Life in the Backwoods

S >> Susanna Moodie >> Life in the Backwoods

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Mr. Malcolm now informed him that he was hiding from, the sheriff of the
N____ district's officers, and that it would be conferring upon him a
great favour if he would allow him to remain at his house for a few weeks.

"To tell you the truth, Malcolm," said Moodie, "we are so badly off that
we can scarcely find food for ourselves and the children. It is out of our
power to make you comfortable, or to keep an additional hand, without he
is willing to render some little help on the farm. If you can do this, I
will endeavour to get a few necessaries on credit, to make your stay more
agreeable."

To this proposition Malcolm readily assented, not only because it released
him from all sense of obligation but because it gave him a privilege to
grumble.

Finding that his stay might extend to an indefinite period, I got Jacob to
construct a rude bedstead out of two large chests that had transported
some of our goods across the Atlantic, and which he put up in a corner of
the parlour. This I provided with a small hair-mattress, and furnished
with what bedding I could spare.

For the first fortnight of his sojourn, our guest did nothing but lie
upon that bed, and read, and smoke, and drink whiskey and water from
morning until night. By degrees he let out part of his history; but
there was a mystery about him which he took good care never to clear up.
He was the son of an officer in the navy, who had not only attained a very
high rank in the service, but, for his gallant conduct, had been made a
Knight-Companion of the Bath.

He had himself served his time as a midshipman on board his father's
flag-ship, but had left the navy and accepted a commission in the
Buenos-Ayrean service during the political struggles in that province;
he had commanded a sort of privateer under the government, to whom, by his
own account, he had rendered many very signal services. Why he left
South America and came to Canada he kept a profound secret. He had
indulged in very vicious and dissipated courses since he came to the
province, and by his own account had spent upwards of four thousand
pounds, in a manner not over creditable to himself. Finding that his
friends would answer his bills no longer, he took possession of a grant of
land obtained through his father's interest, up in Hersey, a barren
township on the shores of Stony Lake; and, after putting up his shanty,
and expending all his remaining means, he found that he did not possess
one acre out of the whole four hundred that would yield a crop of
potatoes. He was now considerably in debt, and the lands, such as they
were, had been seized, with all his effects, by the sheriff, and a warrant
was out for his own apprehension, which he contrived to elude during his
sojourn with us. Money he had none; and, beyond the dirty fearnought
blue seaman's jacket which he wore, a pair of trowsers of the coarse cloth
of the country, an old black vest that had seen better days, and two
blue-checked shirts, clothes he had none. He shaved but once a week, never
combed his hair, and never washed himself. A dirtier or more slovenly
creature never before was dignified by the title of a gentleman. He was,
however, a man of good education, of excellent abilities, and possessed a
bitter, sarcastic knowledge of the world; but he was selfish and
unprincipled in the highest degree.

His shrewd observations and great conversational powers had first
attracted my husband's attention, and, as men seldom show their bad
qualities on a journey, he thought him a blunt, good fellow, who had
travelled a great deal, and could render himself a very agreeable
companion by a graphic relation of his adventures. He could be all this,
when he chose to relax from his sullen, morose mood; and, much as I
disliked him, I have listened with interest for hours to his droll
descriptions of South American life and manners.

Naturally indolent, and a constitutional grumbler, it was with the
greatest difficulty that Moodie could get him to do any thing beyond
bringing a few pails of water from the swamp for the use of the house,
and he has often passed me carrying water up from the lake without
offering to relieve me of the burden. Mary, the betrothed of Jacob,
called him a perfect beast; but he, returning good for evil, considered
_her_ a very pretty girl, and paid her so many uncouth attentions that he
roused the jealousy of honest Jake, who vowed that he would give him a
good "loomping" if he only dared to lay a finger upon his sweetheart.
With Jacob to back her, Mary treated the "zea-bear," as Jacob termed him,
with vast disdain, and was so saucy to him that, forgetting his
admiration, he declared he would like to serve her as the Indians had done
a scolding woman in South America. They attacked her house during the
absence of her husband, cut out her tongue, and nailed it to the door, by
way of knocker; and he thought that all women who could not keep a civil
tongue in their head should be served in the same manner.

"And what should be done to men who swear and use ondacent language?"
quoth Mary, indignantly. "Their tongues should be slit, and given to the
dogs. Faugh! You are such a nasty fellow that I don't think Hector would
eat your tongue."

