Roughing It In The Bush

by Susanna Moodie

  “‘As long as she enjoyed her health,’ she said, ‘they were welcome to bury her in effigy as often as they pleased; she was really glad to be able to afford amusement to so many people.’

  “Night after night, during the whole of that winter, the same party beset her house with their diabolical music; but she only laughed at them.

  “The leader of the mob was a young lawyer from these parts, a sad mischievous fellow; the widow became aware of this, and she invited him one evening to take tea with a small party at her house. He accepted the invitation, was charmed with her hearty and hospitable welcome, and soon found himself quite at home; but only think how ashamed he must have felt, when the same ’larum commenced, at the usual hour, in front of the lady’s house!

  “‘Oh,’ said Mrs. R——, smiling to her husband, ‘here come our friends. Really, Mr. K— —, they amuse us so much of an evening that I should feel quite dull without them.’

  “From that hour the charivari ceased, and the old lady was left to enjoy the society of her young husband in quiet.

  “I assure you, Mrs. Moodie, that the charivari often deters old people from making disgraceful marriages, so that it is not wholly without its use.”

  A few days after the charivari affair, Mrs. D—— stepped in to see me. She was an American; a very respectable old lady, who resided in a handsome frame-house on the main road. I was at dinner, the servant-girl, in the meanwhile, nursing my child at a distance. Mrs. D—— sat looking at me very seriously until I concluded my meal, her dinner having been accomplished several hours before. When I had finished, the girl gave me the child, and then removed the dinner-service into an outer room.

  “You don’t eat with your helps,” said my visitor. “Is not that something like pride?”

  “It is custom,” said I; “we were not used to do so at home, and I think that keeping a separate table is more comfortable for both parties.”

  “Are you not both of the same flesh and blood? The rich and poor meet together, and the Lord is the maker of them all.”

  “True. Your quotation is just, and I assent to it with all my heart. There is no difference in the flesh and blood; but education makes a difference in the mind and manners, and, till these can assimilate, it is better to keep apart.”

  “Ah! you are not a good Christian, Mrs. Moodie. The Lord thought more of the poor than He did of the rich, and He obtained more followers from among them. Now, we always take our meals with our people.”

  Presently after, while talking over the affairs of our households, I happened to say that the cow we had bought of Mollineaux had turned out extremely well, and gave a great deal of milk.

  “That man lived with us several years,” she said; “he was an excellent servant, and D— — paid him his wages in land. The farm that he now occupies formed a part of our U.E. grant. But, for all his good conduct, I never could abide him, for being a black.”

  “Indeed! Is he not the same flesh and blood as the rest?”

  The colour rose into Mrs. D——’s sallow face, and she answered, with much warmth,

  “What! do you mean to compare me with a nigger?”

  “Not exactly. But, after all, the colour makes the only difference between him and uneducated men of the same class.”

  “Mrs. Moodie!” she exclaimed, holding up her hands in pious horror; “they are the children of the devil! God never condescended to make a nigger.”

  “Such an idea is an impeachment of the power and majesty of the Almighty: How can you believe in such an ignorant fable?”

  “Well, then,” said my monitress, in high dudgeon, ‘if the devil did not make them, they are descended from Cain.”

  “But all Cain’s posterity perished in the flood.”

  My visitor was puzzled.

  “The African race, it is generally believed, are the descendants of Ham, and to many of their tribes the curse pronounced against him seems to cling. To be the servant of servants is bad enough, without our making their condition worse by our cruel persecutions. Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost; and in proof of this inestimable promise, he did not reject the Ethiopian eunuch who was baptised by Philip, and who was, doubtless, as black as the rest of his people. Do you not admit Mollineux to your table with other helps?”

  “Good God! do you think that I would sit down at the same table with a nigger? My helps would leave the house if I dared to put such an affront upon them. Sit down with a dirty black indeed!”

  “Do you think, Mrs. D——, that there will be any negroes in heaven?”

