The Travellers Part 6

He laughed at her pa.s.sion for secrets, said he could not possibly be detained, and at last good naturedly stopped to listen. "Ned," she said, "I tell you what I was thinking of--as it was our fault, you know, that poor Mrs. Barton lost her money--and she is so anxious to get to Quebec--and that little d.i.c.k is such a good good natured little fellow--I was thinking, Ned--"

"For mercy's sake think a little faster, Julia."

"Well, I was thinking, if we could contrive some way to have her go down in the boat with us."

"Contrive! it could not take us long to contrive I think: we can only ask papa, you know, and all the contrivance in the world will do her no good, if he does not think it best."

"But, then, Ned, there is one thing I would like to propose to father and mother, if you are willing to join me."

"Don't be so round-about, Julia, as if I was the great Mogul. Speak out."

"Well then, to speak plain--you know Edward, you and I have each of us five dollars that papa gave us to buy Canada curiosities with; now I think if we were to club, we might have enough to get Mrs. Barton to Quebec, if the captains of the boats are good-natured men, and reasonable in their charges, and if papa approves the scheme--and if"----

"If--if--if," said Edward, "we shall never move the woman with all these _ifs_ to clog the way; one _if_ is sure, that if we spend our money this way, we might have saved ourselves all the trouble of planning so many times over how we should lay it out."

Edward continued for a few moments silent and moody, while Julia urged her cause zealously. The person, young or old, to whom a charity is suggested, is not often as eager for it as the original projector.

Edward, however, after having walked up to the flag-staff, plucked a clover-stalk, and retraced a part of the way to the little wicket by which they entered, said, with the air of a sage, "I did not think it best, Julia, to say yes, without some consideration; but on the whole I like the plan, and if father and mother consent, I shall be very glad."

Once agreed, they were impatient for the execution of their scheme, and they hurried forward to the cottage, at the door of which they were met by both the children. The little girl now quite recovered, clung to Julia, while Richard plucked Edward by the sleeve, and expressed his joy awkwardly, but naturally enough, by laughing in his face.

"Ah, they are indeed right glad to see ye," said Mrs. Barton, "as I'm sure I am, as I have reason; but they, poor things--their hearts would not jump so at sight of their father's face, as indeed how should they, seeing they can have no recollection of him."

The children replied to all these kind expressions from mother and children, and then drawing Mrs. Sackville to the door, they suggested their plan. She kissed them both, and bade them await her in the cottage, while she went to consult their father and uncle, whom she saw approaching.

As soon as she had communicated the children's wishes, Mr. Morris laughed at them. "Why," said he, "the poor foolish woman is on a wild-goose chase, and the sooner she is stopped the better--travelling over the world after a husband, who I have no doubt she is vastly better without than with."

"But she is the best judge of that, brother."

"Lord bless you, no--a wife is no judge at all about her husband. She is evidently an ingenious worthy woman, and can get a good living if she is not footing it over the world after this soldier--a good riddance--a good riddance, Mrs. Sackville. I am surprised you do not see it is a good riddance."

Mrs. Sackville, who did not esteem matrimonial ties so lightly as her bachelor brother, appealed to her husband, but he joined Mr. Morris in thinking Mrs. Barton had much better remain where she was; not because he was sure the father and husband, though a soldier, might not be worth looking up, but because there was not the slightest chance of finding him. "What good will it do the woman to get to Quebec?" he asked; "her husband's regiment has left Canada."

"She tells me," replied Mrs. Sackville, "that she has many friends in Quebec from whom she might expect a.s.sistance. She has worked for the governor's lady, and she builds much on her benevolence, and thinks she will get her a free pa.s.sage to her husband in a government ship; and besides," added Mrs. Sackville, "even if her hopes fail utterly, we shall confer an essential benefit on our children by complying with their wishes; for if they give this poor woman all their little store of wealth, it will cost them the sacrifice of sundry personal gratifications that they have reckoned much on, and thus give them a practical lesson of self-denial and disinterestedness, better than all our precepts, and it will a.s.sociate with the more selfish and transient pleasures of their journey, the pure and enduring sentiment of benevolence."

"Well, my dear wife," said Mr. Sackville, "do as you please--you have arrayed before me irresistible motives."

Thus sanctioned, Mrs. Sackville returned to the cottage, whispered to the children their father's acquiescence, and then saying aloud, "I leave you to make all the arrangements with Mrs. Barton," she left them.

