The Travellers Part 5

"Why I think, my dear, she is a vulgar woman, who travels because others do; and is naturally disappointed in not meeting with the only circ.u.mstances that could give her pleasure."

"There's Mrs. Hilton, papa, who, I am sure, is not vulgar--at least she is as rich as Cr[oe]sus--and I heard her say to a gentleman, that if she could have remained at the Springs, and then could have gone home and _said_ she had been to the Falls, she should have been glad; for she was sure no one came here but for the name of it."

"Mrs. Hilton is of the cla.s.s of the vulgar rich, among whom vulgarity is quite as obvious, and much more disgusting, than with the vulgar poor.

But come, dear Ned; the faults and follies of others is a theme scarcely worthy of this place; and just at the moment that you are enjoying this festival of nature, you must take care you do not commit the pharisaic fault, and thank G.o.d that you are not as these people, without reflecting that Providence has arranged the circ.u.mstances which have made the difference."

"But, papa," said Julia, "it would not be wrong, would it, for Edward to feel that there is a difference?"

"Perhaps not, provided the feeling is properly tempered with humility and grat.i.tude; but it is far safer to be in the habit of comparing yourselves with your superiors, than your inferiors."

"It may be safer, papa," said Julia, "but"--

"But what, my love?"

"It is not half so natural."

"Nor so pleasant," interposed Edward.

"Well, my children, I hope you will make it habitual, and then it will be natural. For the present I am satisfied that you speak frankly your opinions and feelings, without disguise or affectation."

Thus these vigilant parents extracted some moral good from every object and every scene; and at that early age, when most children are thoughtless of the future, theirs were constantly directed to virtue, which they were taught is immortal in its nature, is man's support and solace through all the vicissitudes of life, and his crown of glory when the 'terrestrial puts on the celestial.'

Our travellers remained at the Falls for a week, that they might become familiar with them, see them by the rising and the setting sun; by daylight, and moonlight, and starlight, in all the radiance of the clear, full day, and in mists and storm; and then, after offering a Te Deum from the temple of their hearts, they left them with beautiful and imperishable pictures traced on their memories.

In following the windings of the Niagara to Newark, they pa.s.sed the celebrated heights of Queenstown, 'where ceas'd the swift their race, where fell the strong;' but even then, though then so recent, there were no traces of the disastrous battle fought there. The children, whose home was in a hill-country, and who valued a mountain as much as a New-Englander does a 'water privilege,' rambled over the heights, and gazed delighted on the green Niagara, which, escaped from its rocky prison, rejoices in its freedom, sweeps freely and gracefully around the bluff promontories that indent its course, flows past the headland, where Fort Niagara guards the American sh.o.r.e, and enters Lake Ontario, which stretches, sparkling in the distance,

"To where the sky Stoops, and shuts in th' exploring eye."

Edward had, in common with most spirited boys, a natural taste for military exploits. "I think," he said to his mother, "that a coward might play the hero on these heights, or at Lundie's-lane. Only think, mother, of fighting within the sound of the roaring of the Falls: would it not give you grand feelings?"

"I think, Edward, if I could hear the Falls at such a moment, they would seem to me to speak in a voice of rebuke, rather than encouragement."

"O, mother, you never seem to admire courage; but I suppose it is because you are a woman."

"No, my dear: women have been accused of having rather an undue admiration for what you mean by courage--fighting courage; but I confess that war seems to me a violation of the law of G.o.d, and it appears a profanation of such beautiful scenes as these, to convert them into fields of battle."

When they reached Newark, the party walked up to Fort George; a slight embankment, surrounded by a palisade, is still dignified by that name.

"This palisade as they call it, Ned," said Mr. Morris, "we should scarcely think a sufficient defence against the batteries of pigs and chickens."

"It has served, though, to keep the yankees at bay," said a soldier, gruffly, who was cutting up Canada thistles, and who had suspended his labour for a moment, to regard the strangers.

"A fair hit, friend," said Mr. Morris; "but all our fighting is over now, and forgotten I hope. This work you are doing here, cutting off these thistles, is far better than cutting off heads."

"It is far aisier, sir," replied the man, with a slight curling of the lip, which betrayed a professional contempt for Mr. Morris's preference of the plough-share over the sword; then turning towards the gate he called to a little boy who was just entering it--"Come, come d.i.c.k, what do you gaze at, boy? bring me the basket."

