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My story of how I
came to Canada and how the family which made me one of their number
got on in its backwoods has taken a long time to tell, yet I must
lengthen it to make known what became of some of the people
mentioned in the course of it. Tilly remained with us a year, when
she went to live with the Bambrays, who needed her help. When they,
later on, decided to end their days in their native town,
Huddersfield, she went with them to England. Once a year a letter
came from Mr Bambray, with a long postscript by Tilly, overflowing
with good wishes, and in each letter was a draft to help escaped
slaves get a fresh start in life. The worthy couple died several
years ago, making Tilly their chief legatee. She married a man for
whom she described herself as unworthy and who makes her happy every
day. When Ruth married she sent her a gift of $250 to furnish her
house. Ruth’s husband is a capable farmer, who is doing well. They
are an evenly matched team, pulling together and happy in each
other.
When Robbie came of
age the master divided his farm equally between his two sons, and
bought for himself six acres fronting Yonge-street. On this he built
a commodious house and a large greenhouse, for he designed carrying
on market-gardening. In an excavation deep enough to be below the
frost line the greenhouse was built, and there were other devices to
do with as little stove-heat as possible. Sloot, who had been left a
widower, and having no family, became the hired man and made his
home for the remainder of his life with the master and mistress, to
whom he was deeply attached. Twice a week he drove to market the
produce that was for sale, and though occupation not beyond their
strength was their purpose, remarkable profits were made off these
six acres. The mistress was happy in tending the greenhouse and
flower-beds, and in entertaining visitors, for they had many apart
from their own children and grand-children. They were honored far
and wide and a drive to their house, which they named Heatherbell
cottage, to have a chat and get a bouquet was a common recreation
with many Torontonians.
Of your mother I
need not speak; you know how happy we are in each other. We never
had any courtship—our lives from the first sight of her when I
ventured to seek shelter in her father’s house on that rainy day has
been one long dwelling in each other’s affections. As trees
strengthen with years, our attachment has grown deeper and purer.
Just as soon as I made my footing good in Toronto, our marriage took
place. Lovers before the ceremony we are lovers still. Ah, my dear
lassie, do not think love is a brief fever of youth—a transient
emotion that fades before the realities of wedded life like the glow
from a cloud at mom. Where love is of the true quality, it becomes
purer and tenderer with the passing years. Death may interrupt, but
cannot end such affection as ours, Love is eternal.
With Mr Kerr I kept up the exchange of letters he asked, and the
information and advice his contained have helped to shape my
character and opinions. The year after his arrival he started in
business for himself and prospered. His wife is the girl whom he was
courting when he fled from Greenock. Our visits to them are
delightful memories and you know how we enjoy their sojourns with
us. Jabez also became a Montrealer. The business of himself and
brothers as carters naturally merged into forwarders. As trade grew
it was found needful one should be in Montreal, and Jabez went.
Levelheaded and full of resource he soon came to the front in the
shipping-trade.
With Mr Snellgrove we had an unlooked for encounter. The master was
on a visit to us at Toronto. On reading notices of a meeting to be
held in favor of Protection and of the government issuing paper
currency instead of gold, we decided to attend. The first speaker
was Isaac Buchanan, who deluged us with figures about Bullionism and
the balance of trade. We were relieved when he ended. Then a college
professor read a paper on the Co-relation of Great Britain and her
Colonies. It was difficult to follow him. He was one of those
theoretical men who think forms of government and names can make a
country great. We started with astonishment on the chairman saying
he had pleasure in introducing Mr Snellgrove as the next speaker. It
was he sure enough, older but still spruce, and resplendent in full
evening dress. He did not touch on currency, but confined himself to
advocating a protective tariff so high that it would shut out
foreign goods. That would enable manufacturers to establish
themselves in Canada, and instead of a stream of gold going to
Britain and the United States the money would be spent for goods
made in Canada. See what a rich country we would become if we kept
our money here, he said; our great lack is capital to develop our
immense resources. We had the capital in our own hands but, blind to
our own interests, sent it away to Great BritaiD or, what was worse,
to the United States to build up a country that was hostile to us.