"I'll kill that beast," muttered Malcolm, as he walked away.

I remonstrated with him on the impropriety of bandying words with our
servants. "You see," I said, "the disrespect with which they treat you;
and if they presume upon your familiarity, to speak to our guest in this
contemptuous manner, they will soon extend the same conduct to us."

"But, Mrs. Moodie, you should reprove them."

"I cannot, sir, while you continue, by taking liberties with the girl, and
swearing at the man, to provoke them to retaliation."

"Swearing! What harm is there in swearing? A sailor cannot live without
oaths."

"But a gentleman might. Mr. Malcolm. I should be sorry to consider you in
any other light."

"Ah, you are such a prude--so methodistical--you make no allowance for
circumstances! Surely, in the woods we may dispense with the hypocritical,
conventional forms of society, and speak and act as we please."

"So you seem to think; but you see the result."

"I have never been used to the society of ladies, and cannot fashion my
words to please them; and I won't, that's more!" he muttered to himself,
as he strode off to Moodie in the field. I wished from my very heart that
he was once more on the deck of his piratical South American craft.

One night he insisted on going out in the canoe to spear muskinonge with
Moodie. The evening turned out very chill and foggy, and, before twelve,
they returned, with only one fish, and half frozen with cold. Malcolm had
got twinges of rheumatism, and he fussed, and sulked, and swore, and
quarrelled with every body and every thing, until Moodie, who was highly
amused by his petulance, advised him to go to his bed, and pray for the
happy restoration of his temper.

"Temper!" he cried, "I don't believe there's a good-tempered person in the
world. It's all hypocrisy! I never had a good temper! My mother was an
ill-tempered woman, and ruled my father, who was a confoundedly severe,
domineering man. I was born in an ill temper. I was an ill-tempered child;
I grew up an ill-tempered man. I feel worse than ill tempered now, and
when I die it will be in an ill temper."

"Well," quoth I, "Moodie has made you a tumbler of hot punch, which may
help to drive out the cold and the ill temper, and cure the rheumatism."

"Ay; your husband's a good fellow, and worth two of you, Mrs. Moodie. He
makes some allowance for the weakness of Human nature, and can excuse even
my ill temper."

I did not choose to bandy words with him, and the next day the unfortunate
creature was shaking with the ague. A more intractable, outrageous,
_im_-patient I never had the ill fortune to nurse. During the cold fit, he
did nothing but swear at the cold, and wished himself roasting; and during
the fever, he swore at the heat, and wished that he was sitting, in no
other garment than his shirt, on the north side of an iceberg. And when
the fit at last left him, he got up, and ate such quantities of fat pork,
and drank so much whiskey-punch, that you would have imagined he had just
arrived from a long journey, and had not tasted food for a couple of days.

He would not believe that fishing in the cold night-air upon the water had
made him ill, but raved that it was all my fault for having laid my baby
down on his bed while it was shaking with the ague.

Yet, if there were the least tenderness mixed up in his iron nature, it
was the affection he displayed for that young child. Dunbar was just
twenty months old, with bright, dark eyes, dimpled cheeks, and soft,
flowing, golden hair, which fell round his infant face in rich curls. The
merry, confiding little creature formed such a contrast to his own surly,
unyielding temper, that, perhaps, that very circumstance made the bond of
union between them. When in the house, the little boy was seldom out of
his arms, and whatever were Malcolm's faults, he had none in the eyes of
the child, who used to cling around his neck, and kiss his rough, unshaven
cheeks with the greatest fondness.

"If I could afford it, Moodie," he said one day to my husband, "I should
like to marry. I want some one upon whom I could vent my affections." And
wanting that some one in the form of woman, he contented himself with
venting them upon the child.

As the spring advanced, and after Jacob left us, he seemed ashamed of
sitting in the house doing nothing, and therefore undertook to make us a
garden, or "to make garden," as the Canadians term preparing a few
vegetables for the season. I procured the necessary seeds, and watched
with no small surprise the industry with which our strange visitor
commenced operations. He repaired the broken fence, dug the ground with
the greatest care, and laid it out with a skill and neatness of which I
had believed him perfectly incapable. In less than three weeks, the whole
plot presented a very pleasing prospect, and he was really elated by his
success.

