"I should have thought,
Mrs. Mackenzie, that you had had enough of that same on yon
island?"
"Aye, sic a place for decent folk," returned the drunken body,
shaking her head. "One needs a drap o' comfort, captain, to keep up
one's heart ava."
The captain set up one of his boisterous laughs as he pushed the
boat from the shore. "Hollo! Sam Frazer! steer in, we have
forgotten the stores."
"I hope not, captain," said I; "I have been starving since
daybreak."
"The bread, the butter, the beef, the onions, and potatoes are
here, sir," said honest Sam, particularizing each article.
"All right; pull for the ship. Mrs. Moodie, we will have a glorious
supper, and mind you don't dream of Grosse Isle."
In a few minutes we were again on board. Thus ended my first day's
experience of the land of all our hopes.
OH! CAN YOU LEAVE YOUR NATIVE LAND?
A Canadian Song
Oh! can you leave your native land
An exile's bride to be;
Your mother's home, and cheerful hearth,
To tempt the main with me;
Across the wide and stormy sea
To trace our foaming track,
And know the wave that heaves us on
Will never bear us back?
And can you in Canadian woods
With me the harvest bind,
Nor feel one lingering, sad regret
For all you leave behind?
Can those dear hands, unused to toil,
The woodman's wants supply,
Nor shrink beneath the chilly blast
When wintry storms are nigh?
