"'And sure enough there was the poor little fellow, quite dead, and yet warm.

"'In the mean time Thunder, who had watched our proceedings from a distance, as soon as he saw the body exhumed, felt as if there was a court-martial holding over himself, plunged into the harbour and swam across to the town, and hid himself for several days, until he thought the affair had blown over; and then approached me anxiously and cautiously, lest he should be apprehended and condemned. As I was unwilling to lose both my dogs, I was obliged to overlook it, and take him back to my confidence. A strange story, ain't it, Mr Slick.'

"'Well, it is,' sais I, 'but dogs do certainly beat all natur, that's a fact.'

"But to get back to the 'Black Hawk:' as soon as we anchored, I proposed to Cutler that we should go ashore and visit the 'natives.' While he was engaged giving his orders to the mate, I took the opportunity of inquiring of the pilot about the inhabitants. This is always a necessary precaution. If you require light-houses, buoys, and sailing directions to enter a port, you want similar guides when you land. The navigation there is difficult also, and it's a great thing to know who you are going to meet, what sort of stuff they are made of, and which way to steer, so as to avoid hidden shoals and sand-bars, for every little community is as full of them as their harbour. It don't do, you know, to talk tory in the house of a radical, to name a bishop to a puritan, to let out agin smugglin' to a man who does a little bit of business that way himself; or, as the French say, 'to talk of a rope in a house where the squatter has been hanged.' If you want to please a guest, you must have some of his favourite dishes at dinner for him; and if you want to talk agreeably to a man, you must select topics he has a relish for.

"So," sais I, "where had we better go, Pilot, when we land?"

"Do you see that are white one-story house there?" said he. "That is a place, though not an inn, where the owner, if he is at home, will receive the likes of you very hospitably. He is a capital fellow in his way, but as hot as pepper. His name is Peter McDonald, and he is considerable well to do in the world. He is a Highlander; and when young went out to Canada in the employment of the North-west Fur Company, where he spent many years, and married, broomstick fashion, I suppose, a squaw. Alter her death he removed, with his two half-caste daughters, to St John's, New Brunswick; but his girls I don't think were very well received, on account of their colour, and he came down here and settled at Ship Harbour, where some of his countrymen are located. He is as proud as Lucifer, and so are his galls. Whether it is that they have been slighted, and revenge it on all the rest of the world, I don't know; or whether it is Highland and Indian pride mixed, I ain't sartified; but they carry their heads high, and show a stiff upper lip, I tell you. I don't think you will get much talk out of them, for I never could."

"Well, it don't follow," said I, "by no manner of means, Eldad, because they wouldn't chat to you, that they wouldn't open their little mugs to me. First and foremost recollect, Mr Nickerson, you are a married man, and it's no use for a gall to talk it into you; and then, in the next place, you see you know a plaguey sight more about the shape, make, and build of a craft like this than you do about the figure-head, waist, and trim of a gall. You are a seaman, and I am a landsman; you know how to bait your hooks for fish, and I know the sort of tackle women will jump at. See if I don't set their clappers a going, like those of a saw-mill. Do they speak English?"

"Yes," said he, "and they talk Gaelic and French also; the first two they learned from their father, and the other in Canada."

"Are they pretty?"

"The eldest is beautiful," said he; "and there is something in her manner you can't help thinking she is a lady. You never saw such a beautiful figure as she is in your life."

Thinks I to myself, "that's all you know about it, old boy." But I didn't say so, for I was thinking of Sophy at the time.

We then pushed off, and steered for Peter McDonald's, Indian Peter, as the pilot said the fishermen called him. As we approached the house he came out to meet us. He was a short, strong-built, athletic man, and his step was as springy as a boy's. He had a jolly, open, manly face, but a quick, restless eye, and the general expression of his countenance indicated at once good nature and irascibility of temper.

"Coot tay, shentlemen," he said, "she is glad to see you; come, walk into her own house." He recognised and received Eldad kindly, who mentioned our names and introduced us, and he welcomed us cordially. As soon as we were seated, according to the custom of the north-west traders, he insisted upon our taking something to drink, and calling to his daughter Jessie in Gaelic, he desired her to bring whiskey and brandy. As I knew this was a request that on such an occasion could not be declined without offence, I accepted his offer with thanks, and no little praise of the virtues of whiskey; the principal recommendation of which, I said, "was that there was not a headache in a hogshead of it."

"She believes so herself," he said, "it is petter ash all de rum, prandy, shin, and other Yanke pyson in the States; ta Yankies are cheatin smugglin rascals."

The entrance of Jessie fortunately gave a turn to this complimentary remark; when she set down the tray, I rose and extended my hand to her, and said in Gaelic, "Cair mur tha thu mo gradh (how do you do, my dear), tha mi'n dochas gam biel thu slan (I hope you are quite well)."

The girl was amazed, but no less pleased. How sweet to the ear are the accents of the paternal language, or the mother tongue as we call it, for it is women who teach us to talk. It is a bond of union! Whoever speaks it, when we are in a land of strangers, is regarded as a relative. I shall never forget when I was in the bazaar at Calcutta, how my heart leaped at hearing the voice of a Connecticut man as he was addressing a native trader.

"Tell you what, stranger," said he, "I feel as mad as a meat axe, and I hope I may be darned to all darnation, if I wouldn't chaw up your ugly mummyised corpse, hair, hide, and hoof, this blessed minute, as quick as I would mother's dough-nuts, if I warn't afraid you'd pyson me with your atimy, I'll be dod drotted if I wouldn't."

Oh, how them homespun words, coarse as they were, cheered my drooping spirits, and the real Connecticut nasal twang with which they were uttered sounded like music to my ears; how it brought up home and far-off friends to my mind, and how it sent up a tear of mingled joy and sadness to my eye.

Peter was delighted. He slapped me on the back with a hearty good will, in a way nearly to deprive me of my breath, welcomed me anew, and invited us all to stay with him while the vessel remained there. Jessie replied in Gaelic, but so rapidly I could only follow her with great difficulty, for I had but a smattering of it, though I understood it better than I could speak it, having acquired it in a very singular manner, as I will tell you by and by. Offering her a chair, she took it and sat down after some hesitation, as if it was not her usual habit to associate with her father's visitors, and we were soon on very sociable terms. I asked the name of the trading post in the north-west where they had resided, and delighted her by informing her I had once been there myself on business of John Jacob Astor's New York Fur Company, and staid with the Governor, who was the friend and patron of her father's. This was sufficient to establish us at once on something like the footing of old friends. When she withdrew, Peter followed her out, probably to give some directions for our evening meal.

"Well, well," said the pilot, "if you don't beat all! I never could get a word out of that girl, and you have loosened her tongue in rale right down earnest, that's a fact."

"Eldad," sais I, "there is two sorts of pilotage, one that enables you to steer through life, and another that carries you safely along a coast, and there is this difference between them: This universal globe is all alike in a general way, and the knowledge that is sufficient for one country will do for all the rest of it, with some slight variations. Now you may be a very good pilot on this coast, but your knowledge is no use to you on the shores of England. A land pilot is a fool if he makes shipwreck wherever he is, but the best of coast pilots when he gets on a strange shore is as helpless as a child. Now a woman is a woman all over the world, whether she speaks Gaelic, French, Indian, or Chinese; there are various entrances to her heart, and if you have experience, you have got a compass which will enable you to steer through one or the other of them, into the inner harbour of it. Now, Minister used to say that Eve in Hebrew meant talk, for providence gave her the power of chattyfication on purpose to take charge of that department. Clack then you see is natural to them; talk therefore to them as they like, and they will soon like to talk to you. If a woman was to put a Bramah lock on her heart, a skilful man would find his way into it if he wanted to, I know. That contrivance is set to a particular word; find the letters that compose it, and it opens at once. The moment I heard the Gaelic, I knew I had discovered the cypher—I tried it and succeeded. Tell you what, Pilot, love and skill laugh at locks, for them that can't be opened can be picked. The mechanism of the human heart, when you thoroughly understand it, is, like all the other works of nature, very beautiful, very wonderful, but very simple. When it does not work well, the fault is not in the machinery, but in the management."



CHAPTER IV. A CRITTER WITH A THOUSAND VIRTUES AND BUT ONE VICE.

Soon after McDonald had returned and resumed his seat, a tall thin man, dressed in a coarse suit of homespun, entered the room, and addressing our host familiarly as Squire Peter, deposited in the corner a fishing-rod, and proceeded to disencumber himself of a large salmon basket apparently well filled, and also two wallets, one of which seemed to contain his clothes, and the other, from the dull heavy sound it emitted as he threw it on the floor, some tools. He was about forty years of age. His head, which was singularly well formed, was covered with a luxuriant mass of bushy black curls. His eyes were large, deep set, and intelligent, his forehead expansive and projecting, and his eyebrows heavy and shaggy. When addressing Peter he raised them up in a peculiar manner, nearly to the centre of his forehead, and when he ceased they suddenly dropped and partially concealed his eyes.

It was impossible not to be attracted by a face that had two such remarkable expressions; one of animation, amiability, and intelligence; and the other of total abstraction. He bent forward, even after he relieved himself of his load, and his attitude and gait suggested the idea of an American land-surveyor, who had been accustomed to carry heavy weights in the forest. Without condescending to notice the party, further than bestowing on us a cursory glance to ascertain whether he knew any of us, he drew up to the chimney corner, and placing the soles of his boots perpendicularly to the fire (which soon indicated by the vapour arising from them that he had been wading in water), he asked in a listless manner and without waiting for replies, some unconnected questions of the landlord: as, "Any news, Peter? how does the world use you? how are the young ladies? how is fish this season? macarel plenty? any wrecks this year, Peter, eh? any vessels sinking and dead men floating; silks, satins, ribbons, and gold watches waiting to be picked up? Glorious coast this! the harvest extends over the whole year." And then he drew his hand over his face as if to suppress emotion, and immediately relapsed into silence and stared moodily into the fire.