"At any rate," said he, "we shall no longer be starved on bad flour and
potatoes. We shall have peas, and beans, and beets, and carrots, and
cabbage in abundance; besides the plot I have reserved for cucumbers and
melons."

"Ah," thought I, "does he, indeed, mean to stay with us until the melons
are ripe?" and my heart died within me, for he not only was a great
additional expense, but he gave a great deal of additional trouble, and
entirely robbed us of all privacy, as our very parlour was converted into
a bedroom for his accommodation; besides that, a man of his singularly
dirty habits made a very disagreeable inmate.

The only redeeming point in his character, in my eyes, was his love for
Dunbar. I could not entirely hate a man who was so fondly attached to my
child. To the two little girls he was very cross, and often chased them
from him with blows. He had, too, an odious way of finding fault with
every thing. I never could cook to please him; and he tried in the most
malicious way to induce Moodie to join in his complaints. All his schemes
to make strife between us, however, failed, and were generally visited
upon himself. In no way did he ever seek to render me the least
assistance. Shortly after Jacob left us, Mary Price was offered higher
wages by a family at Peterborough, and for some time I was left with four
little children, and without a servant. Moodie always milked the cows,
because I never could overcome my fear of cattle; and though I had
occasionally milked when there was no one else in the way, it was in fear
and trembling.

Moodie had to go down to Peterborough; but before he went, he begged
Malcolm to bring me what water and wood I required, and to stand by the
cattle while I milked the cows, and he would himself be home before night.
He started at six in the morning, and I got the pail to go and milk.
Malcolm was lying upon his bed, reading.

"Mr. Malcolm, will you be so kind as to go with me to the fields for a few
minutes while I milk?"

"Yes!" (then, with a sulky frown,)--"but I want to finish what I am
reading."

"I will not detain you long."

"Oh, no! I suppose about an hour. You are a shocking bad milker."

"True; I never went near a cow until I came to this country; and I have
never been able to overcome my fear of them."

"More shame for you! A farmer's wife, and afraid of a cow! Why, these
little children would laugh at you."

I did not reply, nor would I ask him again. I walked slowly to the field,
and my indignation made me forget my fear. I had just finished milking,
and with a brimming pail was preparing to climb the fence and return to
the house, when a very wild ox we had came running with headlong speed
from the wood. All my fears were alive again in a moment. I snatched up
the pail, and, instead of climbing the fence and getting to the house, I
ran with all the speed I could command down the steep hill towards the
lake shore, my feet caught in a root of the many stumps in the path, and I
fell to the ground, my pail rolling many yards ahead of me. Every drop of
my milk was spilt upon the grass. The ox passed on. I gathered myself up
and returned home. Malcolm was very fond of new milk, and he came to me at
the door.

"Hi! hi!--Where's the milk?"

"No milk for the poor children to-day," said I, showing him the inside of
the pail, with a sorrowful shake of the head, for it was no small loss to
them and me.

"How the devil's that? So you were afraid to milk the cows. Come away, and
I will keep off the buggaboos."

"I did milk them--no thanks to your kindness, Mr. Malcolm--but--"

"But what?"

"The ox frightened me, and I fell and spilt all the milk."

"Whew! Now don't go and tell your husband that it was all my fault; if you
had had a little patience, I would have come when you asked me, but I
don't choose to be dictated to, and I won't be made a slave by you or any
one else."

"Then why do you stay, sir, where you consider yourself so treated?" said
I. "We are all obliged to work to obtain bread; we give you the best
share--surely the return we ask for it is but small."

"You make me feel my obligations to you when you ask me to do any thing;
if you left it to my better feelings we should get on better."

"Perhaps you are right. I will never ask you to do any thing for me in
future."

"Oh, now, that's all mock humility. In spite of the tears in your eyes,
you are as angry with me as ever; but don't go to make mischief between me
and Moodie. If you'll say nothing about my refusing to go with you, I'll
milk the cows for you myself to-night."

"And can you milk?" said I, with some curiosity.

"Milk! Yes; and if I were not so confoundedly low-spirited and ____ lazy,
I could do a thousand other things too. But now, don't say a word about it
to Moodie."