Like the Gulf Stream, which sweeping through the Atlantic enriches
every country it touches, he would have a golden circuit established
in Canada—the farmers would sell to the manufacturers and the money
paid them would continue to flow backward and forward to the
enrichment of both. The flowing of gold from our midst would be
stopped, and the farmers, with a home-market for all they could
raise, would become rich and view with delight factories rising on
every hand. All this could be accomplished by enacting a
judiciously-framed tariff and delay in doing so was not only keeping
Canada poor but endangering her future as a British dependency.
Applause followed Mr Snellgrove’s sitting down, and the chairman
praised him as a gentleman who had carefully thought out his
proposals, which commended themselves to every patriotic mind. We
wanted diversity of occupation and retention of the earnings of the
farmers in Canada; here was a method of effecting both these
desirable ends.
The master got on his feet and begged permission to be heard in
reply. He was invited to the platform and, with his usual directness
and force, at once assailed what Mr Snellgrove had advanced. He
says, let us have a law that will compel us to cease buying goods
abroad, for thereby the money now sent away will be kept in Canada.
What right has any government to pass such a law? With the money I
get for my wheat may I not buy what I need where I see fit? Such an
arbitrary law as he pleads for would undoubtedly help the
manufacturer, but would it help me, who am a farmer? The question I
ask, is not will the money stay in Canada, but will the money I have
justly earned stay in my pocket? I will be none the richer if the
money goes into the pocket of the owner of a factory. In the Old
Country the farmers carry the aristocracy who own the land on their
backs, are the laws of Canada to be so shaped that the farmers here
are to carry the manufacturers? It may not be plain to you city
gentlemen, but it is to me, that under the system you have heard
advocated, factories would increase and their owners grow rich while
the farmers would become poor, for they would have to pay more than
they now do for the goods necessity makes them buy. My family needs
about $300 worth of store-goods in a year. That is what I pay now.
Under Protection these same goods would cost me £400, perhaps more.
The Canadian manufacturers would be the richer by the hundred extra
dollars I would pay, and I would be the poorer by a hundred dollars.
The point at issue, is not keeping money in the country, but of
keeping it in the pockets of the men who first earned it by
cultivating the soil.
Canada is a farming
country and always will be, and taxing each farmer’s family on an
average of say a hundred dollars a year is going to discourage the
farmer. Let every tub stand on its own bottom. If any commodity can
be made ih Canada at a profit under present conditions, I wish all
success to the man who undertakes to make that commodity, but to tax
me to give the man a bonus to do so is to rob me of my honest
earnings. We have been told we want more population. Yes, if it be
of the right kind, of people who will go, as I did, into the bush
and carve out farms. These will add to our strength, but hordes
drawn from cities who cannot and will not take to the plow, will
prove in the long run a weakness. If you knew the poverty and misery
that exists among the factory operatives of the Old World you would
not entertain a project to bribe them to come here and reproduce the
same conditions. Today you have not a boggar on Toronto’s streets;
adopt Protection and you will have thousands of paupers. This is a
new country and our aim should be to make it one where honest
industry can find a sure reward in its forests and not be creating
factories by artificial means. As an Old Countryman, I take
exception to the land I came from being treated as foreign and a ban
placed on the goods it has to export. When I go into a store I like
to think what I am buying is helping those I left behind, and when I
pay for the cloth and other goods they made, do they not in return
buy the grain, the butter and cheese, and the pork I have to sell? I
protest against our government abusing its power to tax the farmers
to benefit the manufacturers. That is tyranny, and when farmers
understand that Protection is one of the meanest forms of despotism
they will revolt. This must be a free country, with no favor shown
to any class.
We saw gentlemen on the platform urging the chairman to stop the
master; he seemed reluctant to make a scene. Finally he did pull him
down, stating he was not speaking to the subject before the meeting.