  “Certainly not, or I, for one, would never wish to go there;” and out of the house she sallied in high disdain.

  Yet this was the woman who had given me such a plausible lecture on pride. Alas, for our fallen nature! Which is more subversive of peace and Christian fellowship—ignorance of our own characters, or of the characters of others?

  Our departure for the woods became now a frequent theme of conversation. My husband had just returned from an exploring expedition to the backwoods, and was delighted with the prospect of removing thither. The only thing I listened to in their praise, with any degree of interest, was a lively little song, which he had written during his brief sojourn at Douro:—

  To the Woods!—To the Woods!

  To the woods!—to the woods!—The sun shines bright,

  The smoke rises high in the clear frosty air;

  Our axes are sharp, and our hearts are light,

  Let us toil while we can and drive away care.

  Though homely our food, we are merry and strong,

  And labour is wealth, which no man can deny;

  At eve we will chase the dull hours with a song,

  And at grey peep of dawn let this be our cry,

  To the woods!—to the woods!—&c.

  Hark! how the trees crack in the keen morning blast,

  And see how the rapids are cover’d with steam;

  Thaw your axes, my lads, the sun rises fast,

  And gilds the pine tops with his bright golden beam.

  To the woods!—to the woods!—&c.

  Come, chop away, lads! the wild woods resound,

  Let your quick-falling strokes in due harmony ring;

  See, the lofty tree shivers—it falls to the ground!

  Now with voices united together we’ll sing—

  To the woods!—to the woods!—The sun shines bright,

  The smoke rises high in the clear frosty air;

  Our axes are sharp, and our hearts are light,

  Let us toil while we can, and drive away care,

  And drive away care.

  J.W.D.M.

  TWELVE

  THE VILLAGE HOTEL

  (An Intermediate Chapter, by J.W.D. Moodie.)

  Well, stranger, here you are all safe and sound;

  You’re now on shore. Methinks you look aghast,—

  As if you’d made some slight mistake, and found

  A land you liked not. Think not of the past;

  Your leading-strings are cut; the mystic chain

  That bound you to your fair and smiling shore

  Is sever’d now, indeed. ’Tis now in vain

  To sigh for joys that can return no more.

  Emigration, however necessary as the obvious means of providing for the increasing population of early-settled and over-peopled countries, is indeed a very serious matter to the individual emigrant and his family. He is thrown adrift, as it were, on a troubled ocean, the winds and currents of which are unknown to him. His past experience, and his judgment founded on experience, will be useless to him in this new sphere of action. In an old country, where generation after generation inhabits the same spot, the mental dispositions and prejudices of our ancestors become in a manner hereditary, and descend to their children with their possessions. In a new colony, on the contrary, the habits and associations of the emigrant having been broken up for ever, he is suddenly thrown on his own internal resources, and compelled to a
ct and decide at once; not unfrequently under pain of misery or starvation. He is surrounded with dangers, often without the ordinary means which common-sense and prudence suggest of avoiding them,—because the experience on which these common qualities are founded is wanting. Separated for ever

  from those warm-hearted friends, who in his native country would advise or assist him in his first efforts, and surrounded by people who have an interest in misleading and imposing upon him, every-day experience shows that no amount of natural sagacity or prudence, founded on experience in other countries, will be an effectual safeguard against deception and erroneous conclusions.

  It is a fact worthy of observation, that among emigrants possessing the qualities of industry and perseverance so essential to success in all countries, those who possess the smallest share of original talent and imagination, and the least of a speculative turn of mind, are usually the most successful. They follow the beaten track and prosper. However humbling this reflection may be to human vanity, it should operate as a salutary check on presumption and hasty conclusions. After a residence of sixteen years in Canada, during which my young and helpless family have been exposed to many privations, while we toiled incessantly and continued to hope even against hope, these reflections naturally occur to our minds, not only as the common-sense view of the subject, but as the fruit of long and daily-bought experience.

