Chapter 16

About five P.M. we were landed. In company with Captain W----s, U. S. A. I ascended the mountain; and, as our time was limited, we had no sooner secured good quarters at the hotel than we sallied forth to survey the works, which are, I understand, of the strongest and most perfect description, sufficiently guaranteeing Quebec against all surprisal for the time to come.

The finest view is that offered from the Signal-tower.

The city, Point Levi, the winding river, with the Isle of Orleans, lay clearly spread beneath our feet as in a well-designed panorama, with such light and shadow as the artist is seldom favoured with, except in imagination.

Coming down from the fort, I was happy enough to encounter Captain Doyle, driving a right London-appointed tilbury. He had been to the hotel in search of me, and now, dismissing his boy, installed me in the vacancy, and set off at once for the field of battle on the Plains of Abraham.

Our first pull-up was by a little potato-field, memorable as the spot where the gallant Wolfe fell. A broken column of black marble had just been erected here by Lord Aylmer: a tribute honourable to the taste of the gallant soldier living, and which will henceforward worthily mark the spot where the young victor died.

After viewing over the battle-ground, with the ascent from Wolfe's Cove, we turned back to the city and drove to the Chateau, or rather to its ruins. We walked through the blackened hall out upon the still firm floor of the gallery, or balcony, overlooking at a giddy height the lower town. From this we strolled through the hanging-garden of the Chateau, which is laid out on terraces cut from the face of the precipice, and hedged in by a range of cannon of the largest calibre.

Took coffee with Doyle in a chamber, which, although placed at a somewhat unfashionable altitude, commanded a prospect worth all the labour of a threefold flight. Finding it a hopeless task waiting for night, that is, for darkness, went home and to bed, a little wearied, but more delighted, leaving directions to be called at five A.M. having arranged with Captain W----s to ride at that hour to the Falls of Montmorency.

_Monday, 8th._--In saddle by half past five A.M. with a morning that made these narrow, dusty streets look both cool and clear. The market-folk were already in motion from the country, having light carts filled with the articles they supply to the _bourgeoisie_.

Crossing a long wooden bridge, whose toll was collected by a sturdy old invalid soldier, we entered, soon after, a perfect French village of interminable length, closely flanking the highway, and possessing a very large and well-built church, fronted, after the fashion universal here, by a couple of spires, with a large dome in the centre, all coated over with bright tin, and so glittering famously in the morning sun.

A tolerable road brought us in ten miles or so to the object of our early gallop. Hitching the horses beneath a near shed, we roamed about looking how best to descend; until discovering a ladder planted against the face of the precipice, we took to this, and going down it about seventy feet, were landed upon a table-rock exactly on a level with the torrent, and at the very point whence it makes its down leap into a bay of the St. Lawrence, a portion of it being arrested, and turned to the ignoble use of a wool-carding mill, which abuts on the very edge of the cataract.

I have no sort of doubt that, had I been brought hither before seeing Niagara, I should have felt duly impressed by its grandeur, which is unquestionably of a character sufficiently striking to inspire a much less sensitive admirer of the sublime in nature; as it was, this fall only brought fresh to my recollection the scene I had looked upon the year before, no feature of which can ever be effaced by any other object.

At this day I can find no adequate language wherein to dress my impressions of that wonder. Of Montmorency I only know that I felt, whilst viewing it, as though other doings of Nature might be found every way fellow to it: that such things, in fact, were existing elsewhere, or might be.

But Niagara in its greatness makes all else little. It stands, incomparable and alone, a time-defying monument of creation as first called from chaos; one feels that the waters of the deluge may have risen above it and subsided, leaving it unaltered. It is possible to imagine all other worldly things either changed, or within the scope of mutation and the power of Time. You feel that with most earthly things you have a right to speculate, to calculate on their endurance, to control and to direct them: but never so with old Niagara. Its aspect awes man into nothing, it mocks at his dreams, and defies alike his wisdom and his power.

