gauge as you do a cask of spirits, and prove his
strength or weakness by the bead I could raise on him.

If I know anything of these matters, and you seem to consait I do, why
I won’t act “Peter Funk”1 to myself, but this I will say, “Human natur
is my weakness.” Now I think it best to send you only such portions of
my Journal as will interest you, for a mere diary of a cruise is a mere
nothing. So I skip over my sojourn at Canzeau, and a trip the doctor
and I took to Prince Edward’s Island, as containing nothing but a sort
of ship’s log, and will proceed to tell you about our sayings and
doings at that celebrated place Louisburg, in Cape Breton, which was
twice besieged and taken, first by our colony-forefathers from Boston,
and then by General Wolfe, the Quebec hero, and of which nothing now
remains but its name, which you will find in history, and its harbour,
which you will find in the map. The French thought building a fortress
was colonization, and the English that blowing it up was the right way
to settle the country. The world is wiser now.

1 At petty auctions in the States, a person is employed to bid up
articles, in order to raise their price. Such a person is called a
_Peter Funk,_ probably from that name having frequently been given when
things were bought in. In short, it is now used as a
“puffer.”—BARTLETT.

As we approached the place the Doctor said, “You see, Mr Slick, the
entrance to Louisburg is pointed out to voyagers coming from the
eastward, by the ruins of an old French lighthouse, and the lantern of
a new one, on the rocky wall of the north shore, a few minutes after
approaching which the mariner shoots from a fretful sea into the smooth
and capacious port. The ancient ruins display even yet the most
attractive object to the eye. The outline of these neglected mounds,
you observe, is boldly marked against the sky, and induces a visit to
the spot where the fortress once stood. Louisburg is everywhere covered
with a mantle of turf, and without the assistance of a native it is not
easy to discover even the foundations of the public buildings. Two or
three casemates still remain, appearing like the mouths of huge ovens,
surmounted by a great mass of earth and stone. These caverns,
originally the safeguards of powder and other combustible munitions of
war, now serve to shelter the flocks of sheep that graze upon the grass
that conceals them. The floors are rendered nearly impassable by the
ordure of these animals, but the vaulted ceilings are adorned by
dependent stalactites, like icicles in shape, but not in purity of
colour, being of a material somewhat similar to oyster shells. The mass
of stone1 and brick that composed the buildings, and which is now swept
so completely from its site, has been distributed along the shores of
America, as far as Halifax and Boston, having been successively carried
away for the erections in those places and the intermediate coast,
which contains many a chimney bearing the memorials of Louisburg. The
remains of the different batteries on the island and round the harbour
are still shown by the inhabitants, as well as of the wharves,
stockade, and sunken ships of war. On gaining the walls above the town,
they are found to consist of a range of earthen fortifications with
projecting angles, and extending as already mentioned from the harbour
to the sea, interrupted at intervals by large pits, said to have been
produced by the efforts of the captors to blow up the walls. From these
heights, the glacis slopes away to the edge of the bog outside, forming
a beautiful level walk, though now only enjoyed by the sheep, being,
like the walls, carpeted by short turf. At the termination of this line
of fortification on the sea-shore, is a huge and uncouth black rock,
which appears to have been formerly quarried for building stone, large
quantities ready hewn being still scattered round it, and gathered in
masses as if prepared for that use.

1 See Haliburton’s “History of Nova Scotia.”

“The prospect from the brow of the dilapidated ramparts is one of the
most impressive that the place affords. Looking to the south-west over
the former city, the eye wanders upon the interminable ocean, its blue
rolling waves occupying three-fourths of the scene, and beyond them, on
the verge of the horizon, a dense bank of fog sweeps along with the
prevailing S.W. wind, precluding all hopes of discerning any vista
beyond that curtain. Turning landwards towards the south-west, over the
spacious bog that lies at the foot of the walls, the sight is met by a
range of low wood in the direction of Gabarus, and can penetrate no
further. The harbour is the only prospect to the northward, and
immediately in its rear the land rises so as to prevent anymore distant
view, and even the harbour appears dwindled to a miniature of itself,
being seen in the same picture with the mighty ocean that nearly
surrounds the beholder. The character of the whole scene is melancholy,
presenting the memorials of former life and population, contrasted with
its present apparent isolation from the natives of the earth. The
impression is not weakened by the sight of the few miserable huts
scattered along the shores of the port, and the little fishing vessels,
scarcely perceptible in the mountain-swell of the ocean; they serve but
to recall painfully the images of elegant edifices that once graced the
foreground, and of proud flags that waved upon the face of that heaving
deep.