  After all this long probation in the backwoods of Canada, I find myself brought back in circumstances nearly to the point from whence I started, and am compelled to admit that had I only followed my own unassisted judgment, when I arrived with my wife and child in Canada, and quietly settled down on the cleared farm I had purchased, in a well-settled neighbourhood, and with the aid of the means I then possessed, I should now in all probability have been in easy if not in affluent circumstances.

  Native Canadians, like Yankees, will make money where people from the old country would almost starve. Their intimate knowledge of the country, and, of the circumstances of the inhabitants, enables them to turn their money to great advantage; and I must add, that few people from the old country, however avaricious, can bring themselves to stoop to the unscrupulous means of acquiring property which are too commonly resorted to in this country. These reflections are a rather serious commencement of a sketch which was intended to be of a more lively description; one of my chief objects in writing this chapter being to afford a connecting link between my wife’s sketches, and to account for some circumstances connected with our situation, which otherwise would be unintelligible to the reader. Before emigrating to Canada, I had been settled as a bachelor in South Africa for about twelve years. I use the word settled, for want of a better term—for a bachelor can never, properly, be said to be settled. He has no object in life—no aim. He is like a knife without a blade, or a gun without a barrel. He is always in the way, and nobody cares for him. If he works on a farm, as I did, for I never could look on while others were working without lending a hand, he works merely for the sake of work. He benefits nobody by his exertions, not even himself; for he is restless and anxious, has a hundred indescribable ailments, which no one but himself can understand; and for want of the legitimate cares and anxieties connected with a family, he is full of cares and anxieties of his own creating. In short, he is in a false position, as every man must be who presumes to live alone when he can do better.

  This was my case in South Africa. I had plenty of land, and of all the common necessaries of life; but I lived for years without companionship, for my nearest English neighbour was twenty-five miles off. I hunted the wild animals of the country, and had plenty of books to read; but, from talking broken Dutch for months together, I almost forgot how to speak my own language correctly. My very ideas (for I had not entirely lost the reflecting faculty) became confused and limited, for want of intellectual companions to strike out new lights, and form new combinations in the regions of thought; clearly showing that man was not intended to live alone. Getting, at length, tired of this solitary and unproductive life, I started for England, with the resolution of placing my domestic matters on a more comfortable footing. By a happy accident, at the house of a literary friend in London, I became acquainted with one to whose cultivated mind, devoted affection, and untiring energy of character, I have been chiefly indebted for many happy hours, under the most adverse circumstances, as well as for much of that hope and firm reliance upon Providence which have enabled me to bear up against overwhelming misfortunes. I need not here repeat what has been already stated respecting the motives which induced us to emigrate to Canada. I shall merely observe that when I left South Africa it was with the intention of returning to that colony, where I had a fine property, to which I was attached in no ordinary degree, on account of the beauty of the scenery and delightful climate. However, Mrs. Moodie, somehow or other, had imbibed an invincible dislike to that colony, for some of the very reasons that I liked it myself. The wild animals were her terror, and she fancied that every wood and thicket was peopled with elephants, lions, and tigers, and that it would be utterly impossible to take a walk without treading on dangerous snakes in the grass. Unfortunately, she had my own book on South Africa to quote triumphantly in confirmation of her vague notions of danger; and, in my anxiety to remove these exaggerated impressions, I would fain have retracted my own statements of the hair-breadth escapes I had made, in conflicts with wild animals, respecting which the slightest insinuation of doubt from another party would have excited my utmost indignation.