Certain points on this Montmorency road afford, I fancy, the finest view of Quebec. Two sides of the city are presented, with its close streets, and bright-roofed buildings, rising irregularly tier over tier, and crowned by the formidable lines of defence over which the cross of Old England waves proudly in the breeze. Opposite swells the softer outline of Point Levi, sprinkled with pretty cottages, and separated from the mountain by a narrow channel. As a foreground, the smooth bay lies spread between, and over all bends a sky without a cloud, glowing in the colour of the early morning sun.

With this scene before us, we rattled back at a merry pace, reaching our quarters by a little after eight A.M. We found horses here awaiting to carry us to the Chateau to breakfast, an attention of Captain Doyle's which, after a hasty toilet, we availed ourselves of.

My steed, who had probably an eye to his own breakfast rather than to mine, made a bolt for the stable just as we gained the house; I strove to persuade him to take me to the door by the only means I possessed--patience, civility, and a stick: but he would not be 'ticed; I lost my patience, forgot my civility, and broke my stick, yet he fairly bullied me, till, finding my saddle turning, I left him to go his own way, and ungraciously ceded the point in dispute.

After breakfast, my American soldier companion being naturally solicitous to witness guard mounting, I accompanied him on to the parade, and had the pleasure of seeing the 79th Highlanders come on the ground, with the band and pipes playing alternately. It was really quite refreshing to see this fine corps in such order; the men were uncommonly good-looking fellows, and fairly shook the ground with their measured tread.

Of all our soldiers no arm attracts the notice and admiration of strangers so much as the Highland corps; the striking colours of the costume, its picturesque arrangement, the waving of the gay plaid and plume, together with the strange wild skirl of the bagpipes, lay hold on the imagination, and are at the same time so unlike the military array of any other country, that no comparison is ever suggested as a drawback.

It was no easy matter to tear oneself away from the hospitalities tendered from every quarter here; but finding that after this night no boat was to sail until Wednesday, and having pledged myself to be at Montreal on that day, I even buckled on the armour of resolution, and, making a virtue of necessity, broke away in time to join Captain W----s on board the steamer, at ten o'clock P.M. Within a quarter of an hour after we left the wharf, making a sweep downwards in order to take a large brig in tow from her moorings in the stream.

This chance and the correspondent delay, afforded us an opportunity of viewing the city from various points. The night was lovely, and the deep shadows of the towering mountain, with each salient angle made bright by the silver moon, formed a picture altogether enchanting.

The ruins of the Chateau, with the rays of bright light streaming through its open roof and many windows over the blackened broken walls, became, however, my chief object of admiration.

I trust the good citizens of Quebec, having been afforded this opportunity, will erect a pile here worthy the site; a castellated building would perhaps be the style best adapted to this, and would come well in with the river line of defence, whose strong curtain runs parallel with the terrace, from which the windows of the Chateau look perpendicularly upon the streets two hundred feet below.

At Wolfe's Cove we approached close under the wooded heights, where we took in tow a second brig; then sheering out, began painfully to ascend the current with a dead head-breeze, and having these monsters yawing about on each quarter.

Our Titan steamer groaned, and heaved, and strained, as though but sulkily submitting to this added charge, and doing the master's work, in the spirit of Caliban, under the spell of a higher intelligence.

_Tuesday, 9th._--Find that during the night our progress continued painfully slow; indeed, only that the wind lulled, we could not have stemmed the rapids; but when above the Richelieu we made better way, arriving at Trois Rivières about noon, with a fine fair breeze blowing up the stream.

The brigs were here cast loose to make the best of their way whilst we took in a supply of wood. Meantime, Captain W----s and I took a stroll about the town, which in itself is pretty, and agreeably situated. All this day the breeze continued favourable, and consequently our pace was tolerable. How long we should have been with a head-wind, it is impossible to say.

_Wednesday, 10th._--I was this morning on deck by four A.M. and was well repaid for my early rising. We were some thirty miles distant from Montreal, as our pilot informed me: the land on either side was low, but soft, verdant, and well wooded, with the prettiest-looking villages dotted along from point to point. At times, three or four of these, with their triple-spired churches, were at once visible as we slowly steered through groups of islets of every form and size, but all of a colour of unequalled purity.

