How hard it was to tear myself from scenes endeared to me by the
most beautiful and sorrowful recollections, let those who have
loved and suffered as I did, say. However the world had frowned
upon me, Nature, arrayed in her green loveliness, had ever smiled
upon me like an indulgent mother, holding out her loving arms to
enfold to her bosom her erring but devoted child.
Dear, dear England! why was I forced by a stern necessity to leave
you? What heinous crime had I committed, that I, who adored you,
should be torn from your sacred bosom, to pine out my joyless
existence in a foreign clime? Oh, that I might be permitted to
return and die upon your wave-encircled shores, and rest my weary
head and heart beneath your daisy-covered sod at last! Ah, these
are vain outbursts of feeling - melancholy relapses of the spring
home-sickness! Canada! thou art a noble, free, and rising
country - the great fostering mother of the orphans of civilisation.
The offspring of Britain, thou must be great, and I will and do
love thee, land of my adoption, and of my children's birth; and,
oh, dearer still to a mother's heart-land of their graves!
* * * * * *
Whilst talking over our coming separation with my sister C - -, we
observed Tom Wilson walking slowly up the path that led to the
house. He was dressed in a new shooting-jacket, with his gun lying
carelessly across his shoulder, and an ugly pointer dog following
at a little distance.
"Well, Mrs. Moodie, I am off," said Tom, shaking hands with my
sister instead of me. "I suppose I shall see Moodie in London. What
do you think of my dog?" patting him affectionately.
"I think him an ugly beast," said C - -. "Do you mean to take him
with you?"
"An ugly beast! - Duchess a beast? Why she is a perfect
beauty! - Beauty and the beast! Ha, ha, ha! I gave two guineas for
her last night." (I thought of the old adage.) "Mrs. Moodie, your
sister is no judge of a dog."
"Very likely," returned C - -, laughing. "And you go to town
to-night, Mr. Wilson? I thought as you came up to the house that
you were equipped for shooting."
"To be sure; there is capital shooting in Canada."
"So I have heard - plenty of bears and wolves. I suppose you take
out your dog and gun in anticipation?"
"True," said Tom.
"But you surely are not going to take that dog with you?"
"Indeed I am. She is a most valuable brute. The very best venture I
could take. My brother Charles has engaged our passage in the same
vessel."
"It would be a pity to part you," said I. "May you prove as lucky a
pair as Whittington and his cat."
"Whittington! Whittington!" said Tom, staring at my sister, and
beginning to dream, which he invariably did in the company of
women. "Who was the gentleman?"
"A very old friend of mine, one whom I have known since I was a
very little girl," said my sister; "but I have not time to tell you
more about him now. If you so to St. Paul's Churchyard, and inquire
for Sir Richard Whittington and his cat, you will get his history
for a mere trifle."
"Do not mind her, Mr. Wilson, she is quizzing you," quoth I; "I
wish you a safe voyage across the Atlantic; I wish I could add a
happy meeting with your friends. But where shall we find friends
in a strange land?"
"All in good time," said Tom. "I hope to have the pleasure of
meeting you in the backwoods of Canada before three months are
over. What adventures we shall have to tell one another! It will
be capital. Good-bye."
* * * * * *
"Tom has sailed," said Captain Charles Wilson, stepping into my
little parlour a few days after his eccentric brother's last visit.
"I saw him and Duchess safe on board. Odd as he is, I parted with
him with a full heart; I felt as if we never should meet again.
Poor Tom! he is the only brother left me now that I can love.
Robert and I never agreed very well, and there is little chance of
our meeting in this world. He is married, and settled down for life
in New South Wales; and the rest - John, Richard, George, are all
gone - all!"
"Was Tom in good spirits when you parted?"
"Yes. He is a perfect contradiction. He always laughs and cries in the
wrong place. 'Charles,' he said, with a loud laugh, 'tell the girls to
get some new music against I return: and, hark ye! if I never come
back, I leave them my Kangaroo Waltz as a legacy.'"
"What a strange creature!"
"Strange, indeed; you don't know half his oddities. He has very little
money to take out with him, but he actually paid for two berths in the
ship, that he might not chance to have a person who snored sleep near
him. Thirty pounds thrown away upon the mere chance of a snoring
companion! 'Besides, Charles,' quoth he, 'I cannot endure to share
my little cabin with others; they will use my towels, and combs,
and brushes, like that confounded rascal who slept in the same berth
with me coming from New South Wales, who had the impudence to clean
his teeth with my toothbrush. Here I shall be all alone, happy and
comfortable as a prince, and Duchess shall sleep in the after-berth,
and be my queen.' And so we parted," continued Captain Charles.
"May God take care of him, for he never could take care of himself."
"That puts me in mind of the reason he gave for not going with us.
He was afraid that my baby would keep him awake of a night.