We shall not attempt to describe the poor woman's grat.i.tude, which overflowed in words and tears, nor the children's noisy joy when they heard they were to go down the lake with their friends. Suffice it to say, that in the course of two hours, and just as the steam-boat appeared in sight, heavily plying down from Lewistown, Mrs. Barton was on the wharf with her children, as clean and nice as soap and water and fresh and well-patched clothes could make them, and looking so grateful and joyful, that Mr. Morris, who, like the good vicar of Wakefield, 'loved happy human faces,' forgot all his objections to the procedure, and shaking the good woman's hand heartily, said, he "was glad they were to be fellow-pa.s.sengers."

Our friends, with many others, were now impatiently waiting a conveyance to the steam-boat, which had stopped near the opposite sh.o.r.e. The wharf exhibited the usual signs of a small garrisoned town. Half drunken soldiers were idling about, and sentinels were posting to and fro, stationed there to prevent the desertion of the soldiers to the opposite side, a crime which the vicinity and hospitable habits of the State render very common. Edward accosted one of the sentinels, and asked him if the captain of the steam-boat sent his small boat ash.o.r.e. "Fraquently he does, and fraquently he don't," replied the fellow, rather surlily.

"Does the boat stop at fort Niagara?"

"Indeed sir, and that is what I cannot tell you."

"Well," pursued Edward with simplicity, "do you think they will send ash.o.r.e to-day?"

"Indeed master, and it's what I am not thinking about."

Edward turned away, making a mental comparison between this man and his own civil countrymen, greatly to the disadvantage of the former, when his attention was attracted by the approach of a boat which came skimming over the water like a bird, and as it neared the sh.o.r.e, a little tight-built sailor leaped on to the wharf, and announced himself as Jemmy Chapman, the captain's mate. While the baggage was arranging in the boat, Edward seized the favorable moment to make the best bargain he could with the mate for his protegee.

But the mate averred he had no power to transact that business, and referred him to his captain. "You may safely trust to him, my young man," said he, "for captain Vaughan is not a man to take advantage of a ship in distress."

And so it proved--for the captain, (as every body knows, who ever crossed the lake in the steam-boat Ontario) was a man of distinguished humanity; and pleased with the good appearance of Mrs. Barton and her children, and the zeal of her youthful protectors, he said, that if she had brought her thread and needles a-board, she might work her pa.s.sage to Ogdensburg, for he and some of his men were sadly out at elbows. The good woman's eyes glistened with delight, at the thought of paying her way thus far, and she seated herself directly to put new pockets in an old coat of Jemmy's, when a sudden attack of tooth-ache put a stop to her progress.

The children were soon acquainted with her malady, for they were continually hovering about her, and Julia procured some camphor and laudanum from an invalid pa.s.senger, and gave them to her. She applied them, but the horrible pangs were not allayed, when Jemmy Chapman was attracted by the report of her distress. "Stand away, all," said he; "stand away--fall back, my young man; and you, my little lady, and give place to me. I am the seventh son of a seventh son, and I can cure any body's tooth-ache but my own." Mrs. Barton was not free from the superst.i.tion which pervades her cla.s.s, and she gladly permitted him to stroke her face, which he did with a gravity that evinced perfect faith in his own powers; and in the course of fifteen minutes, she declared herself completely relieved, and cheerfully resumed her labors. Julia ran to announce the cure to her mother.

"Is not it strange, mama," she said, "that she could believe it was Jemmy that cured her?"

"Strange to us, my dear, who do not believe in any such supernatural powers; but we will not quarrel with a faith that cures the tooth-ache."

As the boat pa.s.sed Fort Niagara, where the river debouches into the lake, "There," said Jemmy Chapman to Edward, who stood beside him; "there, on that point stood a n.o.ble stone light-house, that has saved many a poor fellow from finding a grave in this stormy lake: it was like the good scripture light which shines equally upon all."

"And what has become of it?" asked Edward.

"Oh, it was taken down like Solomon's temple, till there was not one stone left upon another, by one of our generals--thank the Lord he was not an American born--he it was, that first set the example of burning on the frontier, and burnt down this pretty town of Newark here--and cut down all the orchards."

"The orchards! what in the world did he do that for?" asked Edward.

Jemmy paused for a moment, apparently at a loss what motive to a.s.sign for such reckless destruction, and then said, "Out of curiosity I believe."

We fear that we have already protracted our details beyond the patience of our readers.

