"No, don't trouble yourself. I have the dinner to cook, and the
children to attend to, which will cause a constant interruption;
you had better defer it to some other time."
"I shan't ask you to listen to me again," said he, with a look of
offended vanity; but he went to his trunk, and brought out a large
MS., written on foolscap, which he commenced reading to himself with
an air of great self-importance, glancing from time to time at me,
and smiling disdainfully. Oh, how glad I was when the door opened,
and the return of Moodie broke up this painful tete-a-tete.
From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. The very next day,
Mr. Malcolm made his appearance before me, wrapped in a great-coat
belonging to my husband, which literally came down to his heels.
At this strange apparition, I fell a-laughing.
"For God's sake, Mrs. Moodie, lend me a pair of inexpressibles.
I have met with an accident in crossing the fence, and mine are
torn to shreds - gone to the devil entirely."
"Well, don't swear. I'll see what can be done for you."
I brought him a new pair of fine, drab-colored kersey-mere trousers
that had never been worn. Although he was eloquent in his thanks, I
had no idea that he meant to keep them for his sole individual use
from that day thenceforth. But after all, what was the man to do? He
had no trousers, and no money, and he could not take to the woods.
Certainly his loss was not our gain. It was the old proverb
reversed.
The season for putting in the potatoes had now arrived. Malcolm
volunteered to cut the sets, which was easy work that could be done
in the house, and over which he could lounge and smoke; but Moodie
told him that he must take his share in the field, that I had
already sets enough saved to plant half-an-acre, and would have more
prepared by the time they were required. With many growls and
shrugs, he felt obliged to comply; and he performed his part pretty
well, the execrations bestowed upon the mosquitoes and black-flies
forming a sort of safety-valve to let off the concentrated venom of
his temper. When he came in to dinner, he held out his hands to me.
"Look at these hands."
"They are blistered with the hoe."
"Look at my face."
"You are terribly disfigured by the black-flies. But Moodie suffers
just as much, and says nothing."
"Bah! - The only consolation one feels for such annoyances is to
complain. Oh, the woods! - the cursed woods! - how I wish I were out
of them." The day was very warm, but in the afternoon I was
surprised by a visit from an old maiden lady, a friend of mine from
C - -. She had walked up with a Mr. Crowe, from Peterborough, a
young, brisk-looking farmer, in breeches and top-boots, just out
from the old country, who, naturally enough, thought he would like
to roost among the woods.