“It is not easy to give a reason for the continued desolation of
Louisburg. A harbour opening directly upon the sea, whence egress is
unobstructed and expeditious, and return equally convenient at all
seasons; excellent fishing grounds at the very entrance; space on shore
for all the operations of curing the fish; every advantage for trade
and the fisheries is offered in vain. The place would appear to be
shunned by tacit consent. The shallops come from Arichet and St Peter’s
Bay to fish at its very mouth, but no one sets up his establishment
there. The merchants resort to every station in its vicinity, to
Main-a-Dieu, the Bras d’Or, St Anne, Inganish, nay, even Cape North,
places holding out no advantage to compare with those of Louisburg, yet
no one ventures there. The fatality that hangs over places of fallen
celebrity seems to press heavily on this once valued spot.”

“Massa Doctor,” said Sorrow, when he heard this description, “peers to
me, dem English did gib de French goss widout sweetenin’, most
particular jess dat are a nateral fac. By golly, but dey was strange
folks boff on ’em. Ki dey must been gwine stracted, sure as you born,
when dey was decomposed (angry) wid each other, to come all de way out
here to fight. Lordy gracious, peers to me crossin’ de sea might a
cooled them, sposin’ dar hair was rumpled.”

“You are right, Sorrow,” said I; “and, Doctor, niggers and women often
come to a right conclusion, though they cannot give the right reasons
for it, don’t they?”

“Oh, oh, Mr Slick,” said he, “pray don’t class ladies and niggers
together. Oh, I thought you had more gallantry about you than that.”

“Exactly,” sais I, “there is where the shoe pinches. You are a so far
and no further emancipationist. You will break up the social system of
the south, deprive the planter of his slave, and set the nigger free;
but you will not admit him to your family circle, associate with him,
or permit him to intermarry with your daughter. Ah, Doctor, you can
emancipate him, but you can’t emancipate yourself. You are willing to
give him the liberty of a dog; he may sleep in your stable, exercise
himself in the coachyard, and may stand or run behind your carriage,
but he must not enter the house, for he is offensive, nor eat at your
table, for the way he devours his food is wolfish; you unchain him, and
that is all. But before the collar was unfastened he was well and
regularly fed, now he has to forage for it; and if he can’t pay for his
grub, he can and will steal it. Abolition has done great things for
him. He was once a life-labourer on a plantation in the south, he is
now a prisoner for life in a penitentiary in the north, or an idle
vagrant, and a shameless, houseless beggar. The fruit of cant is indeed
bitter. The Yankees emancipated their niggers because it didn’t pay to
keep slaves. They now want the southern planters to liberate theirs for
conscience sake. But here we are on the beach; let us land.”

After taking a survey of the scene from the sight of the old town, we
sat down on one of the eastern mounds, and the doctor continued his
account of the place. “It took the French twenty-fire years to erect
Louisburg,” he said, “and though not completed according to the
original design, it cost not less than thirty millions of livres. It
was environed, two miles and a half in circumference, with a stone wall
from thirty to thirty-six feet high, and a ditch eighty feet wide.
There was, as you will see, six bastions and eight batteries, with
embrasures for 148 cannon. On the island at the entrance of the
harbour, which we just passed, was a battery of thirty twenty-eight
pounders, and at the bottom of the port another mounting thirty-eight
heavy guns. In 1745, a plan for taking it was conceived by a
colonial-lawyer, a Governor of Massachusetts, and executed by a body of
New England volunteers, led on by a country trader. History can hardly
furnish such another instance of courage and conduct in an
undisciplined body, laying siege to a regular constructed fortress like
this. Commodore Warren, when first applied to for assistance, declined
to afford it, as well because he had no orders as that he thought the
enterprise a rash one. He was however at last instructed from home to
co-operate with the Yankee troops, and arrived in season to witness the
progress of the siege, and receive the whole of the honour which was so
exclusively due to the Provincials. This act of insolence and injustice
on the part of the British was never forgotten by your countrymen, but
the memory of favours is short-lived, and a similar distribution of
rewards has lately surprised and annoyed the Canadians. The colonist
who raised the militia and saved Canada, as you have justly remarked
elsewhere, was knighted, while he who did no more than his duty as an
officer in the army, was compensated for two or three little affairs in
which the soldiers were engaged by a coronet and a pension.”

