Ha, ha, ha!"
"Your memory must be excellent, Mr. Wilson, to enable you to
remember such a trifling circumstance all this time."
"Trifling, do you call it? Why, I have thought of nothing else ever
since."
From traits such as these my readers will be tempted to imagine him
brother to the animal who had dwelt so long in his thoughts; but
there were times when he surmounted this strange absence of mind,
and could talk and act as sensibly as other folks.
On the death of his father, he emigrated to New South Wales, where
he contrived to doze away seven years of his valueless existence,
suffering his convict servants to rob him of everything, and
finally to burn his dwelling. He returned to his native village,
dressed as an Italian mendicant, with a monkey perched upon his
shoulder, and playing airs of his own composition upon a
hurdy-gurdy. In this disguise he sought the dwelling of an old
bachelor uncle, and solicited his charity. But who that had once
seen our friend Tom could ever forget him? Nature had no counterpart
of one who in mind and form was alike original. The good-natured
old soldier, at a glance, discovered his hopeful nephew, received
him into his house with kindness, and had afforded him an asylum
ever since.
One little anecdote of him at this period will illustrate the quiet
love of mischief with which he was imbued. Travelling from W - - to
London in the stage-coach (railways were not invented in those
days), he entered into conversation with an intelligent farmer who
sat next to him; New South Wales, and his residence in that colony,
forming the leading topic. A dissenting minister who happened to
be his vis-a-vis, and who had annoyed him by making several
impertinent remarks, suddenly asked him, with a sneer, how many
years he had been there.
"Seven," returned Tom, in a solemn tone, without deigning a glance
at his companion.
"I thought so," responded the other, thrusting his hands into his
breeches pockets. "And pray, sir, what were you sent there for?"
"Stealing pigs," returned the incorrigible Tom, with the gravity
of a judge. The words were scarcely pronounced when the questioner
called the coachman to stop, preferring a ride outside in the rain
to a seat within with a thief. Tom greatly enjoyed the hoax, which
he used to tell with the merriest of all grave faces.
Besides being a devoted admirer of the fair sex, and always
imagining himself in love with some unattainable beauty, he had a
passionate craze for music, and played upon the violin and flute
with considerable taste and execution. The sound of a favourite
melody operated upon the breathing automaton like magic, his frozen
faculties experienced a sudden thaw, and the stream of life leaped
and gambolled for a while with uncontrollable vivacity. He laughed,
danced, sang, and made love in a breath, committing a thousand mad
vagaries to make you acquainted with his existence.
My husband had a remarkably sweet-toned flute, and this flute Tom
regarded with a species of idolatry.
"I break the Tenth Commandment, Moodie, whenever I hear you play
upon that flute. Take care of your black wife," (a name he had
bestowed upon the coveted treasure), "or I shall certainly run off
with her."
"I am half afraid of you, Tom. I am sure if I were to die, and
leave you my black wife as a legacy, you would be too much
overjoyed to lament my death."
Such was the strange, helpless, whimsical being who now
contemplated an emigration to Canada. How he succeeded in the
speculation the sequel will show.
It was late in the evening before my husband and his friend Tom
Wilson returned from Y - -. I had provided a hot supper and a cup of
coffee after their long walk, and they did ample justice to my
care.
Tom was in unusually high spirits, and appeared wholly bent upon
his Canadian expedition.
"Mr. C - - must have been very eloquent, Mr. Wilson," said I,
"to engage your attention for so many hours."
"Perhaps he was," returned Tom, after a pause of some minutes,
during which he seemed to be groping for words in the salt-cellar,
having deliberately turned out its contents upon the tablecloth.
"We were hungry after our long walk, and he gave us an excellent
dinner."
"But that had nothing to do with the substance of his lecture."
"It was the substance, after all," said Moodie, laughing; "and his
audience seemed to think so, by the attention they paid to it
during the discussion. But, come, Wilson, give my wife some account
of the intellectual part of the entertainment."
"What! I - I - I - I give an account of the lecture? Why, my dear
fellow, I never listened to one word of it!"
"I thought you went to Y - - on purpose to obtain information on the
subject of emigration to Canada?"
"Well, and so I did; but when the fellow pulled out his pamphlet,
and said that it contained the substance of his lecture, and would
only cost a shilling, I thought that it was better to secure the
substance than endeavour to catch the shadow - so I bought the book,
and spared myself the pain of listening to the oratory of the
writer. Mrs. Moodie! he had a shocking delivery, a drawling, vulgar
voice; and he spoke with such a nasal twang that I could not bear
to look at him, or listen to him. He made such grammatical
blunders, that my sides ached with laughing at him. Oh, I wish you
could have seen the wretch! But here is the document, written in
the same style in which it was spoken.
