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"Ah," said he, shaking his head, "they might interest you more than you suppose. But I had better be silent, Mr. Coverdale. If this good wine, though claret, I suppose, is not apt to play such a trick, but if it should make my tongue run too freely, I could never look you in the face again." "You never did look me in the face, Mr. Moodie," I replied, "until this very moment."
Moodie and Jacob had chopped eight acres during the winter, but these had to be burnt off and logged-up before we could put in a crop of wheat for the ensuing fall. Had we been able to retain this industrious, kindly English lad, this would have been soon accomplished; but his wages, at the rate of thirty pounds per annum, were now utterly beyond our means.
And then, too, should any of our fraternity grow feverish with an over-exulting sense of prosperity, it would be a sort of cooling regimen to slink off into the woods, and spend an hour, or a day, or as many days as might be requisite to the cure, in uninterrupted communion with this deplorable old Moodie!
The poor fellow was delighted that his nurse-child, as he always called little Katie, had not forgotten him, but evinced the most lively satisfaction at the sight of her dark friend. Early every morning, Moodie went off to the house; and the first fine day, my sister undertook to escort me through the wood, to inspect it.
There was but one bullet, and a charge or two of buckshot, in the house; but Moodie started to the wood with the single bullet in his gun, followed by a little terrier dog that belonged to John E . Old Jenny was busy at the wash-tub, but the moment she saw her master running up the clearing, and knew the cause, she left her work, and snatching up the carving-knife, ran after him, that in case the bear should have the best of the fight, she would be there to help "the masther."
And even at the time he was writing those words Corporal Mapley was on patrol over an unknown route from Dawson to the Peel River, Inspector Genereux of Prince Albert was away on a 1,750-mile trip North, of 132 days by canoe and dog-train to investigate a case of alleged murder, Sergeant Fitzgerald was on patrol to the mouth of the Mackenzie River and Inspector Moodie was establishing new posts around the Hudson Bay all having a reassuring and stabilizing effect on the vast uncivilized North land.
One day, just before the snow fell, Moodie had gone to Peterborough for letters; our servant was sick in bed with the ague, and I was nursing my little boy, Dunbar, who was shaking with the cold fit of his miserable fever, when Jacob put his honest, round, rosy face in at the door. "Give me the master's gun, ma'am; there's a big buck feeding on the rice-bed near the island."
After much fatigue, Moodie climbed the hill, and we were once more safe by our own, fireside. Here we found the elucidation of Jenny's marvellous tales: a copy of the Queen's proclamation, calling upon all loyal gentlemen to join in putting down the unnatural rebellion.
One afternoon John ran into the room. "My dear Mrs. Moodie, what is Mrs. 's dog like?" "A large bull-dog, brindled black and white." "There, by Jove, I've shot him!" "John, John! you mean me to quarrel in earnest with my friend. How could you do it?" "Why, how the deuce should I know her dog from another?
If the Canadian people will honestly unite in carrying out measures proposed by the Government for the good of the country, irrespective of self-interest and party prejudices, they must, before the close of the present century, become a great and prosperous nationality. May the blessing of God rest upon Canada and the Canadian people! Susanna Moodie Belleville, 1871
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