"My
Heart Will Brak If Ye Dinna Bide Wi' Me An' The Bairnie." Tam Was
Deaf As Ailsa Craig.
Regardless of tears and entreaties, he jumped
into the boat, like a wilful man as he was, and my husband went
with him.
Fortunately for me, the latter returned safe to the
vessel, in time to proceed with her to Montreal, in tow of the
noble steamer, British America; but Tam, the volatile Tam was
missing. During the reign of the cholera, what at another time
would have appeared but a trifling incident, was now invested with
doubt and terror. The distress of the poor wife knew no bounds.
I think I see her now, as I saw her then, sitting upon the floor
of the deck, her head buried between her knees, rocking herself to
and fro, and weeping in the utter abandonment of her grief. "He is
dead! he is dead! My dear, dear Tam! The pestilence has seized upon
him; and I and the puir bairn are left alone in the strange land."
All attempts at consolation were useless; she obstinately refused
to listen to probabilities, or to be comforted. All through the
night I heard her deep and bitter sobs, and the oft-repeated name
of him that she had lost.
The sun was sinking over the plague-stricken city, gilding the
changing woods and mountain peaks with ruddy light; the river
mirrored back the gorgeous sky, and moved in billows of liquid
gold; the very air seemed lighted up with heavenly fires, and
sparkled with myriads of luminous particles, as I gazed my last
upon that beautiful scene.
The tow-line was now attached from our ship to the British America,
and in company with two other vessels, we followed fast in her
foaming wake. Day lingered on the horizon just long enough to
enable me to examine, with deep interest, the rocky heights of
Abraham, the scene of our immortal Wolfe's victory and death;
and when the twilight faded into night, the moon arose in solemn
beauty, and cast mysterious gleams upon the strange stern landscape.
The wide river, flowing rapidly between its rugged banks, rolled in
inky blackness beneath the overshadowing crags; while the waves in
mid-channel flashed along in dazzling light, rendered more intense
by the surrounding darkness. In this luminous track the huge
steamer glided majestically forward, flinging showers of red
earth-stars from the funnel into the clear air, and looking like
some fiery demon of the night enveloped in smoke and flame.
The lofty groves of pine frowned down in hearse-like gloom upon the
mighty river, and the deep stillness of the night, broken alone by
its hoarse wailings, filled my mind with sad forebodings - alas! too
prophetic of the future. Keenly, for the first time, I felt that I
was a stranger in a strange land; my heart yearned intensely for my
absent home. Home! the word had ceased to belong to my present - it
was doomed to live for ever in the past; for what emigrant ever
regarded the country of his exile as his home?
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