The boy, without heeding the command, dropped the basket; and uttering a cry between joy and surprise, scampered off in the direction of a cottage, or rather hovel, which stood just without the palisade.

"That is Richard Barton!--that is certainly Richard Barton!" exclaimed the children in one breath.

"Surely is it Richard Barton," said the soldier.

"Is his mother, here? Has he found his father?" asked Edward impatiently; while all the party drew nearer the soldier, anxious to learn the fate of their humble friend.

"Ay, his mother is in by there, poor cratur; but his father has been gone since the summer after the war, when the 40th was sent from Canada--where, G.o.d knows--there's none but he that made them can keep track of a British regiment: one year they are here with the setting sun, and then off to where he rises--shifting and changing like the waves of the sea, beating from one world to another; and I should know it by rason that I myself was fighting, and baiting gentaly under Wellington on the sunny side of the Pyrennees in one month, and the next comes an order and whips us off for Canada in the twinkling of an eye, among the indians and the yankees, who know nothing about fighting,"

he concluded, glancing his eye at Mr. Morris, "according to the civil rules of war."

"Poor, Mrs. Barton!" said Mrs. Sackville. "I am grieved at her disappointment, though I expected it."

"Oh, do let us go in and see her," said Julia.

"We will wait a moment, my dear," replied her mother; "her little boy must have told her that we were here, and I think she will come out to us."

"She'll not be right free to come before you," said the soldier, "if, as I now partly suspect, you are the gentlemen and ladies that were so hospitable like to her." The man now doffed his cap, and stood with it in his hand, with an expression of respect in his manner far different from the hostile air he had at first a.s.sumed.

"But, why not, my friend, come before us?" asked Mrs. Sackville. "I trust she has nothing to be ashamed of."

"Ashamed! no, thank G.o.d--it would be hard indeed if she had to bear the burthen of shame with her other misfortunes; but though a soldier's wife, she has an English spirit, and a proud one; and she says, while she has her health and her hands, she will never be seen asking charity; and that dest.i.tute is her condition, that as she said to-day, to make her case known to christian people, is asking charity of them."

"Do, mother, let us go now and see her," again interposed Julia.

"Stop, a moment, my love," replied Mrs. Sackville; and then turning again to the soldier--"You say she is utterly dest.i.tute; but when she left us, she said she had a considerable sum of money."

"And she spake the truth, ma'am--or, what is the same, she thought she did; but a little limb of the old one, saving your presence, my lady, had fingered all the poor cratur had been earning in three years, in as many minutes, and was off to the States with it."

"Ah," exclaimed Mr. Morris, who had been intently listening--"the son of Belial--I told you so--I knew the rascal had it."

"So dame Barton said one of the gentlemen told her; but the bundle was all tight and snug, for the little devil had sewed it up again, and she did not examine it till she come to look for the money to pay the captain of a schooner, who had agreed to take her down the lakes: and just think, my lady, at that moment what an overcast it was."

"That mischief was done," said Edward, as soon as he had an opportunity of speaking, "when you and I, Julia, left that little wretch Tristy in the wood. I shall always think we were to blame for leaving him."

"Does the poor woman," asked Mrs. Sackville, "still think of returning to Quebec?"

"To Quebec! ah, madam, and to the world's end, but she'll find her husband if he is above ground. She is that resolute, that neither wind nor tide can turn her. If she was left on a naked island in mid ocean, she would contrive to get off from it."

"Come, children," said Mrs. Sackville, "we will just leave your father and uncle to finish their survey here, while we look in upon our poor friend."

"Well, go on mother," said Edward, "I will overtake you; first I must run up to the flag-staff and get at least a clover stalk for a memorial of the gallant Brock who is buried there."

"And I will overtake you too, mother," said Julia, falling back with Edward.

The soldier's eye followed the children: "G.o.d bless them--G.o.d bless them!" said he, "that is better than a monument."

"What is better than a monument, friend?" asked Mrs. Sackville, riveted to the spot, as most mothers would be, by an honest commendation of her children.

"The memory of an innocent heart--and a tear from eyes that never cried for sin, my lady--we soldiers die, and are turned into the turf--but we are honored in our officers."

"Farewell, my friend; I wish you well," said Mrs. Sackville, dropping a piece of money into the soldier's hand, and then turned from him while he was still uttering his hearty, "G.o.d bless you, my lady."

Julia hailed Edward as he was bounding off towards the flag-staff, and begged him to stop for her, as she had something private to say to him.