Peter seemed to understand that no answer was required, and therefore made none, but asked him where he had come from?

"Where did he come from?" said the stranger, who evidently applied the question to a fish in his basket, and not to himself, "originally from the lake, Peter, where it was spawned, and whither it annually returns. You ought to understand that, Mac, for you have a head on your shoulders, and that is more than half the poor wretches that float ashore here from the deep have. It's a hard life, my friend, going to sea, and hard shores sailors knock against sometimes, and still harder hearts they often find there. A stone in the end of a stocking is a sling for a giant, and soon puts an end to their sufferings; a punishment for wearing gold watches, a penalty for pride. Jolly tars eh? oh yes, very jolly! it's a jolly sight, ain't it, to see two hundred half-naked, mangled, and disfigured bodies on the beach, as I did the other day?" and he gave a shudder at the thought that seemed to shake the very chair he sat on. "It's lucky their friends don't see them, and know their sad fate. They were lost at sea! that is enough for mothers and wives to hear. The cry for help, when there is none to save, the shriek of despair, when no hope is left, the half-uttered prayer, the last groan, and the last struggle of death, are all hushed in the storm, and weeping friends know not what they lament."

After a short pause, he continued:

"That sight has most crazed me. What was it you asked? Oh, I have it! you asked where he came from? From the lake, Peter, where he was spawned, and where he returned you see, to die. You were spawned on the shores of one of the bays of the Highlands of Scotland. Wouldn't you like to return and lay your bones there, eh? From earth you came, to earth you shall return. Wouldn't you like to go back and breathe the air of childhood once more before you die? Love of home, Peter, is strong; it is an instinct of nature; but, alas! the world is a Scotchman's home—anywhere that he can make money. Don't the mountains with their misty summits appear before you sometimes in your sleep? Don't you dream of their dark shadows and sunny spots, their heathy slopes and deep deep glens? Do you see the deer grazing there, and hear the bees hum merrily as they return laden with honey, or the grouse rise startled, and whirr away to hide itself in its distant covert? Do the dead ever rise from their graves and inhabit again the little cottage that looks out on the stormy sea? Do you become a child once more, and hear your mother's voice, as she sings the little simple air that lulls you to sleep, or watch with aching eyes for the returning boat that brings your father, with the shadows of evening, to his humble home? And what is the language of your dreams? not English, French, or Indian, Peter, for they have been learned for trade or for travel, but Gaelic, for that was the language of love. Had you left home early, Mac, and forgotten its words or its sounds, had all trace of it vanished from your memory as if it had never been, still would you have heard it, and known it, and talked it in your dreams. Peter, it is the voice of nature, and that is the voice of God!"

"She'll tell her what she treams of sometimes," said McDonald, "she treams of ta mountain dew—ta clear water of life."

"I will be bound you do," said the doctor, "and I do if you don't, so, Peter, my boy, give me a glass; it will cheer my heart, for I have been too much alone lately, and have seen such horrid sights, I feel dull."

While Peter (who was a good deal affected with this reference to his native land) was proceeding to comply with his request, he relapsed into his former state of abstraction, and when the liquor was presented to him, appeared altogether to have forgotten that he had asked for it.

"Come, Toctor," said the host, touching him on the shoulder, "come, take a drop of this, it will cheer you up; you seem a peg too low to-day. It's the genuine thing, it is some the Governor, Sir Colin Campbell, gave me."

"None the better for that, Peter, none the better for that, for the rich give out of their abundance, the poor from their last cup and their last loaf; one is the gift of station, the other the gift of the heart."

"Indeed then, she is mistakened, man. It was the gift of as true-hearted a Highlander as ever lived. I went to see him lately, about a grant of land. He was engaged writing at the time, and an officher was standing by him for orders, and sais he to me, 'My good friend, could you call to-morrow? for I am very busy to-day, as you see.' Well, I answered him in Gaelic that the wind was fair, and I was anxious to go home, but if he would be at leisure next week I would return again. Oh, I wish you had seen him, Doctor, when he heard his native tongue. He threw down his pen, jumped up like a boy, and took me by the hand, and shook it with all his might. 'Oh,' said he, 'I haven't heard that for years; the sound of it does my heart good. You must come again and see me after the steamer has left for England. What can I do for you? So I told him in a few words I wanted a grant of two hundred acres of land adjoining this place. And he took a minute of my name, and of Skip Harbour, and the number of my lot, and wrote underneath an order for the grant. 'Take that to the Surveyor-General,' said he, 'and the next time you come to Halifax the grant will be ready for you.' Then he rang the bell, and when the servant came, he ordered him to fill a hamper of whiskey and take it down to my vessel.'

"Did you get the grant?" said the stranger.

"Indeed she did," said Peter, "and when she came to read it, it was for five instead of two hundred acres."

"Good!" said the other. "Come, I like that. Fill me another glass and I will drink his health."

"Well done, old boy!" said I to myself, "you know how to carry your sentimentality to market anyhow. Doctor, doctor! So you are a doctor," sais I to myself, "are you? Well, there is something else in you than dough pills, and salts, and senna, at any rate, and that is more than most of your craft have, at all events. I'll draw you out presently, for I never saw a man with that vein of melancholy in him, that didn't like fun, providin' his sadness warn't the effect of disease. So here's at you; I'll make the fun start or break a trace, I know."

Cutler and I had been talking horse when he came in; a sort of talk I rather like myself, for I consait I know a considerable some about it, and ain't above getting a wrinkle from others when I can. "Well," sais I, "Capting, we was a talking about horses when the doctor came in."

"Captain," said the doctor, turning round to Cutler, "Captain, excuse me, Sir, how did you reach the shore?"

"In the boat," said Cutler.

"Ah!" said the other with animation, "was all the crew saved?"

"We were in no danger whatever, Sir; my vessel is at anchor in the harbour."

"Ah," replied the doctor, "that's fortunate, very fortunate;" and turned again to the fire, with an air, as I thought, of disappointment, as if he had expected a tale of horror to excite him.

"'Well, Mr Slick," said the captain, "let us hear your story about the horse that had a thousand virtues and only one vice."

At the sound of my name, the stranger gave a sudden start and gazed steadily at me, his eyebrows raised in the extraordinary manner that I have described, something like the festoon of a curtain, and a smile playing on his face as if expecting a joke and ready to enter into it, and enjoy it. All this I observed out of the corner of my eye, without appearing to regard him or notice his scrutiny.

Sais I, "when I had my tea-store in Boston, I owned the fastest trotting horse in the United States; he was a sneezer, I tell you. I called him Mandarin—a very appropriate name, you see, for my business. It was very important for me to attract attention. Indeed, you must do it, you know, in our great cities, or you are run right over, and crushed by engines of more power. Whose horse is that? Mr Slick's the great tea-merchant. That's the great Mandarin, the fastest beast in all creation—refused five thousand dollars for him, and so on. Every wrapper I had for my tea had a print of him on it. It was action and reaction, you see. Well, this horse had a very serious fault that diminished his value in my eyes down to a hundred dollars, as far as use and comfort went. Nothing in the world could ever induce him to cross a bridge. He had fallen through one when he was a colt, and got so all-fired frightened he never forgot it afterwards. He would stop, rear, run back, plunge, and finally kick if you punished him too hard, and smash your waggon to pieces, but cross he never would. Nobody knew this but me, and of course I warn't such a fool as to blow upon my own beast. At last I grew tired of him and determined to sell him; but as I am a man that always adheres to the truth in my horse trades, the difficulty was, how to sell him and not lose by him. Well, I had to go to Charleston, South Carolina, on business, and I took the chance to get rid of Mr Mandarin, and advertised him for sale. I worded the notice this way:

"'A gentleman, being desirous of quitting Boston on urgent business for a time, will dispose of a first-rate horse, that he is obliged to leave behind him. None need apply but those willing to give a long price. The animal may be seen at Deacon Seth's livery stables.'

"Well, it was soon known that Mandarin was for sale, and several persons came to know the lowest figure. 'Four thousand dollars,' said I, 'and if I didn't want to leave Boston in a hurry, six would be the price.'

"At last young Mr Parker, the banker's son from Bethany, called and said he wouldn't stand for the price, seeing that a hundred dollars was no more than a cord of wood in his pocket (good gracious, how the doctor laughed at that phrase!), but would like to inquire a little about the critter, confidential like.

"'I will answer any questions you ask,' I said, candidly.

"'Is he sound?'

"'Sound as a new hackmetack trenail. Drive it all day, and you can't broom it one mite or morsel.'

"'Good in harness?'

"'Excellent.'

"'Can he do his mile in two fifteen?'

"'He has done it.'

"'Now between man and man,' sais he, 'what is your reason for selling the horse, Slick? for you are not so soft as to be tempted by price out of a first chop article like that.'

"'Well, candidly,' sais I, 'for I am like a cow's tail, straight up and down in my dealing, and ambition the clean thing.'"

"Straight up and down!" said the doctor aloud to himself; 'straight up and down like a cow's tail.' Oh Jupiter! what a simile! and yet it ain't bad, for one end is sure to be in the dirt. A man may be the straight thing, that is right up and down, like a cow's tail, but hang me if he can be the clean thing anyhow he can fix it." And he stretched out his feet to their full length, put his hands in his trowsers pocket, held down his head, and clucked like a hen that is calling her chickens. I vow I could hardly help bustin' out a larfin myself, for it warn't a slow remark of hisn, and showed fun; in fact, I was sure at first he was a droll boy.

"Well, as I was a sayin', sais I to Mr Parker, 'Candidly, now, my only reason for partin' with that are horse is, that I want to go away in a hurry out of Boston clear down to Charleston, South Carolina, and as I can't take him with me, I prefer to sell him."

"'Well,' sais he, 'the beast is mine, and here is a cheque for your money.'

"'Well,' sais I, 'Parker, take care of him, for you have got a fust-rate critter. He is all sorts of a horse, and one that is all I have told you, and more too, and no mistake.'