“Exactly,” sais I, “what’s sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for
the gander; but it seems English geese are all swans.”

“Well, in 1758, it was again taken by the English, who attacked it with
an immense and overpowering armament, consisting of 151 sail, and
14,000 men. Profiting by the experience of the Provincials, they soon
reduced the place, which it is astonishing could have made any
resistance at all against such an overwhelming force. Still, this
attack was mostly an English one; and though it dwindles into utter
insignificance when compared with the previous capture by the
colonists, occasioned a great outbreak of national pride. The French
colours were carried in pompous parade, escorted by detachments of
horse and foot-guards, with kettle-drums and trumpets, from the palace
of Kensington to St Paul’s Cathedral, where they were deposited as
trophies, under a discharge of cannon, and other noisy expressions of
triumph and exultation. Indeed, the public rejoicings for the conquest
of Louisburg were diffused through every part of the British dominions;
and addresses of congratulation were presented to the king by a great
number of flourishing towns and corporations.”

“Twenty-five years afterwards the colonists, who were denied the credit
of their gallant enterprise, made good their claim to it by conquering
those who boasted that they were the conquerors themselves.”

“I am glad to hear you say so, Doctor,” said I, “for I concur in it
all. The English are liberal, but half the time they ain’t just.
Spendin’ money in colonies is one thing, but givin’ them fair play is
another. The army complains that all commendation and promotion is
reserved for the staff. Provincials complain of similar injustice, but
there is this wide difference, the one has the ‘Times’ for its
advocate, the other is unheard or unheeded. An _honest_ statesman will
not refuse to do justice—a _willy_ poilitician will concede with grace
what he knows he must soon yield to compulsion. The old Tory was a man
after all, every inch of him.”

“Now,” sais the doctor, “that remark reminds me of what I have long
intended to ask you if I got a chance. How is it, Mr Slick, that you,
who are a republican, whenever you speak of England are so
conservative? It always seemed to me as if it warn’t quite natural. If
I didn’t know you, I should say your books were written by a colonist
who had used your name for a medium for giving his own ideas.”

“Well,” sais I, “Doctor, I am glad you asked me, for I have thought
myself it wasn’t unlikely some folks would fall into that mistake. I’ll
tell you how this comes, though I wouldn’t take the trouble to
enlighten others, for it kinder amuses me to see a fellow find a mare’s
nest with a tee-hee’s egg in it. First, I believe that a republic is
the only form of government suited to us, or practicable in North
America. A limited monarchy could not exist in the States, for royalty
and aristocracy never had an original root there. A military or
despotic one could be introduced, because a standing army can do
anything, but it couldn’t last long. Liberty is too deeply seated, and
too highly prized, to be suppressed for any length of time.

“Now, I like a republic, but I hate a democracy. The wit of man never
could have devised anything more beautiful, better balanced, and more
skilfully checked, than our constitution is, or rather was; but every
change we make is for the worse. I am therefore a conservative at home.
On the other hand, the English constitution is equally well suited to
the British. It is admirably adapted to the genius, traditions, tastes,
and feelings of the people. They are not fitted for a republic. They
tried it once, and it failed; and if they were to try it again it would
not succeed. Every change _they_ make is also for the worse. In talking
therefore as I do, I only act and talk consistently, when I say I am a
conservative abroad also.