I cannot wonder at the rapturous language used in the description of these places by the sea-wearied discoverers who viewed them for the first time in the summer season; for even I, with no such spur to imagination, find it difficult to stick to sober prose when recalling the luxuriant growth of these isles of the far North. It would appear as though Nature, aware that the possession of beauty is with them extremely limited, had resolved, by way of compensation, to render their short-lived loveliness surpassing.

At last was seen, high towering over all, the rounded top of the fairest of the hundred isles of the St. Lawrence, St. Helen's; and, shortly after, the glittering domes of the city of Montreal gave warning that our up-voyage was drawing to a happy conclusion.

_Thursday, 11th._--This morning took a farewell stroll over St. Helen's, which, on a surface of a mile in length by half a mile in breadth, has all the attractions Nature could devise scattered with a most liberal hand. It is shadowed and scented by a hundred sorts of odorous shrubs and flowers. The groves are filled with birds of beautiful plumage; the graceful blue bird, the enamelled hummer, and the cardinal, with his hood of the brightest scarlet, are for ever on the wing in pursuit of the shad-fly. The pert woodpecker climbs the trees, and along the shores sits the contemplative heron, watching the rapids flowing by, which are, during certain seasons, absolutely alive with fish.

In short, I cannot imagine a more perfect summer abode in such a climate. The aromatic air wafted into one's window on a morning here, made it a delight to open it. The chamber I occupied looked out upon the grassy rampart and over it, affording a sight of the city in its best aspect, and the noble river dividing us from it. Close opposite to my window was a winding path, completely shaded, which led from the fort to the little harbour where the island fleet lies moored; which fleet consisted at this time of an Indian canoe, the soldiers' large market-boat, and the officers' cutter. Some one or other of these were almost constantly on the wing between isle and main; and really it was worth while, once a day, to take a sniff of the fishy atmosphere of the hot city, in order fully to appreciate the advantages of the cool pure air of _la belle île_.

At four P.M. after having taken leave of my island friends, whose attentions had rendered my stay here so delightful, I set off with my old comrade W----w, and Mr. E----r, who had decided upon accompanying me as far on my way as St. John's. We found the La Prairie steamboat quite crowded with the farmers of the continent, on their way home from the market of Montreal: amongst these were some French; but the majority was composed of lowland Scotch and Irish, with a fair proportion of Highlanders.

During our short passage I passed to and fro, below and above, amongst these various specimens of my fellow-subjects, but was at last fairly brought up by the look and gestures of a couple of men engaged in close argument.

The one was a person well stricken in years, with fine white hair straying beneath the broad leaf of his decent beaver hat; he had a keen small eye, well covered by a pair of thick grey eyebrows; with features much wrinkled, but full of intelligence: he was slightly humpbacked, and otherwise bent by the weight of years.

His antagonist was a low, square-built fellow, with a set of blunt features, quick sparkling little eyes, a ruddy complexion, and a broad low brow, over which was set, with a somewhat jaunty air, a blue bonnet. Both were evidently Scotch; the younger disputant, by his high shrill tone and peculiar pronunciation, a true Celt.

I soon discovered "the Glasgow body" was engaged in giving a lecture to the sturdy mountaineer upon the absolute folly of seeking to uphold exclusively the Gaelic tongue: the Highlander, who was head-vestryman in his parish, having, as it came out, lately advertised for a clergyman who could officiate in that ancient language. It may readily be supposed that between such disputants the argument was a warm one.

The Glasgow elder, slow, precise, and very energetic withal, insisted that the land they stood upon was no strangers' land; that they were not expected, like the Israelites of old whilst in a condition of bondage, to hold themselves a people apart; that the English tongue and English laws were lawfully theirs; and that those were the wisest men and the best subjects who learned the first in order that they might neither be ignorant nor forgetful of the last.