"Every man that buys a new horse, in a general way, is in a great hurry to try him. There is sumthin' very takin' in a new thing. A new watch, a new coat, no, I reckon it's best to except a new spic and span coat (for it's too glossy, and it don't set easy, till it's worn awhile, and perhaps I might say a new saddle, for it looks as if you warn't used to ridin', except when you went to Meetin' of a Sabbaday, and kept it covered all the week, as a gall does her bonnet, to save it from the flies); but a new waggon, a new sleigh, a new house, and above all a new wife, has great attractions. Still you get tired of them all in a short while; you soon guess the hour instead of pullin' out the watch for everlastin'. The waggon loses its novelty, and so does the sleigh, and the house is surpassed next month by a larger and finer one, and as you can't carry it about to show folks, you soon find it is too expensive to invite them to come and admire it. But the wife; oh, Lord! In a general way, there ain't more difference between a grub and a butterfly, than between a sweetheart and wife. Yet the grub and the butterfly is the same thing, only, differently rigged out, and so is the sweetheart and wife. Both critters crawl about the house, and ain't very attractive to look at, and both turn out so fine and so painted when they go abroad, you don't scarcely know them agin. Both, too, when they get out of doors, seem to have no other airthly object but to show themselves. They don't go straight there and back again, as if there was an end in view, but they first flaunt to the right, and then to the left, and then everywhere in general, and yet nowhere in particular. To be seen and admired is the object of both. They are all finery, and that is so in their way they can neither sit, walk, nor stand conveniently in it. They are never happy, but when on the wing."

"Oh, Lord!" said the doctor to himself, who seemed to think aloud; "I wonder if that is a picture or a caricature?"

Thinks I, "old boy, you are sold. I said that a purpose to find you out, for I am too fond of feminine gender to make fun of them. You are a single man. If you was married, I guess you wouldn't ask that are question."

But I went on. "Now a horse is different, you never get tired of a good one. He don't fizzle out1 like the rest. You like him better and better every day. He seems a part of yourself; he is your better half, your 'halter hego' as I heard a cockney once call his fancy gall.

1 Fizzle out. To prove a failure.

"This bein' the case, as I was a sayin', as soon as a man gits a new one, he wants to try him. So Parker puts Mandarin into harness, and drives away like wink for Salem, but when he came to the bridge, the old coon stopt, put forward his ears, snorted, champed his bit, and stamped his fore feet. First Parker coaxed him, but that did no good, and then he gave him the whip, and he reared straight up on eend, and nearly fell over into his waggon. A man that was crossing over at the time took him by the head to lead him, when he suddenly wheeled half round, threw him in the mud, and dragged him in the gutter, as he backed up agin the side walk all standin'. Parker then laid on the whip, hot and heavy; he gave him a most righteous lickin'. Mandarin returned blow for blow, until he kicked the waggon all to flinders.

"Well, I must say that for his new owner, he was a plucky fellow, as well as Mandarin, and warn't agoin' to cave in that way. So he takes him back to the livery stables, and puts him into another carriage, and off he starts agin, and thinkin' that the horse had seen or smelt sumthen at that bridge to scare him, he tries another, when the same scene was acted over again, only he was throwed out, and had his clothes nearly tore off. Well, that afternoon, up comes Parker to me, choking with rage.

"'Slick,' said he, 'that is the greatest devil of a horse I ever see. He has dashed two carriages all to shivereens, and nearly tuckard the innerds out of me and another man. I don't think you have acted honestly by me.'

"'Parker,' said I, 'don't you use words that you don't know the meanin' of, and for goodness gracious sake don't come to me to teach you manners, I beseech you, for I am a rough schoolmaster, I tell you. I answered every question you asked me, candidly, fair and square, and above board.'

"'Didn't you know,' said he, 'that no living man could git that horse across a bridge, let him do his darndest?'

"'I did,' said I, 'know it to my cost, for he nearly killed me in a fight we had at the Salem Pike.'

"'How could you then tell me, Sir, your sole reason for parting with him was, that you wanted to leave Boston and go to Charleston?'

"'Because, Sir,' I replied, 'it was the literal truth. Boston, you know as well as I do, is almost an island, and go which way you will, you must cross a bridge to get out of it. I said I wanted to quit the city, and was compelled to leave my horse behind. How could I ever quit the place with that tormented beast? And warn't I compelled to leave him when Old Scratch himself couldn't make him obey orders? If I had a waited to leave town till he would cross a bridge, I should have had to have waited till doomsday.'

"He scratched his head and looked foolish. 'What a devil of a sell,' said he. 'That will be a standing joke agin me as long as I live.'

"'I don't see that,' said I, 'if you had been deceived, you might have called it a sell, but you bought him with your eyes and ears open, and a full knowledge of the truth. And, after all, where will you go to better yourself? for the most that can be said is, you have got a critter with a thousand virtues and but one vice.'

"'Oh, get out!' said he, 'and let me alone.' And he walked off, and looked as sheepish as you please."

"'Oh dear!" said the doctor; "oh dear." And he placed his hands on his ribs, and walked round the room in a bent position, like a man affected with colic, and laughed as if he was hysterical, saying, "Oh dear! Oh, Mr Slick, that's a capital story. Oh, you would make a new man of me soon, I am sure you would, if I was any time with you. I haven't laughed before that way for many a long day. Oh, it does me good. There is nothing like fun, is there? I haven't any myself, but I do like it in others. Oh, we need it. We need all the counterweights we can muster to balance the sad relations of life. God has made sunny spots in the heart; why should we exclude the light from them?"

"Stick a pin in that, Doctor," says I, "for it's worth rememberin' as a wise saw."

He then took up his wallet, and retired to his room to change his clothes, saying to himself, in an under-tone: "Stick a pin in it. What a queer phrase; and yet it's expressive, too. It's the way I preserve my insects."

The foregoing conversation had scarcely terminated, when Peter's daughters commenced their preparations for the evening meal. And I confess I was never more surprised than at the appearance of the older one, Jessie. In form and beauty she far exceeded the pilot's high encomiums. She was taller than American women generally are; but she was so admirably proportioned and well developed, you were not aware of her height, till you saw her standing near her sister. Her motions were all quiet, natural, and graceful, and there was an air about her, that nothing but the native ease of a child of the forest, or highbred elegance of fashionable life, can ever impart. She had the delicate hands and small feet peculiar to Indian women. Her hair was of the darkest and deepest jet, but not so coarse as that of the aborigines; whilst her large black eyes were oval in shape, liquid, shaded by long lashes, and over-arched by delicately-pencilled brows. Her neck was long, but full, and her shoulders would have been the envy of a London ball-room. She was a perfect model of a woman.

It is true she had had the advantage, when young, of being the companion of the children of the Governor of the Fort, and had been petted, partially educated, and patronised by his wife. But neither he nor his lady could have imparted what it is probable neither possessed, much polish of manner or refinement of mind. We hear of nature's noblemen, but that means rather manly, generous, brave fellows, than polished men. There are however splendid specimens of men, and beautiful looking women, among the aborigines. Extremes meet; and it is certain that the ease and grace of highly civilised life do not surpass those of untutored nature, that neither concedes nor claims a superiority to others. She was altogether of a different stamp from her sister, who was a common-looking person, and resembled the ordinary females to be found in savage life. Stout, strong, and rather stolid, accustomed to drudge and to obey, rather than to be petted and rule; to receive and not to give orders, and to submit from habit and choice. One seemed far above, and the other as much below, the station of their father. Jessie, though reserved, would converse if addressed; the other shunned conversation as much as possible.

Both father and daughters seemed mutually attached to each other, and their conversation was carried on with equal facility in Indian, French, Gaelic, and English, although Peter spoke the last somewhat indifferently. In the evening a young man, of the name of Fraser, with his two sisters, children of a Highland neighbour, came in to visit the McDonalds, and Peter producing his violin, we danced jigs and reels, in a manner and with a spirit not often seen but in Ireland or Scotland. The doctor, unable to withstand the general excitement, joined in the dances with as much animation as any of us, and seemed to enjoy himself amazingly.

"Ah, Mr Slick," said he, patting me on the shoulder, "this is the true philosophy of life. But how is it with your disposition for fun, into which you enter with all your heart, that you have such a store of 'wise saws.' How in the world did you ever acquire them? for your time seems to have been spent more in the active pursuits of life than in meditation. Excuse me, I neither undervalue your talent nor power of observation, but the union does not seem quite natural, it is so much out of the usual course of things."

"Well," sais I, "Doctor, you have been enough in the woods to know that a rock, accidentally falling from a bank into a brook, or a drift-log catching cross-ways of the stream, will often change its whole course, and give it a different direction; haven't you? Don't you know that the smallest and most trivial event often contains colouring matter enough in it to change the whole complexion of our life? For instance, one Saturday, not long before I left school, and when I was a considerable junk of a boy, father gave me leave to go and spend the day with Eb Snell, the son of our neighbour old Colonel Jephunny Snell. We amused ourselves catching trout in the mill-pond, and shooting king-fishers, about the hardest bird there is to kill in all creation, and between one and the other sport, you may depend we enjoyed ourselves first-rate. Towards evenin' I heard a most an awful yell, and looked round, and there was Eb shoutin' and screamin' at the tip eend of his voice, and a jumpin' up and down, as if he had been bit by a rattlesnake.

"'What in natur is the matter of you, Eb?' sais I. 'What are you a makin' such an everlastin' touss about?' But the more I asked, the more he wouldn't answer. At last, I thought I saw a splash in the water, as if somebody was making a desperate splurging there, and I pulled for it, and raced to where he was in no time, and sure enough there was his little brother, Zeb, just a sinkin' out of sight. So I makes a spring in after him in no time, caught him by the hair of his head, just as he was vamosing, and swam ashore with him. The bull-rushes and long water-grass was considerable thick there, and once or twice I thought in my soul I should have to let go my hold of the child, and leave him to save my own life, my feet got so tangled in it; but I stuck to it like a good fellow, and worked my passage out with the youngster.