“Conservatism, both in the States and in Great Britain, when rightly
understood, has a fixed principle of action, which is to conserve the
constitution of the country, and not subvert it. Now, liberalism
everywhere is distinguished by having no principle. In England it longs
for office, and sacrifices everything to it. It does nothing but
pander. It says religion is a matter of taste, leave it to itself and
it will take care of itself; now that maxim was forced on us by
necessity, for at the Revolution we scarcely had an Episcopal church,
it was so small as hardly to deserve the name. But in England it is an
unconstitutional, irrational, and monstrous maxim. Still it suits the
views of Romanists (although they hold no such doctrine themselves),
for it is likely to hand over the church revenues in Ireland to them.
It also suits Dissenters, for it will relieve them of church rates; and
it meets the wishes of the republican party, because they know no
church and no bishop will soon lead to no monarch. Again, it says,
enlarge the franchise, so as to give an increase of voters; that
doctrine suits all those sections also, for it weakens both monarchy
and aristocracy. Then again, it advocates free-trade, for that weakens
the landed interest, and knocks from under nobility one of its best
pillars. To lower the influence of the church pleases all political
Come-outers, some for one, and some for another reason. Their views are
not identical, but it is for their interest to unite. One advocates it
because it destroys Protestantism as a principle of the constitution,
another because the materials of this fortress, like those of
Louisburg, may be useful for erecting others, and among them
conventicles.

“Then there is no truth in liberalism. When Irish emancipation was
discussed, it was said, Pass that and you will hear no more grievances,
it will tend to consolidate the church and pacify the people. It was no
sooner granted, than ten bishopricks were suppressed, and monster
meetings paraded through and terrified the land. One cardinal came in
place of ten Protestant prelates, and so on. So liberalism said Pass
the Reform Bill, and all England will be satisfied; well, though it has
not worked well for the kingdom, it has done wonders for the radical
party, and now another and more extensive one is promised. The British
Lion has been fed with living raw meat, and now roars for more victims.
It ain’t easy to onseat liberals, I tell you, for they know how to
pander. If you promise power to those who have none, you must have the
masses with you. I could point you out some fellows that are sure to
win the dead1 heads, the dough2 boys, the numerous body that is on the
fence,3 and political come-outers.4 There is at this time a postponed
Reform Bill. The proposer actually cried when it was deferred to
another session. It nearly broke his heart. He couldn’t bear that the
public should have it to say, ‘They had seen the elephant.’”

1 Dead heads may perhaps be best explained by substituting the words
“the unproductive class of operatives,” such as spend their time in
ale-houses; demagogues, the men who, with free tickets, travel in
steam-boats, frequent theatres, tavern-keepers, &c.

2 Pliable politicians, men who are accessible to personal influences or
considerations.

3 A man is said _to be on a fence_ who is ready to join the strongest
party because he who sits on a fence is in a position to jump down,
with equal facility, on either side of it.

4 “Political come-outers” are the loose fish of all parties. Dissenters
from their own side.—See Bartlett’s definitions.

“Seeing the elephant,” said the doctor, “was he so large a man as
that?”

“Lord bless you,” sais I, “no, he is a man that thinks he pulls the
wires, like one of Punch’s small figures, but the wires pull him and
set him in motion. It is a cant term we have, and signifies ‘going out
for wool and coming back shorn.’ Yes, he actually shed tears, like a
cook peelin’ onions. He reminded me of a poor fellow at Slickville, who
had a family of twelve small children. His wife took a day, and died
one fine morning, leaving another youngster to complete the baker’s
dozen, and next week that dear little innocent died too. He took on
dreadfully about it. He boo-hooed right out, which is more than the
politicioner did over his chloroformed bill.

“‘Why,’ sais I, ‘Jeddediah, you ought to be more of a man than to take
on that way. With no means to support your family of poor helpless
little children, with no wife to look after them, and no airthly way to
pay a woman to dry-nurse and starve the unfortunate baby, it’s a mercy
it did die, and was taken out of this wicked world.’

“‘I know it and feel it, Mr Sam,’ said he, lookin’ up in a way that
nobody but him could look, ‘but—’

“‘But what?’ sais I.

“‘Why,’ says he, ‘but it don’t do to say so, you know.’

“Jist then some of the neighbours came in, when he burst out wuss than
before, and groaned like a thousand sinners at a camp-meetin’.