The hielan' man admitted, frigidly enough I thought, the present supremacy of English law and language, but insisted that the congregation upon their settlement absolutely needed a Gaelic pastor to preach the word, and no other; for, although all of them understood the Gaelic, full one half knew no word of English!

"More shame for them!" exclaimed the Glasgow man; "what for don't they learn it? Puir prejudiced bodies that they are!"

"What for no?" retorted quickly the nettled Highlander: "why, because they just prefer their ain: and I can't say I wonder at it all; for I know baith, and must aver, Mr. Dalgleish, that my preference is wholly for ta Gaelic, which is a finer language, and a petter and older language, and of a petter and an older nation by far."

"Hoot tout!" coolly responded old Glasgow; "Ye're just daft on thae points, Duncan M'Nab: why, man alive! yer' nae people at hame, much less here, where you are as the least plash flung from the paddle-wheel below us to the braid stream on which it drops to mingle with its waters; a lesson ye may tak profit by. Ye've neither country, nor laws, nor government that owns yer tongue on the whole face o' God's airth, if ever ye had either; whilst the laws and language o' England are at this time universal! ay, sir, universal, or at least mair sae than any one tongue ever yet was since the Lord made men strangers to their fellows at the confounding o' Babel."

"Ta Gaelic was spoken before tat day!" sharply bolted out M'Nab, "and was spoken since tat day by a bigger nation tan England ever was, or ever will be! Tak tat, now, Mr. Dalgleish!"

"Well now, see, Duncan M'Nab," continued the cooler Lowlander, in a tone provokingly unmoved; "that, I'm thinking, must be a matter o' doubt, rather than well-authenticated history; and before I either anger ye by contradicting it, or wrang my ain sense by allowing you the benefit o 't, I'll just seek counsel o' this gentleman, who evidently has a feelin' in our argument, although he taks no part in it by words. What say ye, sir?" he added, directly appealing to me; "shall we allow M'Nab's folk the credit o' havin' given a language to the world more universal than the English tongue?"

"I think you may, my good friend," replied I, thus engaged to speak, and in no way willing to spoil the controversy; "and this without losing any advantage by such an admission, seeing, that if the Gaelic were once so general, I don't think it a matter of credit or congratulation to its people that it is now extinguished, or only kept alive by the patriotic prejudices of a few clansmen in the Hielans and by the ignorance of my own countrymen in portions of Ireland."

"Ha!" cries Glasgow; "that's a hit, sir, and one that didna' occur to my mind! Now, M'Nab, how say ye to this? Why the deevil didna' ye keep yer ground that time ye had it all yer ain way, and no be lettin' strangers win it clean frae ye?"

"Ta' Gaelic was ta language o' Wallace and o' Bruce, and of Cyrus, who came before them," urged the Gael, hotly, "and who will say thae were easy to beat?"

"Who ever said that a Hielanman was easy to beat?" here cannily put in Glasgow: "not that I altogether allow Cyrus, or Wallace, or Bruce to ha' bin Hielanders; though I won't say that they didna' speak Gaelic: but fac's are ill to argue down, and the real fac' o' this matter is, M'Nab, that here Lowlander and Hielander are a' alike English, and it is not our duty alane, but our interest, to foregoe all thae hame prejudices, that have wrought us harm enough, and lang enough, without importing them here, to be left as an evil legacy to our children to keep them as strangers to ane anither."

"Look here, Mr. Dalgleish," demanded M'Nab, "do you admit your belief in election and free grace?"

At this I fairly bolted off the course; but in a few minutes after, whilst preparing to land at La Prairie, my old Glasgow-man sidled along by me, with an inquiry as to my pursuit and my name, in order, he added, that he might remember our pleasant argument, whispering in my ear as we separated,

"Hielanmen are aye weel enough in some particulars, sir; but they're just fairly eat up wi' pride and superstition, and fu' o' prejudices. At hame or abroad it's aye the like; they're of a race that can only be improved by amalgamation and time. I wish you a very pleasant passage hame, sir, and a good evening to you!"