"Just then, down came the women folk and all the family of the Snells, and the old woman made right at me, as cross as a bear that has cubs, she looked like a perfect fury.

"'You good-for-nothin' young scallowag,' said she, 'is that the way you take care of that poor dear little boy, to let him fall into the pond, and get half drowned?'

"And she up and boxed my ears right and left, till sparks came out of my eyes like a blacksmith's chimney, and my hat, which was all soft with water, got the crown knocked in in the scuffle, and was as flat as a pancake.

"'What's all this,' sais Colonel Jephunny, who came runnin' out of the mill. 'Eb,' sais he, 'what's all this?'

"Well, the critter was so frightened he couldn't do nothin', but jump up and down, nor say a word, but 'Sam, Sam!'

"So the old man seizes a stick, and catchin' one of my hands in his, turned to, and gave me a most an awful hidin'. He cut me into ribbons a'most.

"'I'll teach you,' he said, 'you villain, to throw a child into the water arter that fashin.' And he turned to, and at it agin, as hard as he could lay on. I believe in my soul he would have nearly killed me, if it hadn't a been for a great big nigger wench he had, called Rose. My! what a slashin' large woman, that was; half horse, half alligator, with a cross of the mammoth in her. She wore a man's hat and jacket, and her petticoat had stuff enough in it to make the mainsail of a boat. Her foot was as long and as flat as a snow shoe, and her hands looked as shapeless and as hard as two large sponges froze solid. Her neck was as thick as a bull's, and her scalp was large and woolly enough for a door-mat. She was as strong as a moose, and as ugly too; and her great-white pointed teeth was a caution to a shark.

"'Hullo,' sais she, 'here's the devil to pay, and no pitch hot. Are you a goin' to kill that boy, massa?' and she seized hold of me and took me away from him, and caught me up in her arms as easy as if I was a doll.

"'Here's a pretty hurrahs nest,' sais she, 'let me see one of you dare to lay hands on this brave pickininny. He is more of a man than the whole bilin' of you put together. My poor child,' said she, 'they have used you scandalous, ridiculous,' and she held down her nasty oily shiny face and kissed me, till she nearly smothered me. Oh, Doctor, I shall never forget that scene the longest day I ever live. She might a been Rose by name, but she warn't one by nature, I tell you. When niggers get their dander raised, and their ebenezer fairly up, they ain't otter of roses, that's a fact; whatever Mrs Stowe may say. Oh, I kicked and yelled and coughed like anything.

"'Poor dear boy,' she said, 'Rosy ain't a goin' to hurt her own brave child,' not she, and she kissed me again and again, till I thought I should have fainted. She actually took away my breath.

"'Come,' said she, and she set me down on my feet. 'Come to the house, till I put some dry clothes on you, and I'll make some lasses candy for you with my own hands!' But as soon as I touched land, I streaked off for home, as hard as I could lay legs to the ground; but the perfume of old Rose set me a sneezing so, I fairly blew up the dust in the road as I went, as if a bull had been pawin of it, and left a great wet streak behind me as if a watering-pot had passed that way. Who should I meet when I returned, but mother a standin at the door.

"'Why, Sam,' said she, 'what under the sun is the matter? What a spot of work? Where in the world have you been?'

"'In the mill pond,' said I.

"'In the mill pond,' said she, slowly; 'and ruinated that beautiful new coat I made out of your father's old one, and turned so nicely for you. You are more trouble to me than all the rest of the boys put together. Go right off to your room this blessed instant minite, and go to bed and say your prayers, and render thanks for savin' your clothes, if you did lose your life.'

"'I wish I had lost my life,' said I.

"'Wish you had lost your life?' said she. 'Why you miserable, onsarcumsised, onjustified, graceless boy. Why do you wish you had lost your life?'

"'Phew, phew,' said I, 'was you ever kissed by a nigger? because if you was, I guess you wouldn't have asked that are question,' and I sneezed so hard I actually blew down the wire cage, the door of it flew open, and the cat made a spring like wink and killed the canary bird.

"'Sam, Sam,' said she ('skat, skat, you nasty devil, you—you have got the knary, I do declare.) Sam! Sam! to think I should have lived to hear you ask your mother if she had ever been kissed by a nigger!' and she began to boohoo right out. 'I do believe in my soul you are drunk, Sam,' said she.

"'I shouldn't wonder if I was,' said I, 'for I have drunk enough to-day to serve a cow and a calf for a week.'

"'Go right off to bed; my poor dear bird,' said she. 'And when your father comes in I will send him to your cage. You shall be punished for this.'

"'I don't care,' sais I, for I was desperate and didn't mind what happened, 'who you send, providin' you don't send black Rose, the nigger wench, to me.'

"Well, in about an hour or so I heard father come to the foot of the stairs and call out 'Sam.' I didn't answer at first, but went and threw the winder open ready for a jump.

"Thinks I, 'Sam, you are in great luck to-day. 1st. You got nearly drowned, savin' that little brat Zeb Snell. 2nd. You lost a bran new hat, and spoilt your go-to-meetin' clothes. 3rd. Mrs Snell boxed your ears till your eyes shot stars, like rockets. 4th. You got an all-fired licking from old Colonel Jephunny, till he made a mulatto of you, and you was half black and half white. 5th. You got kissed and pysoned by that great big emancipated she-nigger wench. 6th. You have killed your mother's canary bird, and she has jawed you till she went into hysterics. 7th. Here's the old man a goin' to give you another walloping and all for nothin. I'll cut and run, and dot drot me if I don't, for it's tarnation all over.'

"'Sam,' sais father again, a raisin' of his voice.

"'Father,' sais I, 'I beg your pardon, I am very sorry for what I have done, and I think I have been punished enough. If you will promise to let me off this time, I will take my oath I will never save another person from drowning again, the longest day I ever live.'

"'Come down,' said he, 'when I tell you, I am goin' to reward you.'

"'Thank you,' sais I, 'I have been rewarded already more than I deserve.'

"Well, to make a long story short, we concluded a treaty of peace, and down I went, and there was Colonel Snell, who said he had drove over to beg my pardon for the wrong he had done to me, and said he, 'Sam, come to me at ten o'clock on Monday, and I will put you in a way to make your fortune, as a recompense for saving my child's life.'

"Well, I kept the appointment, tho' I was awful skared about old Rose kissin of me again; and sais he, 'Sam, I want to show you my establishment for making wooden clocks. One o' them can be manufactured for two dollars, scale of prices then. Come to me for three months, and I will teach you the trade, only you musn't carry it on in Connecticut to undermine me.' I did so, and thus accidentally I became a clockmaker.

"To sell my wares I came to Nova Scotia. By a similar accident I met the Squire in this province, and made his acquaintance. I wrote a journal of our tour, and for want of a title he put my name to it, and called it 'Sam Slick, the Clockmaker.' That book introduced me to General Jackson, and he appointed me attach to our embassy to England, and that again led to Mr Polk making me Commissioner of the Fisheries, which, in its turn, was the means of my having the honour of your acquaintance," and I made him a scrape of my hind leg.

"Now," sais I, "all this came from the accident of my havin' saved a child's life one day. I owe my 'wise saws' to a similar accident. My old master and friend, that you have read of in my books, Mr Hopewell, was chock full of them. He used to call them wisdom boiled down to an essence, concretes, and I don't know what all. He had a book full of English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and above all, Bible ones. Well, he used to make me learn them by heart for lessons, till I was fairly sick and tired to death of 'em.

"'Minister,' sais I, one day, 'what under the sun is the use of them old, musty, fusty proverbs. A boy might as well wear his father's boots, and ride in his long stirrups, as talk in maxims, it would only set other boys a laughin' at him.'

"'Sam,' sais he, 'you don't understand them now, and you don't understand your Latin grammar, tho' you can say them both off by heart. But you will see the value of one when you come to know the world, and the other, when you come to know the language. The latter will make you a good scholar, and the former a wise man.'

"Minister was right, Doctor. As I came to read the book of life, I soon began to understand, appreciate, and apply my proverbs. Maxims are deductions ready drawn, and better expressed than I could do them, to save my soul alive. Now I have larned to make them myself. I have acquired the habit, as my brother the lawyer sais, 'of extracting the principle from cases.' Do you take? I am not the accident of an accident; for I believe the bans of marriage were always duly published in our family; but I am the accident of an incident."

"There is a great moral in that too, Mr Slick," he said. "How important is conduct, when the merest trifle may carry in its train the misery or happiness of your future life."

"Stick a pin in that also. Doctor," said I.

Here Cutler and the pilot cut short our conversation by going on board. But Peter wouldn't hear of my leaving his house, and I accordingly spent the night there, not a little amused with my new acquaintances.



CHAPTER V. A NEW WAY TO LEARN GAELIC.

After the captain and the pilot had retired, sais I, "Miss Jessie, sposin we young folks—(ah me, it is time to get a new word, I guess, for that one has been used so long, it's e'en amost worn out now)—sposin we young folks leave the doctor and your father to finish their huntin' stories, and let us go to the other room, and have a dish of chat about things in general, and sweethearts in particular."

"Oh, we live too much alone here," said she, "to know anything of such matters, but we will go if you will promise to tell us one of your funny stories. They say you have written a whole book full of them; how I should like to see it."

"Would you, Miss?" said I, "well, then, you shall have one, for I have a copy on board I believe, and I shall be only too proud if you will read it to remember me by. But my best stories ain't in my books. Somehow or another, when I want them they won't come, and at other times when I get a goin talkin, I can string them together like onions, one after the other, till the twine is out. I have a heap of them, but they are all mixed and confused like in my mind, and it seems as if I never could find the one I need. Do you work in worsted, Miss?"

"Well, a little," sais she. "It is only town-bred girls, who have nothing to attend to but their dress and to go to balls, that have leisure to amuse themselves that way; but I can work a little, though I could never do anything fit to be seen or examined."