“Most likely the radical father of the strangled Reform Bill comforted
himself with the same reflection, only he thought _it wouldn’t do to
say so._ Crocodiles can cry when they are _hungry,_ but when they do
it’s time to vamose the poke-loken,1 that’s a fact. Yes, yes, they
understand these things to England as well as we do, you may depend.
They warn’t born yesterday. But I won’t follow it out. Liberalism is
playing the devil both with us and the British. Change is going on with
railroad haste in America, but in England, though it travels not so
fast, it never stops, and like a steam-packet that has no freight, it
daily increases its rate of speed as it advances towards the end of the
voyage. Now you have my explanation, Doctor, why I am a conservative on
principle, both at home and abroad.”

1 Poke-loken, a marshy place, or stagnant pool, connected with a river.

“Well,” said the doctor,” that is true enough as far as England is
concerned, but still I don’t quite understand how it is, as a
republican, you are so much of a conservative at home, for your reasons
appear to me to be more applicable to Britain than to the United
States.”

“Why,” sais I, “my good friend, liberalism is the same thing in both
countries, though its work and tactics may be different. It is
destructive but not creative. It tampers with the checks and balances
of our constitution. It flatters the people by removing the restraints
they so wisely placed on themselves to curb their own impetuosity. It
has shaken the stability of the judiciary by making the experiment of
electing the judges. It has abolished equity, in name, but infused it
so strongly in the administration of the law, that the distinctive
boundaries are destroyed, and the will of the court is now substituted
for both. In proportion as the independence of these high officers is
diminished, their integrity may be doubted. Elected, and subsequently
sustained by a faction, they become its tools, and decide upon party
and not legal grounds. In like manner, wherever the franchise was
limited, the limit is attempted to be removed. We are, in fact, fast
merging into a mere pure democracy,1 for the first blow on the point of
the wedge that secures the franchise, weakens it so that it is sure to
come out at last. Our liberals know this as well your British
Gerrymanderers do.”

1 De Tocqueville, who has written incomparably the best work that has
ever appeared on the United States, makes the following judicious
remarks on this subject: “Where a nation modifies the elective
qualification, it may easily be foreseen, that sooner or later that
qualification will be abolished. There is no more invariable rule in
the history of society. The further electoral rights are extended, the
more is felt the need of extending them; for after each concession, the
strength of the democracy increases, and its demands increase with its
strength. The ambition of those who are below the appointed rate is
irritated, in exact proportion of the number of those who are above it.
The exception at last becomes the rule, concession follows concession,
and no step can be made, short of universal suffrage.”

“Genymanderers,”1 he said, “who in the world are they? I never heard of
them before.”

1 This term came into use in the year 1811, in Massachusetts, where,
for several years previous, the federal and democratic parties stood
nearly equal. In that year, the democratic party, having a majority in
the Legislature, determined so to district the State anew, that those
sections which gave a large number of federal votes might be brought
into one district. The result was, that the democratic party carried
everything before them at the following election, and filled every
office in the State, although it appeared by the votes returned, that
nearly two-thirds of the votes were Federalists. Elridge Gerry, a
distinguished politician at that period, was the inventor of that plan,
which was called Gerrymandering, after him.—Glossary of Americanisms.

“Why,” sais I, “skilful politicians, who so arrange the electoral
districts of a State, that in an election one party may obtain an
advantage over its opponent, even though the latter may possess a
majority of the votes in the State; the truth is, it would be a long
story to go through, but we are corrupted by our liberals with our own
money, that’s a fact. Would you believe it now, that so long ago as six
years, and that is a great while in our history seein’ we are growing
at such a rate, there were sixty thousand offices in the gift of the
general government, and patronage to the extent of more than forty
million of dollars, besides official pickings and parquisites, which
are nearly as much more in the aggregate? Since then it has grown with
our growth. Or would you believe that a larger sum is assessed in the
city of _New York,_ than would cover the expenses of the general
government at _Washington?_ Constructive mileage may be considered as
the principle of the party, and literally runs through everything.”

“What strange terms you have, Mr Slick,” said he; “do pray tell me what
that is.”

“Snooping and stool-pidgeoning,” sais I.

“Constructive mileage, snooping and stool-pidgeoning!” said he, and he
put his hands on his ribs, and running round in a circle, laughed until
he nearly fell on the ground fairly tuckered out, “what _do_ you mean?”