We shall not therefore describe the prosperous pa.s.sage of the boat over the beautiful expanse of Lake Ontario: nor the visit of our friends to the town of Rochester, which five years before was a complete wilderness; but now had fine houses, shops, and warehouses, and Edward said, reminded him of Adam, who was born grown up: nor their pa.s.sage from the lake into the St. Lawrence, where these mighty waters pa.s.sing St. Vincent on one side, and Grand Island on the other, contract their channel, and a.s.sume the form of a river.

Our friends, wrapped in their cloaks and shawls to defend them from the chill night air, cl.u.s.tered around Jemmy Chapman, who stood at the helm guiding the boat through the difficult and shifting channels, amid the 'thousand isles'--now in silence gazing on them, as they were lit up with the rosy hues of twilight, and then with the mild but insufficient l.u.s.tre of the half orbed moon. These verdant islands are of every size and form. Some lying in cl.u.s.ters like the 'solitary set in families:'

and some like beautiful vestals in single loveliness. Some stretching for miles in length, and some so small, and without a tree or shrub, that they look like lawns destined for fairy sporting grounds; while others are encircled by such an impenetrable growth of trees, that one might fancy that within this sylvan barrier wood-nymphs held their courts and revels; in short, might fancy any thing; for there are no traces of human footsteps to break the spell of imagination, save where the fisherman's hut, placed on the brink of the element by which he lives, is disclosed with its dark relief of unbroken woods by the bright glare of the pine torch, which is his beacon light, and which serves to show the gleaming path-way of his little canoe. Jemmy recounted to the children the sad mishaps and disastrous chances that had befallen unskilful or unfortunate navigators in these dangerous pa.s.ses, and the kind captain repeatedly fired his signal gun, which seemed to wake the spirits of these deep solitudes, to send back the greeting in echo and re-echo, till their voices died away on the most distant sh.o.r.es.

"Don't they hollow well?" said Jemmy, after the last report, turning briskly around to dame Barton who sat near him.

"Well, I did not hear them," said she, mournfully.

"Not hear them--why, they spoke as plain as preaching--are you deaf, good woman?"

"Deaf! oh, no--but my thoughts were far from here."

Mrs. Sackville thought there was something in Mrs. Barton's devotedness to her husband, not common in her cla.s.s of life. She had been deterred from putting any questions to her, by the habitual silence and diffidence of the poor woman. But now they had become so much more acquainted, that she ventured to say to her, "Come, Mrs. Barton, suppose you favor us while we sit here, with a little history of your life. My children are so much interested in you, that they want to know all they can about you."

"Oh, you are very good ma'am to say so; but what is there in the history of the like of me to tell? not that I have any objection to make known my story--thank G.o.d, that's kept me in his fear--but then what happens to poor plain bodies like me, is not made much count of in the world."

"But, remember, my good friend," said Mrs. Sackville, "the happiness of all his creatures, rich and poor, is of equal account in the sight of our heavenly Father, and as I wish my children continually to bear in mind that it is this great Being, whom they are commanded by their Saviour to imitate, I trust that the happiness of their fellow-beings, whether high or low, will be of equal importance in their view."

Thus encouraged by the kindness of the mother, and the eager looks of the children, who stationed themselves close to her, Mrs. Barton began her simple and brief story.

"I never knew my parents," she said. "I was, as I have been told, given by a gipsey woman to a magistrate of the town of Lichfield, in England, when I was three years old. The woman was sick, and died shortly after.

She declared herself ignorant of my parentage. She believed I had been stolen in London, by some of her tribe, about a year before; and said that I had been committed to her charge for some months, I had a necklace, with a gold clasp with initials, which I had been permitted to retain; and the worthy magistrate, in the hope that this might lead to a discovery, advertised me, with a description of the necklace; but no one appearing to claim me, he finally placed me in the Lichfield alms-house.

"When I was seven years old, don't laugh at me, Miss Julia, I was called a beauty. My skin was as smooth as yours; and my hair hung in curls about my neck and face. At this time a whimsical gentleman, who had a fancy to bring up a wife to his own liking, came to the alms-house: he was pleased with my appearance, and selected me. He taught me himself, and procured teachers for me, and from morning till night I was poring over hard tasks: this lasted for three years, and perhaps Mr. Leslie, for that was the gentleman's name, might have remained constant to his purpose, but then I took the small-pox; and after lying at the gates of death for weeks, I recovered, but with my face blotched and seamed as you see it. For many months my eye-sight and hearing were gone, and when I could see, my eyes had this cast in them, which looks as if I were born cross-eyed.