"I shouldn't wonder," said I, and I paused, and she looked as if she didn't over half like my taking her at her word that way. "I shouldn't wonder," said I, "for I am sure your eyes would fade the colour out of the worsted."

"Why, Mr Slick," said she, drawing herself up a bit, "what nonsense you do talk, what a quiz you be."

"Fact," sais I, "Miss, I assure you, never try it again, you will be sure to spoil it. But as I was a sayin, Miss, when you see a thread of a particular colour, you know whether you have any more like it or not, so when a man tells me a story, I know whether I have one of the same kind to match it or not, and if so, I know where to lay my hand on it; but I must have a clue to my yarns."

Squire, there is something very curious about memory, I don't think there is such a thing as total forgetfulness. I used once to think there was, but I don't now. It used to seem to me that things rusted out, but now it appears as if they were only misplaced, or overlaid, or stowed away like where you can't find them; but depend on it, when once there, they remain for ever. How often you are asked, "Don't you recollect this or that?" and you answer, "No, I never heard, or saw it, or read it," as the case may be. And when the time, and place, and circumstances are told you, you say, "Stop a bit, I do now mind something about it, warn't it so and so, or this way, or that way," and finally up it comes, all fresh to your recollection. Well, until you get the clue given you, or the key note is struck, you are ready to take your oath you never heard of it afore. Memory has many cells: Some of them ain't used much, and dust and cobwebs get about them, and you can't tell where the hinge is, or can't easily discarn the secret spring; but open it once, and whatever is stowed away there is as safe and sound as ever. I have a good many capital stories poked away in them cubby-holes, that I can't just lay my hand on when I want to; but now and then, when looking for something else, I stumble upon them by accident. Tell you what, as for forgettin' a thing tee-totally, I don't believe there is sich a thing in natur. But to get back to my story.

"Miss," sais I, "I can't just at this present moment call to mind a story to please you. Some of them are about hosses, or clocks, or rises taken out of folks, or dreams, or courtships, or ghosts, or what not; but few of them will answer, for they are either too short or too long."

"Oh," says Catherine Fraser, "tell us a courtship; I dare say you will make great fun of it."

"No, no," says Jessie, "tell us a ghost story. Oh! I delight in them."

"Oh," said Janet, "tell us about a dream. I know one myself which came out as correct as provin' a sum."

"That's it, Miss Janet," said I; "do you tell me that story, please, and it's hard if I can't find one that will please you in return for it."

"Yes, do, dear," said Jessie; "tell Mr Slick that story, for it's a true one, and I should like to hear what he thinks of it, or how he can account for it."

"Well," said Janet, "you must excuse me, Mr Slick, for any mistakes I make, for I don't speak very good English, and I can hardly tell a story all through in that language.

"I have a brother that lives up one of the branches of the Buctouche River in New Brunswick. He bought a tract of land there four or five years ago, on which there was a house and barn, and about a hundred acres of cleared land. He made extensive improvements on it, and went to a great expense in clearing up the stumps, and buying stock and farming implements, and what not. One season, between plantin' and harvest, he run short of money for his common daily use, and to pay some little debts he owed, and he was very dull about it. He said he knew he could come here and borrow it from father, but he didn't like to be away from home so long, and hardly knew how the family was to get on or to pay the wages till his return, so it was agreed that I was to go the next Monday in a vessel bound for Halifax and bring him what he wanted.

"At that time, he had a field back in the woods he was cultivating. Between that and the front on the river, was a poor sand flat covered with spruce, birch, and poplar, and not worth the expense of bringing to for the plough. The road to the back field ran through this wood land. He was very low-spirited about his situation, for he said if he was to borrow the money of a merchant, he would require a mortgage on his place, and perhaps sell it before he knew where he was. Well, that night he woke up his wife, and said to her—

"'Mary,' said he, 'I have had a very curious dream just now. I dreamed that as I was going out to the back lot with the oxcart, I found a large sum of money all in dollars in the road there.'

"'Well,' says Mary, 'I wish it was true, John, but it is too good news for us. The worriment we have had about money lately has set you a dreaming. Janet sails on Monday, she will soon be back, and then it will all be right; so go to sleep again, dear.'

"Well, in the morning, when he and his wife got up, he never spoke or thought any more about the dream, but as soon as breakfast was over, he and his man yoked up the oxen, put them to the cart, and lifted the harrow into it, and started for the field. The servant drove the team, and John walked behind with his head down, a turning over in his mind whether he couldn't sell something off the farm to keep matters a-goin' till I should return, when all at once, as they were passing through the wood, he observed that there was a line of silver dollars turned up by one of the wheels of the cart, and continued for the space of sixty feet and then ceased.

"The moment he saw the money he thought of his dream, and he was so overjoyed that he was on the point of calling out to the man to stop, but he thought it was more prudent as they were alone in the woods to say nothing about it. So he walked on, and joined the driver, and kept him in talk for awhile. And then, as if he had suddenly thought of something, said, 'Jube, do you proceed to the field and go to work till I come. I shall have to go to the house for a short time.'

"Well, as soon as he got out of sight of the cart, off he ran home as hard as he could lay legs to it, only stopping to take up a handful of the coins to make sure they were real.

"'Mary, Mary,' sais he, 'the dream has come true; I have found the money—see here is some of it; there is no mistake;' and he threw a few pieces down on the hearth and rung them. 'They are genuine Spanish crowns. Do you and Janet bring the market-basket, while I go for a couple of hoes, and let us gather it all up.'

"Well, sure enough, when we came to the place he mentioned, there was the wheel-track full of dollars. He and I hoed each side of the rut, which seemed to be in a sort of yellow powder, like the dust of rotten wood, and got out all we could find. We afterwards tried under the opposite wheel, and behind and before the rut, but could find no more, and when we got home we counted it, and found we had eighty-two pounds, five shillings.

"'Well, this is a God-send, Mary, ain't it?' said brother; and she threw her arms round his neck, and cried for joy as she kissed him."

"Which way," said I, "show me, Miss, how she did it, only you may laugh instead of cry if you like."

"Not being a wife," said she, with great quietness, "I cannot show you myself, but you may imagine it, it will do just as well, or dream it, and that will do better.

"Well, John was a scrupulous man, and he was determined to restore the money, if he could find an owner for it; but he could hear of no one who had lost any, nor any tradition in that place that any one ever had done so since the first settlement of the country. All that he could discover was, that about forty years before, an old Frenchman had lived somewhere thereabouts alone, in the midst of the woods. Who he was, or what became of him, nobody knew; all he could hear was, that a party of lumbermen had, some years afterwards, found his house amidst a second growth of young wood that wholly concealed it, and that it contained his furniture, cooking utensils, and trunks, as he had left them. Some supposed he had been devoured by bears or wolves; others, that he had been lost in the woods; and some, that he had died by his own hands.

"On hearing this, John went to examine his habitation, or the remains of it, and he found that about four acres around it were covered with the second growth, as it is called, which was plainly to be distinguished from the forest, as the trees were not only not so large or so old as the neighbouring ones, but, as is always the case, were of a different description of wood altogether. On a careful inspection of the spot where he found the money, it appeared that the wheel had passed lengthways along an enormous old decayed pine, in the hollow of which he supposed the money must have been hid; and when the tree fell, the dollars had rolled along its centre fifty feet or more, and remained there until the wood was rotten, and had crumbled into dust.

"There, Sir, there is my story: it is a true one, I assure you, for I was present at the time. What do you think of it?"

"Well," sais I, "if he had never heard a rumour, nor had any reason to suppose that the money had been hid there, why it was a singular thing, and looks very much like a—"

"Like a what?" said she.

"Like a supply that one couldn't count upon a second time, that's all."

"It's a dream that was fulfilled though," she said; "and that don't often happen, does it?"1

1 The names of the persons and river are alone changed in this extraordinary story. The actors are still living, and are persons of undoubted veracity and respectability.

"Unless," sais I, "a young lady was to dream now that she was a going to be married to a certain person, and that does often come true. Do you—"

"Oh, nonsense," said she. "Come, do tell us your story now, you know you promised me you would if I related mine."

"Yes," said Miss Jessie; "come now, Mr Slick, that's a good man, do?"

Sais I, "Miss, I will give you my book instead, and that will tell you a hundred of them."

"Yes, but when will you give it to me?" she replied.

"To-morrow," said I, "as soon as I go on board. But mind, there is one condition." And I said in Gaelic: "Feumieth thu pog thoir dhomh eur a shon (you must give me a kiss for it)."

"Oh," said she, lookin' not over pleased, I consaited; but perhaps it was because the other girls laughed liked anything, as if it was a capital joke, "that's not fair, you said you would give it, and now you want to sell it. If that's the case I will pay the money for it."

"Oh, fie," sais I, "Miss Jessie."

"Well, I want to know!"

"No, indeed; what I meant was to give you that book to remember me by when I am far away from here, and I wanted you to give me a little token, O do bhilean boidheach (from your pretty lips), that I should remember the longest day I live."

"You mean that you would go away, laugh, and forget right off. No, that won't do, but if you must have a token I will look up some little keepsake to exchange for it. Oh, dear, what a horrid idea," she said, quite scorney like, "to trade for a kiss; it's the way father buys his fish, he gives salt for them, or flour, or some such barter, oh, Mr Slick, I don't think much of you. But for goodness gracious sake how did you learn Gaelic?"

"From lips, dear," said I, "and that's the reason I shall never forget it."

"No, no," said she, "but how on earth did you ever pick it up."

"I didn't pick it up, Miss," said I, "I kissed it up, and as you want a story I might as well tell you that as any other."

"It depends upon what sort of a story it is," said she, colouring.

"Oh, yes," said the Campbell girls, who didn't appear quite so skittish as she was, "do tell us, no doubt you will make a funny one out of it. Come, begin."