Returning his civility, I was here separated from my elder. In about half an hour after I was about to quit the hotel, in the extra we had engaged for St. John's, when my Hielander, whose warm heart I had won by some honest commendation of his native country, ran up to me to shake hands, saying with a loud laugh,

"Ta old man was a good man, and a well-educated man; but a Glasgow is always a Glasgow; sell his web or his waens for ta money, and carein' as little for either kin or country as does ta cuckoo. God bless you, and if ever you should see Ben Nevis again, think on Duncan M'Nab that will see it no more."

Away ran the active Hielander, after his party, who were proceeding by the shore road, and in a few minutes my companions and myself were jolting at the rate of three miles and a half an hour over the ruts of La Prairie.

It is really surprising to observe how these sons of the Celt adhere to their native tongue, and preserve every early custom that is in any way practicable.

In the mountains of North Carolina there exists a colony of Sutherland Highlanders, two-thirds of whom speak no English, and who possess negroes who only know Gaelic; even within thirty miles of Philadelphia I stumbled upon a family in the third generation, or rather I ought to say, found the three generations together. The children tottering before the doors had, as had their fathers before them, a duck-puddle to wade in, with a dung-heap "quite convanient" to sun themselves upon in common with the pigs and fowls, and they were all lisping the Gaelic tongue with the most unsophisticated ignorance of any other whatever.

On one or two occasions I considered our present journey about to be concluded by an overturn into the canal, along whose bank we rolled most critically, as we neared our harbour; we were, however, landed in due time all safe, and procured a very good supper.

_Friday, 12th._--Left St. John's with a couple of gentlemen in canoe for Île aux Nois, there to abide the coming of the steam-boat. The heat was intense, but our canoe-men were a pair of lusty old lads, Canadians, and they pulled us up stream merrily at the rate of six miles an hour, keeping close beneath the trees growing out of the lake, here a narrow channel merely.

We found Fort Lennox garrisoned by a party of the 32nd regiment, under the command of Major Swinburne, who was resident here with his family. The fort is regularly and well built, and the defences are in excellent order, save that the facing of the ditch, being of wood, is tumbling in at most points, to the great danger of the foundation. As this place is considered worthy a garrison, it would be as well that this ditch should be faced with stone, in a way becoming the other defences, all of which appear to be built in the best manner, and are in good preservation.

At three o'clock _P.M._ the steamer was announced in sight, and we hastened to the little wharf where the captain always lands to show his clearance; a matter of form which is strictly observed.

The inhabitants, at least the civilians, were all assembled on the wharf, for this arrival was the event of the day. The little group was composed of two or three officers' ladies, with their families. Amongst these I noticed one pretty black-eyed English girl, who I fancied looked after the boat as it left the shore, and was whirled alongside the steamer, with a mournful glance, wherein I read the word home written as plainly as I ever read it in a book.

"I wish you were returning to your home, my sweet girl," replied I, in the same language, "and that I might be your escort; you should be well and honestly guarded, at all events."

In a moment I was for ever sundered from this object of my commiseration; yet had my eyes only been as expressive as hers, all I have set down here might have been read therein.

Away we sped along the winding lake, turning from shore to shore, now visiting one pretty landing, now another; a mode of proceeding that is, amidst such scenery, perfectly delightful.

_Saturday, 13th._--Breakfasted at Whitehall, and took the middle line to Albany, traversing a wild sterile country, over bad roads and worse bridges, until we reached Sandy-hill, where the noble Hudson bursts upon the view.

From this point to Albany the river is never lost sight of; and a grateful sight the beautiful stream afforded to a sun-dried, half-smothered traveller, to turn from the dusty track and contemplate its cool waters and pleasant groves.

I sincerely pity the heart to which a drive, at such a season, through this valley of the Hudson, brings no gladness. Talk of the beauties of the river from New-York to Albany, when, after all, it is here they are to be found; here where its waters are seen flowing between banks at times richly wooded, towering high and bold; then sinking suddenly, as they sweep for miles a continuous line of natural meadows, whose rich fringe of waving grass drinks for ever of the passing stream.