Nature and Human Nature Part 6

"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 sh.o.r.es of England. A land pilot is a fool if he makes s.h.i.+pwreck wherever he is, but the best of coast pilots when he gets on a strange sh.o.r.e 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 compa.s.s 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 coa.r.s.e suit of homespun, entered the room, and addressing our host familiarly as Squire Peter, deposited in the corner a fis.h.i.+ng-rod, and proceeded to disenc.u.mber 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 ma.s.s of bushy black curls. His eyes were large, deep set, and intelligent, his forehead expansive and projecting, and his eyebrows heavy and s.h.a.ggy. 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 att.i.tude 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 sp.a.w.ned, 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 ash.o.r.e here from the deep have. It's a hard life, my friend, going to sea, and hard sh.o.r.es 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 sp.a.w.ned, and where he returned you see, to die. You were sp.a.w.ned on the sh.o.r.es 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 G.o.d!"

"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 gla.s.s; 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 gla.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e?"

"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. n.o.body 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 surpa.s.sed 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 b.u.t.terfly, than between a sweetheart and wife. Yet the grub and the b.u.t.terfly 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.