Squire, you are older than I be, and I suppose you will think all this sort of thing is clear sheer nonsense, but depend upon it a kiss is a great mystery. There is many a thing we know that we can't explain, still we are sure it is a fact for all that. Why should there be a sort of magic in shaking hands, which seems only a mere form, and sometimes a painful one too, for some folks wring your fingers off amost, and make you fairly dance with pain, they hurt you so. It don't give much pleasure at any time. What the magic of it is we can't tell, but so it is for all that. It seems only a custom like bowing and nothing else, still there is more in it than meets the eye. But a kiss fairly electrifies you, it warms your blood and sets your heart a beatin' like a brass drum, and makes your eyes twinkle like stars in a frosty night. It tante a thing ever to be forgot. No language can express it, no letters will give the sound. Then what in natur is equal to the flavour of it? What an aroma it has! How spiritual it is! It ain't gross, for you can't feed on it; it don't cloy, for the palate ain't required to test its taste. It is neither visible, nor tangible, nor portable, nor transferable. It is not a substance, nor a liquid, nor a vapour. It has neither colour nor form. Imagination can't conceive it. It can't be imitated or forged. It is confined to no clime or country, but is ubiquitous. It is disembodied when completed, but is instantly reproduced, and so is immortal. It is as old as the creation, and yet is as young and fresh as ever. It prexisted, still exists, and always will exist. It pervades all natur. The breeze as it passes kisses the rose, and the pendant vine stoops down and hides with its tendrils its blushes, as it kisses the limpid stream that waits in an eddy to meet it, and raises its tiny waves, like anxious lips to receive it. Depend upon it Eve learned it in Paradise, and was taught its beauties, virtues, and varieties by an angel, there is something so transcendent in it.

How it is adapted to all circumstances! There is the kiss of welcome and of parting, the long-lingering, loving present one, the stolen or the mutual one, the kiss of love, of joy, and of sorrow, the seal of promise, and the receipt of fulfilment. Is it strange therefore that a woman is invincible whose armoury consists of kisses, smiles, sighs, and tears? Is it any wonder that poor old Adam was first tempted, and then ruined? It is very easy for preachers to get up with long faces and tell us he ought to have been more of a man. My opinion is, if he had been less of a man, it would have been better for him. But I am not agoin' to preach; so I will get back to my story; but, Squire, I shall always maintain to my dying day, that kissing is a sublime mystery.

"Well," sais I, "ladies, I was broughten up to home, on my father's farm, and my edecation, what little I had of it, I got from the Minister of Slickville, Mr Joshua Hopewell, who was a friend of my father's, and was one of the best men I believe that ever lived. He was all kindness and all gentleness, and was at the same time one of the most learned men in the United States. He took a great fancy to me, and spared no pains with my schooling, and I owe everything I have in the world to his instruction. I didn't mix much with other boys, and, from living mostly with people older than myself, acquired an old-fashioned way that I have never been able to shake off yet; all the boys called me 'Old Slick.' In course, I didn't learn much of life that way. All I knew about the world beyond our house and hisin, was from books, and from hearing him talk, and he convarsed better than any book I ever set eyes on. Well, in course I grew up unsophisticated like, and I think I may say I was as innocent a young man as ever you see."

Oh, how they all laughed at that! "You ever innocent!" said they. "Come, that's good; we like that; it's capital! Sam Slick an innocent boy! Well, that must have been before you were weaned, or talked in joining hand, at any rate. How simple we are, ain't we?" and they laughed themselves into a hooping-cough amost.

"Fact, Miss Janet," said I, "I assure you" (for she seemed the most tickled at the idea of any of them) "I was, indeed. I won't go for to pretend to say some of it didn't rub off when it became dry, when I was fishing in the world on my own hook; but, at the time I am speaking of, when I was twenty-one next grass, I was so guileless, I couldn't see no harm in anything."

"So I should think," said she; "it's so like you."

"Well, at that time there was a fever, a most horrid typhus fever, broke out in Slickville, brought there by some shipwrecked emigrants. There was a Highland family settled in the town the year afore, consisting of old Mr Duncan Chisholm, his wife, and daughter Flora. The old people were carried off by the disease, and Flora was left without friends or means, and the worst of it was, she could hardly speak a word of intelligible English. Well, Minister took great pity on her, and spoke to father about taking her into his house, as sister Sally was just married, and the old lady left without any companion; and they agreed to take her as one of them, and she was in return to help mother all she could. So, next day, she came, and took up her quarters with us. Oh my, Miss Janet, what a beautiful girl she was! She was as tall as you are, Jessie, and had the same delicate little feet and hands."

I threw that in on purpose, for women, in a general way, don't like to hear others spoken of too extravagant, particularly if you praise them for anything they hain't got; but if you praise them for anything they pride themselves on, they are satisfied, because it shows you estimate them also at the right valy, too. It took, for she pushed her foot out a little, and rocked it up and down slowly, as if she was rather proud of it.

"Her hair was a rich auburn, not red (I don't like that at all, for it is like a lucifer-match, apt to go off into a flame spontinaciously sometimes), but a golden colour, and lots of it too, just about as much as she could cleverly manage; eyes like diamonds; complexion, red and white roses; and teeth, not quite so regular as yours, Miss, but as white as them; and lips—lick!—they reminded one of a curl of rich rose-leaves, when the bud first begins to swell and spread out with a sort of peachy bloom on them, ripe, rich, and chock full of kisses."

"Oh, the poor ignorant boy!" said Janet, "you didn't know nothing, did you?"

"Well, I didn't," sais I, "I was as innocent as a child; but nobody is so ignorant as not to know a splendiferous gall when he sees her," and I made a motion of my head to her, as much, as to say, "Put that cap on, for it just fits you."

"My sakes, what a neck she had! not too long and thin, for that looks goosey; nor too short and thick, for that gives a clumsy appearance to the figure; but betwixt and between, and perfection always lies there, just midway between extremes. But her bust—oh! the like never was seen in Slickville, for the ladies there, in a gineral way, have no—"

"Well, well," said Jessie, a little snappish, for praisin' one gall to another ain't the shortest way to win their regard, "go on with your story of Gaelic."

"And her waist, Jessie, was the most beautiful thing, next to your'n, I ever see. It was as round as an apple, and anything that is round, you know, is larger than it looks, and I wondered how much it would measure. I never see such an innocent girl as she was. Brought up to home, and in the country, like me, she knew no more about the ways of the world than I did. She was a mere child, as I was; she was only nineteen years old, and neither of us knew anything of society rules. One day I asked her to let me measure her waist with my arm, and I did, and then she measured mine with her'n, and we had a great dispute which was the largest, and we tried several times before we ascertained there was only an inch difference between us. I never was so glad in my life as when she came to stay with us; she was so good-natured, and so cheerful, and so innocent, it was quite charming.

"Father took a wonderful shindy to her, for even old men can't help liking beauty. But, somehow, I don't think mother did; and it appears to me now, in looking back upon it, that she was afraid I should like her too much. I consaited she watched us out of the corner of her glasses, and had her ears open to hear what we said; but p'raps it was only my vanity, for I don't know nothin' about the working of a woman's heart even now. I am only a bachelor yet, and how in the world should I know anything more about any lady than what I knew about poor Flora? In the ways of women I am still as innocent as a child; I do believe that they could persuade me that the moon is nothin' but an eight-day clock with an illuminated face. I ain't vain, I assure you, and never brag of what I don't know, and I must say, I don't even pretend to understand them."

"Well, I never!" said Jessie.

"Nor I," said Janet.

"Did you ever, now!" said Catherine. "Oh dear, how soft you are, ain't you?"

"Always was, ladies," said I, "and am still as soft as dough. Father was very kind to her, but he was old and impatient, and a little hard of hearing, and he couldn't half the time understand her. One day she came in with a message from neighbour Dearborne, and sais she,

"'Father—'

"'Colonel, if you please, dear,' said mother, 'he is not your father;' and the old lady seemed as if she didn't half fancy any body calling him that but her own children. Whether that is natural or not, Miss Jessie," said I, "I don't know, for how can I tell what women thinks?"

"Oh, of course not," said Janet, "you are not waywise, and so artless; you don't know, of course!"

"Exactly," sais I; "but I thought mother spoke kinder cross to her, and it confused the gall.

"Says Flora, 'Colonel Slick, Mr Dearborne says—says—' Well, she couldn't get the rest out; she couldn't find the English. 'Mr Dearborne says—'

"'Well, what the devil does he say?' said father, stampin' his foot, out of all patience with her.

"It frightened Flora, and off she went out of the room crying like anything.

"'That girl talks worse and worse,' said mother.

"'Well, I won't say that,' says father, a little mollified, 'for she can't talk at all, so there is no worse about it. I am sorry though I scared her. I wish somebody would teach her English.'

"'I will,' sais I, 'father, and she shall teach me Gaelic in return.'

"'Indeed you shan't,' sais mother; 'you have got something better to do than larning her; and as for Gaelic I can't bear it. It's a horrid outlandish language, and of no earthly use whatever under the blessed sun. It's worse than Indian.'

"'Do, Sam,' said father; 'it's an act of kindness, and she is an orphan, and besides, Gaelic may be of great use to you in life. I like Gaelic myself; we had some brave Jacobite Highland soldiers in our army in the war that did great service, but unfortunately nobody could understand them. And as for orphans, when I think how many fatherless children we made for the British—'

"'You might have been better employed,' said mother, but he didn't hear her, and went right on.

"'I have a kindly feelin' towards them. She is a beautiful girl that.'

"'If it warn't for her carrotty hair and freckled face,' said mother, looking at me, 'she wouldn't be so awful ugly after all, would she?'

"'Yes, Sam,' sais father, 'teach her English for heaven's sake; but mind, she must give you lessons in Gaelic. Languages is a great thing.'

"'It's great nonsense,' said mother, raisin' her voice.