I made no promise; but my respect for him was not increased by his
cowardly fear of reproof from Moodie, who treated him with a kindness and
consideration which he did not deserve. The afternoon turned out very wet,
and I was sorry that I should be troubled with his company all day in the
house. I was making a shirt for Moodie from some cotton that had been sent
me from home, and he placed himself by the side of the stove, just
opposite, and continued to regard me for a long time with his usual sullen
stare. I really felt half afraid of him.

"Don't you think me mad?" said he. "I have a brother deranged; he got a
stroke of the sun in India, and lost his senses in consequence; but
sometimes I think it runs in the family."

What answer could I give to this speech, but mere evasive commonplace?

"You won't say what you really think," he continued; "I know you hate me,
and that makes me dislike you. Now what would you say if I told you I had
committed a murder, and that it was the recollection of that circumstance
that made me at times so restless and unhappy?"

I looked up in his face, not knowing what to believe.

"'Tis fact," said he, nodding his head; and I hoped that he would not go
mad, like his brother, and kill me.

"Come, I'll tell you all about it; I know the world would laugh at me for
calling such an act _murder_; and yet I have been such a miserable man
ever since, that I _feel_ it was.

"There was a noted leader among the rebel Buenos-Ayreans, whom the
government wanted much to get hold of. He was a fine, dashing, handsome
fellow; I had often seen him, but we never came to close quarters. One
night, I was lying wrapped up in my poncho at the bottom of my boat,
which was rocking in the surf, waiting for two of my men, who were gone on
shore. There came to the shore, this man and one of his people, and they
stood so near the boat, which I suppose they thought empty, that I could
distinctly hear their conversation. I suppose it was the devil who tempted
me to put a bullet through that man's heart. He was an enemy to the flag
under which I fought, but he was no enemy to me--I had no right to become
his executioner; but still the desire to kill him, for the mere deviltry
of the thing, came so strongly upon me that I no longer tried to resist
it. I rose slowly upon my knees; the moon was shining very bright at the
time, both he and his companion were too earnestly engaged to see me, and
I deliberately shot him through the body. He fell with a heavy groan back
into the water; but I caught the last look he threw up to the moonlight
skies before his eyes glazed in death. Oh, that look!--so full of despair,
of unutterable anguish; it haunts me yet--it will haunt me for ever. I
would not have cared if I had killed him in strife--but in cold blood, and
he so unsuspicious of his doom! Yes, it was murder; I know by this
constant tugging at my heart that it was murder. What do you say to it?"

"I should think as you do, Mr. Malcolm. It is a terrible thing to take
away the life of a fellow-creature without the least provocation."

"Ah! I knew you would blame me; but he was an enemy after all; I had a
right to kill him; I was hired by the government under whom I served to
kill him: and who shall condemn me?"

"No one more than your own heart."

"It is not the heart, but the brain, that must decide in questions of
right and wrong," said he. "I acted from impulse, and shot the man; had I
reasoned upon it for five minutes, that man would be living now. But
what's done cannot be undone. Did I ever show you the work I wrote upon
South America?"

"Are you an author," said I, incredulously.

"To be sure I am. Murray offered me L100 for my manuscript, but I would
not take it. Shall I read to you some passages from it?"

I am sorry to say that his behaviour in the morning was uppermost in my
thoughts, and I had no repugnance in refusing.

"No, don't trouble yourself. I have the dinner to cook, and the children
to attend to, which will cause a constant interruption; you had better
defer it to some other time."

"I shan't ask you to listen to me again," said he, with a look of offended
vanity; but he went to his trunk, and brought out a large MS., written
on foolscap, which he commenced reading to himself with an air of great
self-importance, glancing from time to time at me, and smiling
disdainfully. Oh, how glad I was when the door opened, and the return of
Moodie broke up this painful _tete-a-tete_.

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. The very next day, Mr.
Malcolm made his appearance before me wrapped in a great-coat belonging to
my husband, which literally came down to his heels. At this strange
apparition, I fell a-laughing.

"For God's sake, Mrs. Moodie, lend me a pair of inexpressibles. I have met
with an accident in crossing the fence, and mine are torn to shreds--gone
to the devil entirely."

"Well, don't swear. I'll see what can be done for you."