“Constructive mileage,” says I, “is the same allowance for journeys
_supposed_ to be performed as for those that are _actually_ made, to
and from the seat of government. When a new president comes into
office, Congress adjourns of course on the third of March, and his
inauguration is made on the fourth; the senate is immediately convened
to act on his nominations, and though not a man of them leaves
Washington, each is _supposed_ to go home and return again in the
course of the ten or twelve hours that intervene between the
adjournment and their reassembling. For this ideal journey the senators
are allowed their mileages, as if the journey was actually made. In the
case of those who come from a distance, the sum often amounts,
individually, to one thousand or fifteen hundred dollars.”

“Why, Mr Slick,” said he, “that ain’t honest.”

“Honest,” said I, “who the plague ever said it was? but what can you
expect from _red_ republicans? Well, snooping means taking things on
the sly after a good rumage; and stool-pidgeoning means plundering
under cover of law; for instance, if a judge takes a bribe, or a fellow
is seized by a constable, and the stolen property found on him is given
up, the merciful officer seizes the goods and lets him run, and that is
all that ever is heard of it—that is stool-pidgeoning. But now,” sais
I, “sposin’ we take a survey of the place here, for in a general way I
don’t affection politics, and as for party leaders, whether English
reformers or American democrats, critters that are dyed in the wool, I
hate the whole caboodle of them. Now, having donated you with my
reasons for being a conservative, sposin’ you have a row yourself. What
do you consider best worth seeing here, if you can be said to see a
place when it don’t exist? for the English did sartainly deacon the
calf1 here, that’s a fact. They made them smell cotton, and gave them
partikilar Moses, and no mistake.”

1 To deacon a calf, is to knock a thing on the head as soon as born or
finished.

“Of the doings of the dead,” he said, “all that is around us has a
melancholy interest; but of the living there is a most extraordinary
old fellow that dwells in that white house on the opposite side of the
harbour. He can tell us all the particulars of the two sieges, and show
us the site of most of the public buildings; he is filled with
anecdotes of all the principal actors in the sad tragedies that have
been enacted here; but he labours under a most singular monomania.
Having told these stories so often he now believes that he was present
at the first capture of the fortress, under Colonel Pepperal and the
New England militia in 1745, and at the second in 1754, when it was
taken by Generals Amherst and Wolfe. I suppose he may be ninety years
of age; the first event must have happened therefore nineteen and the
other six years before he was born; in everything else his accuracy of
dates and details is perfectly astonishing.”

“Massa,” said Sorrow, “I don’t believe he is nuffin’ but a
reeblushionary suspensioner (a revolutionary pensioner), but it peers
to me dem folks do libb for ebber. My poor old missus used to call ’em
King George’s hard bargains, yah, yah, yah. But who comma dere, Massa?”
said he, pointing to a boat that was rapidly approaching the spot where
we stood.

The steersman, who appeared to be the skipper of a vessel, inquired for
Cutler, and gave him a letter, who said as soon as he had read it,
“Slick, our cruise has come to a sudden termination. Blowhard has
purchased and fitted out his whaler, and only awaits my return to take
charge of her and proceed to the Pacific. With his usual generosity, he
has entered my name as the owner of one half of the ship, her tackle
and outfit. I must go on board the ‘Black Hawk’ immediately, and
prepare for departing this evening.”

It was agreed that he should land the doctor at Ship Harbour, who was
anxious to see Jessie, which made him as happy as a clam at high-water,
and put me ashore at Jordan, where I was no less in a hurry to see a
fair friend whose name is of no consequence now, for I hope to induce
her to change it for one that is far shorter, easier to write and
remember, and, though I say it that shouldn’t say it, one that I
consait she needn’t be ashamed of neither.

On our way back, sais the doctor to me:

“Mr Slick, will you allow me to ask you another question?”

“A hundred,” sais I, “if you like.”

“Well,” sais he, “I have inquired of you what you think of state
affairs; will you tell me what you think about the Church? I see you
belong to what we call the Establishment, and what you denominate the
American Episcopal Church, which is very nearly the same thing. What is
your opinion, now, of the Evangelical and Puseyite parties? Which is
right and which is wrong?”