"'It's my orders,' said father, holding up his head and standing erect. 'It's my orders, marm, and they must be obeyed;' and he walked out of the room as stiff as a ramrod, and as grand as a Turk.

"'Sam,' sais mother, when we was alone, 'let the gall be; the less she talks the more she'll work. Do you understand, my dear?'

"'That's just my idea, mother,' sais I.

"'Then you won't do no such nonsense, will you, Sammy?'

"'Oh no!' sais I, 'I'll just go through the form now and then to please father, but that's all. Who the plague wants Gaelic? If all the Highlands of Scotland were put into a heap, and then multiplied by three, they wouldn't be half as big as the White Mountains, would they, marm? They are just nothin' on the map, and high hills, like high folks, are plaguy apt to have barren heads.'

"'Sam,' said she, a pattin' of me on the cheek, 'you have twice as much sense as your father has after all. You take after me.'

"I was so simple, I didn't know what to do. So I said yes to mother and yes to father; for I knew I must honour and obey my parents, so I thought I would please both. I made up my mind I wouldn't get books to learn Gaelic or teach English, but do it by talking, and that I wouldn't mind father seein' me, but I'd keep a bright look out for the old lady."

"Oh dear! how innocent that was, warn't it?" said they.

"Well, it was," said I; "I didn't know no better then, and I don't now; and what's more, I think I would do the same agin, if it was to do over once more."

"I have no doubt you would," said Janet.

"Well, I took every opportunity when mother was not by to learn words. I would touch her hand and say, 'What is that?' And she would say, 'Luch,' and her arm, her head, and her cheek, and she would tell me the names; and her eyes, her nose, and her chin, and so on; and then I would touch her lips, and say, 'What's them?' And she'd say. 'Bhileau?' And then I'd kiss her, and say, 'What's that?' And she'd say. 'Pog.' But she was so artless, and so was I; we didn't know that's not usual unless people are courtin; for we hadn't seen anything of the world then.

"Well, I used to go over that lesson every time I got a chance, and soon got it all by heart but that word Pog (kiss), which I never could remember. She said I was very stupid, and I must say it over and over again till I recollected it. Well, it was astonishing how quick she picked up English, and what progress I made in Gaelic; and if it hadn't been for mother, who hated the language like pyson, I do believe I should soon have mastered it so as to speak it as well as you do. But she took every opportunity she could to keep us apart, and whenever I went into the room where Flora was spinning, or ironing, she would either follow and take a chair, and sit me out, or send me away of an errand, or tell me to go and talk to father, who was all alone in the parlour, and seemed kinder dull. I never saw a person take such a dislike to the language as she did; and she didn't seem to like poor Flora either, for no other reason as I could see under the light of the livin' sun, but because she spoke it; for it was impossible not to love her—she was so beautiful, so artless, and so interesting, and so innocent. But so it was.

"Poor thing! I pitied her. The old people couldn't make out half she said, and mother wouldn't allow me, who was the only person she could talk to, to have any conversation with her if she could help it. It is a bad thing to distrust young people, it makes them artful at last; and I really believe it had that effect on me to a certain extent. The unfortunate girl often had to set up late ironing, or something or another. And if you will believe it now, mother never would let me sit up with her to keep her company and talk to her; but before she went to bed herself, always saw me off to my own room. Well, it's easy to make people go to bed, but it ain't just quite so easy to make them stay there. So when I used to hear the old lady get fairly into hers, for my room was next to father's, though we went by different stairs to them, I used to go down in my stocking feet, and keep her company; for I pitied her from my heart. And then we would sit in the corner of the fire-place and talk Gaelic half the night. And you can't think how pleasant it was. You laugh, Miss Janet, but it really was delightful; they were the happiest hours I almost ever spent."

"Oh, I don't doubt it," she said, "of course they were."

"If you think so, Miss," said I, "p'raps you would finish the lessons with me this evening, if you have nothing particular to do."

"Thank you, Sir," she said, laughing like anything. "I can speak English sufficient for my purpose, and I agree with your mother, Gaelic in this country is of no sort of use whatever; at least I am so artless and unsophisticated as to think so. But go on, Sir."

"Well, mother two or three times came as near as possible catching me, for she was awful afraid of lights and fires, she said, and couldn't sleep sound if the coals weren't covered up with ashes, the hearth swept, and the broom put into a tub of water, and she used to get up and pop into the room very sudden; and though she warn't very light of foot, we used to be too busy repeating words to keep watch as we ought."

"What an artless couple," said Janet; "well I never! how you can have the face to pretend so, I don't know! Well, you do beat all!'

"A suspicious parent," sais I, "Miss, as I said before, makes an artful child. I never knew what guile was before that. Well, one night; oh dear, it makes my heart ache to think of it, it was the last we ever spent together. Flora was starching muslins, mother had seen me off to my room, and then went to hers, when down I crept in my stockin feet as usual, puts a chair into the chimney corner, and we sat down and repeated our lessons. When we came to the word Pog (kiss), I always used to forget it; and it's very odd, for it's the most beautiful one in the language. We soon lost all caution, and it sounded so loud and sharp it started mother; and before we knew where we were, we heard her enter the parlour which was next to us. In an instant I was off and behind the entry door, and Flora was up and at work. Just then the old lady came in as softly as possible, and stood and surveyed the room all round. I could see her through the crack of the door, she actually seemed disappointed at not finding me there.

"'What noise was that I heard, Flora?' she said, speakin' as mild as if she was actilly afraid to wake the cat up.

"Flora lifted the centre of the muslin she was starching with one hand, and makin' a hollow under it in the palm of the other, she held it close up to the old woman's face, and clapped it; and it made the very identical sound of the smack she had heard, and the dear child repeated it in quick succession several times. The old lady jumped back the matter of a foot or more, she positively looked skared, as if the old gentleman would think somebody was a kissin' of her.

"Oh dear, I thought I should have teeheed right out. She seemed utterly confounded, and Flora looked, as she was, the dear critter, so artless and innocent! It dumbfoundered her completely. Still she warn't quite satisfied.

"'What's this chair doing so far in the chimbley corner?' said she.

"How glad I was there warn't two there. The fact is, we never used but one, we was quite young, and it was always big enough for us both.

"Flora talked Gaelic as fast as hail, slipt off her shoes, sat down on it, put her feet to the fire, folded her arms across her bosom, laid her head back and looked so sweet and so winnin' into mother's face, and said, 'cha n'eil Beurl' (I have no English), and then proceeded in Gaelic—

"'If you hadn't sat in that place yourself, when you was young, I guess you wouldn't be so awful scared at it, you old goose you.'

"I thought I never saw her look so lovely. Mother was not quite persuaded she was wrong after all. She looked all round agin, as if she was sure I was there, and then came towards the door where I was, so I sloped up-stairs like a shadow on the wall, and into bed in no time; but she followed up and came close to me, and holdin the candle in my face, said:

"'Sam, are you asleep?'

"Well, I didn't answer.

"'Sam,' said she, 'why don't you speak?' and she shook me.

"'Hullo,' sais I, pretendin' to wake up, 'what's the matter! have I overslept myself? is it time to get up?' and I put out my arm to rub my eyes, and lo and behold I exposed my coat sleeve.

"'No, Sam,' said she, 'you couldn't oversleep yourself, for you haven't slept at all, you ain't even ondressed.'

"'Ain't I,' said I, 'are you sure?'

"'Why look here,' said she, throwin' down the clothes and pullin' my coat over my head till she nearly strangled me.

"'Well, I shouldn't wonder if I hadn't stripped,' sais I. 'When a feller is so peskilly sleepy as I be, I suppose he is glad to turn in any way.'

"She never spoke another word, but I saw a storm was brewin, and I heard her mutter to herself, 'Creation! what a spot of work! I'll have no teaching of 'mother tongue' here.' Next morning she sent me to Boston of an errand, and when I returned, two days after, Flora was gone to live with sister Sally. I have never forgiven myself for that folly; but really it all came of our being so artless and so innocent. There was no craft in either of us. She forgot to remove the chair from the chimbley corner, poor simple-minded thing, and I forgot to keep my coat sleeve covered. Yes, yes, it all came of our being too innocent; but that's the way, ladies, I learned Gaelic."



CHAPTER VI. THE WOUNDS OF THE HEART.

When I took leave of the family I returned to the room where I had left Peter and the doctor, but they had both retired. And as my chamber adjoined it, I sat by the fire, lighted a cigar, and fell into one of my rambling meditations.

Here, said I to myself, is another phase of life. Peter is at once a Highlander, a Canadian, a trapper, a backwoodsman, and a coaster. His daughters are half Scotch and half Indian, and have many of the peculiarities of both races. There is even between these sisters a wide difference in intellect, appearance, and innate refinement. The doctor has apparently abandoned his profession for the study of nature, and quit the busy haunts of men for the solitude of the forest. He seems to think and act differently from any one else in the country. Here too we have had Cutler, who is a scholar and a skilful navigator, filling the berth of a master of a fishing craft. He began life with nothing but good principles and good spirits, and is now about entering on a career, which in a few years will lead to a great fortune. He is as much out of place where he is, as a salmon would be in a horse pond. And here am I, Squire, your humble servant, Sam Slick the Clockmaker, not an eccentric man, I hope, for I detest them, they are either mad, or wish to be thought so, because madness they suppose to be an evidence of genius; but a specimen of a class not uncommon in the States, though no other country in the world but Yankeedoodledum produces it.

This is a combination these colonies often exhibit, and what a fool a man must be when character is written in such large print, if he can't read it even as he travels on horseback.

Of all the party assembled here to-night, the Scotch lasses alone, who came in during the evening, are what you call everyday galls. They are strong, hearty, intelligent, and good-natured, full of fun and industry, can milk, churn, make butter and cheese, card, spin, and weave, and will make capital wives for farmers of their own station in life. As such, they are favourable representatives of their class, and to my mind, far, far above those that look down upon them, who ape, but can't copy, and have the folly, because they sail in the wake of larger craft, to suppose they can be mistaken for anything else than tenders. Putting three masts into a coaster may make her an object of ridicule, but can never give her the appearance of a ship. They know this in England, they have got to learn it yet in the Provinces.