I brought him a new pair of fine, drab-coloured kerseymere trowsers that
had never been worn. Although he was eloquent in his thanks, I had no idea
that he meant to keep them for his sole individual use from that day
thenceforth. But after all, what was the man to do? He had no trousers,
and no money, and he could not take to the woods. Certainly his loss was
not our gain. It was the old proverb reversed. The season for putting in
the potatoes had now arrived. Malcolm volunteered to cut the sets, which
was easy work that could be done in the house, and over which he could
lounge and smoke; but Moodie told him that he must take his share in the
field, that I had already sets enough saved to plant half-an-acre, and
would have more prepared by the time they were required. With many growls
and shrugs, he felt obliged to comply; and he performed his part pretty
well, the execrations bestowed upon the mosquitoes and black-flies forming
a sort of safety-valve to let off the concentrated venom of his temper.
When he came in to dinner, he held out his hands to me.

"Look at these hands."

"They are blistered with the hoe."

"Look at my face."

"You are terribly disfigured by the black-flies. But Moodie suffers just
as much, and says nothing."

"Bah!--The only consolation one feels for such annoyances is to complain.
Oh, the woods!--the cursed woods!--how I wish I were out of them." The day
was very warm, but in the afternoon I was surprised by a visit from an old
maiden lady, a friend of mine from C--. She had walked up with a Mr.
Crowe, from Peterborough, a young, brisk-looking farmer, in breeches and
top-boots, just out from the old country, who, naturally enough, thought
he would like to roost among the woods.

He was a little, lively, good-natured manny, with a real Anglo-Saxon
face,--rosy, high cheek-boned, with full lips, and a turned-up nose;
and, like most little men, was a great talker, and very full of himself.
He had belonged to the secondary class of farmers, and was very vulgar,
both in person and manners. I had just prepared tea for my visitors, when
Malcolm and Moodie returned from the field. There was no affectation about
the former. He was manly in his person, and blunt even to rudeness, and
I saw by the quizzical look which he cast upon the spruce little Crowe
that he was quietly quizzing him from head to heel. A neighbour had sent
me a present of maple molasses, and Mr. Crowe was so fearful of spilling
some of the rich syrup upon his drab shorts that he spread a large
pocket-handkerchief over his knees, and tucked another under his chin. I
felt very much inclined to laugh, but restrained the inclination as well
as I could--and if the little creature would have sat still, I could have
quelled my rebellious propensity altogether; but up he would jump at every
word I said to him, and make me a low, jerking bow, often with his mouth
quite full, and the treacherous molasses running over his chin.

Malcolm sat directly opposite to me and my volatile next-door neighbour.
He saw the intense difficulty I had to keep my gravity, and was determined
to make me laugh out. So, coming slyly behind my chair, he whispered in my
ear, with the gravity of a judge, "Mrs. Moodie, that must have been the
very chap who first jumped Jim Crowe."

This appeal obliged me to run from the table. Moodie was astonished at my
rudeness; and Malcolm, as he resumed his seat, made the matter worse by
saying, "I wonder what is the matter with Mrs. Moodie; she is certainly
very hysterical this afternoon."

The potatoes were planted, and the season of strawberries, green peas, and
young potatoes come, but still Malcolm remained our constant guest. He had
grown so indolent, and gave himself so many airs, that Moodie was heartily
sick of his company, and gave him many gentle hints to change his
quarters; but our guest was determined to take no hint. For some reason
best known to himself, perhaps out of sheer contradiction, which formed
one great element in his character, he seemed obstinately bent upon
remaining where he was. Moodie was busy under-bushing for a full fallow.
Malcolm spent much of his time in the garden, or lounging about the house.
I had baked an eel-pie for dinner, which if prepared well is by no means
an unsavoury dish. Malcolm had cleaned some green peas, and washed the
first young potatoes we had drawn that season, with his own hands, and he
was reckoning upon the feast he should have on the potatoes with childish
glee. The dinner at length was put upon the table. The vegetables were
remarkably fine, and the pie looked very nice.

Moodie helped Malcolm, as he always did, very largely, and the other
covered his plate with a portion of peas and potatoes, when, lo and
behold! my gentleman began making a very wry face at the pie.

"What an infernal dish!" he cried, pushing away his plate with an air of
great disgust. "These eels taste as if they had been stewed in oil.
Moodie, you should teach your wife to be a better cook."

The hot blood burnt upon Moodie's cheek. I saw indignation blazing in his
eye.

"If you don't like what is prepared for you, sir, you may leave the table,
and my house, if you please. I will put up with your ungentlemanly and
ungrateful conduct to Mrs. Moodie no longer."

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