“Well,” sais I, “coming to me about theology is like going to a goat’s
house for wool. It is out of my line. My views on all subjects are
practical, and not theoretical. But first and foremost, I must tell
you, I hate all nick-names. In general, they are all a critter knows of
his own side, or the other either. As you have asked me my opinion,
though, I will give it. I think both parties are wrong, because both go
to extremes, and therefore are to be equally avoided. Our Articles, as
dear old Minister used to say, are very wisely so worded as to admit of
some considerable latitude of opinion; but that very latitude naturally
excludes anything ultra. The Puritanical section, and the Newmanites
(for Pusey, so far, is stedfast), are not, in fact, real churchmen, and
ought to leave us. One are Dissenters and the other Romanists. The
ground they severally stand on is slippery. A false step takes one to
the conventicle and the other to the chapel. If I was an Evangelical,
as an honest man, I would quit the Establishment as Baptist Noel did,
and so I would if I were a Newmanite. It’s only rats that consume the
food and undermine the foundations of the house that shelters them. A
traitor within the camp is more to be dreaded than an open enemy
without. Of the two, the extreme low-churchmen are the most dangerous,
for they furnish the greatest number of recruits of schism, and,
strange to say, for popery too. Search the list of those who have gone
over to Rome, from Ahab Meldrum to Wilberforce, and you will find the
majority were originally Puritans or infidels—men who were restless,
and ambitious of notoriety, who had learning and talent, but wanted
common sense. They set out to astonish the world, and ended by
astonishing themselves. They went forth in pursuit of a name, and lost
the only one they were known by. Who can recognise Newman in Father
Ignatius, who, while searching for truth, embraced error? or Baptist
Noel in the strolling preacher, who uses a horse-pond instead of a
font, baptizes adults instead of infants, and, unlike his Master, ‘will
not suffer little children to come unto him?’ Ah, Doctor, there are
texts neither of these men know the meaning of, ‘Vanity of vanities,
all is vanity.’ One of them has yet to learn that pictures, vestments,
music, processions, candlesticks, and confessionals are not religion,
and the other that it does not consist in oratory, excitement,
camp-meetings, rant, or novelties. There are many, very many,
unobtrusive, noiseless, laborious, practical duties which clergymen
have to perform; what a pity it is they won’t occupy themselves in
discharging them, instead of entangling themselves in controversies on
subjects not necessary to salvation! But, alas! the Evangelical divine,
instead of combating the devil, occupies himself in fighting his
bishop, and the Newmanite, instead of striving to save sinners, prefers
to ‘curse and quit’ his church. Don’t ask me therefore which is
_right;_ I tell you, they are both _wrong_.”

“Exactly,” sais he.

“In medio tutissimus ibis.”

“Doctor,” sais I, “there are five languages spoke on the Nova Scotia
coast already: English, Yankee, Gaelic, French, and Indian; for
goodness gracious sake don’t fly off the handle that way now and add
Latin to them! But, my friend, as I have said, you have waked up the
wrong passenger, if you think I am an ecclesiastical Bradshaw. I know
my own track. It is a broad gauge, and a straight line, and I never
travel by another, for fear of being put on a wrong one. Do you take?
But here is the boat alongside;” and I shook him by the hand, and
obtained his promise at parting that he and Jessie would visit me at
Slickville in the autumn.

And now, Squire, I must write finis to the cruise of the “Black Hawk,”
and close my remarks on “Nature and Human Nature,” or, “Men and
Things,” for I have brought it to a termination, though it is a hard
thing to do, I assure you, for I seem as if I couldn’t say Farewell. It
is a word that don’t come handy, no how I can fix it. It’s like Sam’s
hat-band which goes nineteen times round, and won’t tie at last. I
don’t like to bid good-bye to my Journal, and I don’t like to bid
good-bye to you, for one is like a child and the other a brother. The
first I shall see again, when Hurst has a launch in the spring, but
shall you and I ever meet again, Squire? that is the question, for it
is dark to me. If it ever does come to pass, there must be a
considerable slip of time first. Well, what can’t be cured must be
endured. So here goes. Here is the last fatal word, I shut my eyes when
I write it, for I can’t bear to see it. Here it is—

_Ampersand._

THE END.