Well, this miscellaneous collection of people affords a wide field for speculation. Jessie is a remarkable woman, I must ask the doctor about her history. I see there is a depth of feeling about her, a simplicity of character, a singular sensitiveness, and a shade of melancholy. Is it constitutional, or does it arise from her peculiar position? I wonder how she reasons, and what she thinks, and how she would talk, if she would say what she thinks. Has she ability to build up a theory of her own, or does she, like half the women in the world, only think of a thing as it occurs? Does she live in instances or in generalities, I'll draw her out and see. Every order, where there are orders, and every class (and no place is without them where women are), have a way of judging in common with their order or class. What is her station I wonder in her own opinion? What are her expectations? What are her notions of wedlock? All girls regard marriage as an enviable lot, or a necessary evil. If they tell us they don't, it's because the right man hante come. And therefore I never mind what they say on this subject. I have no doubt they mean it; but they don't know what they are a talking about.

You, Squire, may go into a ball-room, where there are two hundred women. One hundred and ninety-nine of them you will pass with as much indifference as one hundred and ninety-nine pullets; but the two hundredth irresistibly draws you to her. There are one hundred handsomer, and ninety-nine cleverer ones present; but she alone has the magnet that attracts you. Now, what is that magnet? Is it her manner that charms? is it her voice that strikes on one of those thousand and one chords of your nervous system, and makes it vibrate, as sound does hollow glass? Or do her eyes affect your gizzard, so that you have no time to chew the cud of reflection, and no opportunity for your head to judge how you can digest the notions they have put into it? Or is it animal magnetism, or what the plague is it?

You are strangely affected; nobody else in the room is, and everybody wonders at you. But so it is. It's an even chance if you don't perpetrate matrimony. Well, that's a thing that sharpens the eyesight, and will remove a cateract quicker than an oculist can, to save his soul alive. It metamorphoses an angel into a woman, and it's plaguey lucky if the process don't go on and change her into something else.

After I got so far in my meditations, I lit another cigar, and took out my watch to look at the time. "My eyes," sais I, "if it tante past one o'clock at night. Howsomever, it ain't often I get a chance to be alone, and I will finish this here weed, at any rate." Arter which I turned in. The following morning I did not rise as early as usual, for it's a great secret for a man never to be in the way, especially in a house like Peter's, where his daughters had, in course, a good deal to see to themselves. So I thought I'd turn over and take another snoose; and do you know, Squire, that is always a dreamy one, and if your mind ain't worried, or your digestion askew, it's more nor probable you will have pleasant ones.

When I went into the keeping-room, I found Jessie and her sister there, the table set, and everything prepared for me.

"Mr Slick," said the elder one, "your breakfast is ready."

"But where is your father?" said I, "and Doctor Ovey?"

"Oh, they have gone to the next harbour, Sir, to see a man who is very ill there. The doctor left a message for you, he said he wanted to see you again very much, and hoped to find you here on his return, which will be about four o'clock in the afternoon. He desired me to say, if you sailed before he got back, he hoped you would leave word what port he would find you in, as he would follow you."

"Oh," said I, "we shall not go before to-morrow, at the earliest, so he will be in very good time. But who in the world is Doctor Ovey? He is the most singular man I ever met. He is very eccentric; ain't he?"

"I don't know who he is," she replied. "Father agrees with you. He says he talks sometimes as if he was daft, but that, I believe, is only because he is so learned. He has a house a way back in the forest, where he lives occasionally; but the greater part of the year he wanders about the woods, and camps out like—"

She hesitated a moment, and then brought out the reluctant word: "an Indian. He knows the name of every plant and flower in the country, and their uses; and the nature of every root, or bark, or leaf that ever was; and then he knows all the ores, and coal mines, and everything of that kind. He is a great hand for stuffing birds and animals, and has some of every kind there is in the province. As for butterflies, beetles, and those sort of things, he will chase them like a child all day. His house is a regular—. I don't recollect the word in English; in Gaelic it is 'tigh neonachais.'"

"Museum?" said I.

"Ah, that's it," said she.

"He can't have much practice," I said, "if he goes racing and chasing over the country that way, like a run-away engine."

"He don't want it, Sir," she replied, "he is very well off. He says he is one of the richest men in the country, for he don't spend half his income, and that any man who does that is wealthy. He says he ain't a doctor. Whether he is or not, I don't know; but he makes wonderful cures. Nothing in the world makes him so angry as when anybody sends for him that can afford a doctor, for he don't take pay. Now, this morning he stormed, and raved, and stamped, and foamed at the mouth, as if he was mad; he fairly swore, a thing I never heard him do before; and he seized the hammer that he chips off stones with, and threatened the man so who come for him, that he stood with the door in his hand, while he begged him to go.

"'Oh, Sir,' said he, 'the Squire will die if you don't go.'

"'Let him die, then,' he replied, 'and be hanged. What is it to me? It serves him right. Why didn't he send for Doctor Smith, and pay him? Does he think I am a going to rob that man of his living? Be off, Sir, off with you. Tell him I can't come, and won't come, and do you go for a magistrate to make his will.'

"As soon as the man quitted the house, his fit left him.

"'Well," said he, 'Peter, I suppose we musn't let the man perish after all; but I wish he hadn't sent for me, especially just now, for I want to have a long talk with Mr Slick.'

"And he and father set off immediately through the woods."

"Suppose we beat up his quarters," said I, "Jessie. I should like to see his house and collection, amazingly."

"Oh," said she, "so should I, above all things; but I wouldn't ask him for the world. He'll do it for you, I know he will; for he says you are a man after his own heart. You study nature so; and I don't know what all, he said of you."

"Well, well," sais I, "old trapper as he is, see if I don't catch him. I know how to bait the trap; so he will walk right into it. And then, if he has anything to eat there, I'll show him how to cook it woodsman fashion. I'll teach him how to dress a salmon; roast, boil, or bake. How to make a bee-hunter's mess; a new way to do his potatoes camp fashion; and how to dispense with kitchen-ranges, cabouses, or cooking-stoves. If I could only knock over some wild-ducks at the lake here, I'd show him a simple way of preparing them, that would make his mouth water, I know. Truth is, a man that lives in the country ought to know a little of everything a'most, and he can't be comfortable if he don't. But dear me, I must be a movin."

So I made her a bow, and she made me one of her best courtseys. And I held out my hand to her, but she didn't take it, though I see a smile playin' over her face. The fact is, it is just as well she didn't, for I intended to draw her—. Well, it ain't no matter what I intended to do; and therefore it ain't no use to confess what I didn't realise.

"Truth is," said I, lingering a bit, not to look disappointed, "a farmer ought to know what to raise, how to live, and where to save. If two things are equally good, and one costs money, and the other only a little trouble, the choice ain't difficult, is it?"

"Mr Slick," sais she, "are you a farmer?"

"I was bred and born on a farm, dear," sais I, "and on one, too, where nothin' was ever wasted, and no time ever lost; where there was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. Where peace and plenty reigned; and where there was a shot in the locker for the minister, and another for the poor, and—"

"You don't mean to say that you considered them game, did you?" said she, looking archly.

"Thank you," sais I. "But now you are making game of me, Miss; that's not a bad hit of yours though; and a shot for the bank, at the eend of the year. I know all about farm things, from raisin' Indian corn down to managing a pea-hen; the most difficult thing to regulate next to a wife, I ever see."

"Do you live on a farm now?"

"Yes, when I am to home," sais I, "I have returned again to the old occupation and the old place; for, after all, what's bred in the bone, you know, is hard to get out of the flesh, and home is home, however homely. The stones, and the trees, and the brooks, and the hills look like old friends—don't you think so?"

"I should think so," she said; "but I have never returned to my home or my people, and never shall." And the tears rose in her eyes, and she got up and walked to the window, and said, with her back towards me, as if she was looking at the weather: "The doctor has a fine day for his journey; I hope he will return soon. I think you will like him."

And then she came back and took her seat, as composed as if I had never awakened those sad thoughts. Poor thing! I knew what was passing in her mind, as well as if those eloquent tears had not touched my heart. Somehow or another, it appears to me, like a stumblin' horse, I am always a-striking my foot agin some stone, or stump, or root, that any fellow might see with half an eye. She forced a smile, and said:

"Are you married, Sir?"

"Married," sais I, "to be sure I am; I married Flora."

"You must think me as innocent as she was, to believe that," she said, and laughed at the idea. "How many children have you?"

"Seven," sais I:

"Richard R., and Ira C., Betsey Anne, and Jessie B., Sary D., Eugeen—E, And Iren—ee." "I have heard a great deal of you, Mr Slick," she said, "but you are the queerest man I ever see. You talk so serious, and yet you are so full of fun."

"That's because I don't pretend to nothin', dear;" sais I, "I am just a nateral man. There is a time for all things, and a way to do 'em too. If I have to freeze down solid to a thing, why then, ice is the word. If there is a thaw, then fun and snow-ballin' is the ticket. I listen to a preacher, and try to be the better for his argufying, if he has any sense, and will let me; and I listen to the violin, and dance to it, if it's in tune, and played right. I like my pastime, and one day in seven is all the Lord asks. Evangelical people say he wants the other six. Let them state day and date and book and page for that, for I won't take their word for it. So I won't dance of a Sunday; but show me a pretty gall, and give me good music, and see if I don't dance any other day. I am not a droll man, dear, but I say what I think, and do what I please, as long as I know I ain't saying or doing wrong. And if that ain't poetry, it's truth, that's all."

"I wish you knew the doctor," said she; "I don't understand these things, but you are the only man I ever met that talked like him, only he hante the fun you have; but he enjoys fun beyond everything. I must say I rather like him, though he is odd, and I am sure you would, for you could comprehend many things he sais that I don't."