In the family; and
when the truant at last made his appearance, Moodie discharged him
altogether.
The winter had now fairly set in - the iron winter of 1833. The snow
was unusually deep, and it being our first winter in Canada, and
passed in such a miserable dwelling, we felt it very severely.
In spite of all my boasted fortitude - and I think my powers of
endurance have been tried to the uttermost since my sojourn in this
country - the rigour of the climate subdued my proud, independent
English spirit, and I actually shamed my womanhood and cried with
the cold. Yes, I ought to blush at evincing such unpardonable
weakness; but I was foolish and inexperienced, and unaccustomed
to the yoke.
My husband did not much relish performing the menial duties of a
servant in such weather, but he did not complain, and in the
meantime commenced an active inquiry for a man to supply the place
of the one we had lost; but at that season of the year no one was
to be had.
It was a bitter, freezing night. A sharp wind howled without, and
drove the fine snow through the chinks in the door, almost to the
hearth-stone, on which two immense blocks of maple shed forth a
cheering glow, brightening the narrow window-panes, and making the
blackened rafters ruddy with the heart-invigorating blaze.
The toils of the day were over, the supper things cleared away,
and the door closed for the night. Moodie had taken up his flute,
the sweet companion of happier days, at the earnest request of
our homesick Scotch servant-girl, to cheer her drooping spirits
by playing some of the touching national airs of the glorious
mountain land, the land of chivalry and song, the heroic North.
Before retiring to rest, Bell, who had an exquisite ear for music,
kept time with foot and hand, while large tears gathered in her
soft blue eyes.
"Ay, 'tis bonnie thae songs; but they mak' me greet, an' my puir
heart is sair, sair when I think on the bonnie braes and the days
o'lang syne."
Poor Bell! Her heart was among the hills, and mine had wandered far,
far away to the green groves and meadows of my own fair land. The
music and our reveries were alike abruptly banished by a sharp blow
upon the door. Bell rose and opened it, when a strange, wild-looking
lad, barefooted, and with no other covering to his head than the
thick, matted locks of raven blackness that hung like a cloud over
his swarthy, sunburnt visage, burst into the room.
"Guidness defend us! Wha ha'e we here?" screamed Bell, retreating
into a corner. "The puir callant's no cannie."
My husband turned hastily round to meet the intruder, and I raised
the candle from the table the better to distinguish his face; while
Bell, from her hiding-place, regarded him with unequivocal glances
of fear and mistrust, waving her hands to me, and pointing
significantly to the open door, as if silently beseeching me to tell
her master to turn him out.
