These Circumstances Appeared Far More Alarming, As All Real Danger
Does, After They Were Past.
The fright and over-exertion gave my
health a shock from which I did not recover for several months, and
made me so fearful of fire, that from that hour it haunts me like a
nightmare.
Let the night be ever so serene, all stoves must be shut
up, and the hot embers covered with ashes, before I dare retire to
rest; and the sight of a burning edifice, so common a spectacle in
large towns in this country, makes me really ill. This feeling was
greatly increased after a second fire, when, for some torturing
minutes, a lovely boy, since drowned, was supposed to have
perished in the burning house.
Our present fire led to a new train of circumstances, for it was
the means of introducing to Moodie a young Irish gentleman, who was
staying at my brother's house. John E - - was one of the best and
gentlest of human beings. His father, a captain in the army, had
died while his family were quite young, and had left his widow with
scarcely any means beyond the pension she received at her husband's
death, to bring up and educate a family of five children. A
handsome, showy woman, Mrs. E - - soon married again; and the poor
lads were thrown upon the world. The eldest, who had been educated
for the Church, first came to Canada in the hope of getting some
professorship in the college, or of opening a classical school.
He was a handsome, gentlemanly, well-educated young man, but
constitutionally indolent - a natural defect which seemed common to
all the males of the family, and which was sufficiently indicated
by their soft, silky, fair hair and milky complexions.
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