  In truth, before I became familiarised with such dangers, I had myself entertained similar notions, and my only wonder, in reading such narratives before leaving my own country, was how the inhabitants of the country managed to attend to their ordinary business in the midst of such accumulated dangers and annoyances. Fortunately, these hair-breadth escapes are of rare occurrence; but travellers and book-makers, like cooks, have to collect high-flavoured dishes, from far and near, the better to please the palates of their patrons. So it was with my South African adventures; I threw myself in the way of danger from the love of strong excitement, and I collected all my adventures together, and related them in pure simplicity, without very particularly informing the reader over what space of time or place my narrative extended, or telling him that I could easily have kept out of harm’s way had I felt so inclined. All these arguments, however, had little influence on my good wife, for I could not deny that I had seen such animals in abundance in South Africa; and she thought she never should be safe among such neighbours. At last, between my wife’s fear of the wild animals of Africa, and a certain love of novelty, which formed a part of my own character, I made up my mind, as they write on stray letters in the post-office, to “try Canada.” So here we are, just arrived at the village of C——, situated on the northern shore of Lake Ontario.

  Mrs. Moodie has already stated that we procured lodgings at a certain hotel in the village of C—— kept by S——, a truly excellent and obliging American. The British traveller is not a little struck, and in many instances disgusted, with a certain air of indifference in the manners of such persons in Canada, which is accompanied with a tone of equality and familiarity, exceedingly unlike the limber and oily obsequiousness of tavern-keepers in England. I confess I felt at the time not a little annoyed with Mr. S——’s free-and-easy manner, and apparent coolness and indifference when he told us he had no spare room in his house to accommodate our party. We endeavoured to procure lodgings at another tavern, on the opposite side of the street; but soon learned that, in consequence of the arrival of an unusual number of immigrants, all the taverns in the village were already filled to overflowing. We returned to Mr. S——, and after some further conversation, he seemed to have taken a kind of liking to us, and became more complaisant in his manner, until our arrangement with Tom Wilson, as already related, relieved us from further difficulty.

  I now perfectly understand the cause of this apparent indifference on the part of our host. Of all people, Englishme
n, when abroad, are the most addicted to the practice of giving themselves arrogant airs towards those persons whom they look upon in the light of dependents on their bounty; and they forget that an American tavern-keeper holds a very different position in society from one of the same calling in England. The manners and circumstances of new countries are utterly opposed to anything like pretension in any class of society; and our worthy host, and his excellent wife—who had both held a respectable position in the society of the United States—had often been deeply wounded in their feelings by the disgusting and vulgar arrogance of English gentleman and ladies, as they are called. Knowing from experience the truth of the saying that “what cannot be cured must be endured,” we were particularly civil to Mr. S——; and it was astonishing how quickly his manners thawed. We had not been long in the house before we were witnesses of so many examples of the purest benevolence, exhibited by Mr. S—— and his amiable family, that it was impossible to regard them with any feeling but that of warm regard and esteem. S—— was, in truth, a noble-hearted fellow. Whatever he did seemed so much a matter of habit, that the idea of selfish design or ostentation was utterly excluded from the mind. I could relate several instances of the disinterested benevolence of this kind-hearted tavern-keeper. I shall just mention one, which came under my own observation while I lived near C——.

  I had frequently met a young Englishman, of the name of M——, at Mr. S——’s tavern. His easy and elegant manners, and whole deportment, showed that he had habitually lived in what is called the best society. He had emigrated to Canada with £3,000 or £4,000, had bought horses, run races, entertained many of the wealthy people of Toronto, or York, as it was then called, and had done a number of other exceedingly foolish things. Of course his money was soon absorbed by the thirsty Canadians, and he became deeply involved in debt. M—— had spent a great deal of money at S——’s tavern, and owed him £70 or £80. At length he was arrested for debt by some other party, was sent to the district gaol, which was nearly two miles from C——, and was compelled at first to subsist on the gaol allowance. What greatly aggravated the misfortunes of poor M——, a man without suspicion or guile, was a bitter disappointment in another quarter. He had an uncle in England, who was very rich, and who intended to leave him all his property. Some kind friend, to whom M—— had confided his expectations, wrote to England, informing the old man of his nephew’s extravagance and hopes. The uncle there-upon cast him off, and left his property, when he died, to another relative.