The best reply to the disloyal outpouring to which they had listened
he considered was contemptuous silence. After votes of thanks the
meeting ended. The master advanced towards Mr Snellgrove to renew
his acquaintance. Mr Snellgrove turned his back upon him and left
with a group of gentlemen. I learned he held a government office.
I have a more unexpected meeting to relate. The sixth year after my
marriage, it had been arranged Christmas should be celebrated at
Allan’s and New Year’s at the master’s. We had been looking for what
people in Scotland dread, a Green Yule, for the ground was bare.
When we rose the morning before Christmas we were pleased to see it
white, and a gentle sifting of snow falling. Allan came for us early
in the afternoon and we filled his big sleigh with children and
parcels. We had just got into the house when the clouds lowered and
it became suddenly dark. You have seen in summer a gentle rain
prevail, until, all at once, a plump came that covered the ground
with streams of water. Once in a number of years the like happens
with snow, and a gentle fall turns into a smothering stream of
snowflakes. In an hour the ground was so cumbered that it reached to
the knees of those who ventured out. Supper was over and the romping
of the children was in full swing when Robbie cried he thought he
heard somebody shouting outside. There was a pause in the merriment
as he flung open the door. The snow had ceased to fall and the air
was calm and soft. A black object was seen on the road to the left,
from which came cries for help. Allan and Robbie dashed into the
snow and struggled through it. We watched them but it was too dark
to see what they did on reaching the road. Our suspense was ended on
seeing them returning with a stranger, and leading a horse. Robbie
took the horse to the stable; Allan and the stranger, covered with
snow entered. After brushing him and taking off his wraps the
stranger stood before us, a good-looking man past middle life. He
explained he had left home that morning for Toronto, his chief
errand to get the supplies and presents the lack of sleighing had
hindered his going for sooner. Overtaken by the unlooked for
downfall, he had halted at a tavern undecided what to do. The
barroom was crowded. A man told him, on hearing where he was going,
if he took the first turn to his left, he would find a road that
would be passable, for it was sheltered by bush.
Anxious to get
home, and the tavern accommodation not inviting, he had, after
watering his horse, started anew. Half an hour or so later, while
pushing slowly along, a runner of his cutter had struck some
obstacle, the horse plunged forward, tipping the rig. On getting on
his feet, on lifting the cutter, he found a runner had been wrenched
off, and there he was helpless. Seeing the lights of our house, he
shouted, and, for a long time, he thought in vain. While he was
speaking, my memory was groping to place a voice that seemed an echo
of one I had heard in the past. I looked at the face, but in the
firm-set features that told of wrestling with the world, I found no
aid. It was not until the house-colley went up to sniff at him and
he stooped to pat its head that it flashed on me the stranger was
the shepherd-lad who had befriended me in my weary tramp across
Ayrshire. Facing him, I said, ‘Is not your name Archie? ‘It is,’ he
replied, looking surprised. ‘And do you not remember the ragged boy
your dog found under a bush, how you shared your bite with him; how
we sat under your plaid and read the bible and heard each other the
questions?’ As I spoke I could tell by his face his memory too way
at work. ‘Yes, yes,’ he exclaimed, ‘it all comes back to me, and you
are curly-headed Gordon Sellar.’ Had we been of any other race the
right thing to do would have been to have fallen into -each other
arms, but seeing we were undemonstrative Scots we gripped hands
though I could not hold back the tears of gratitude on seeing the
man who had been so kind to me. His coming was no damper to the
evening’s joy. He made himself at home at once, and before he was
ten minutes among us the children were clambering over him, for he
had joined them in their play. He was the same free-hearted,
easily-pleased lad I had known.
When, late in the
evening, I took him to his room, we had a long talk, and the fire of
friendship kindled on the Ayrshire braeside burned again. We had
breakfast together long before daylight, for he was anxious to get
home. It had been settled Allan would lend his team and long sleigh,
and that I drive. The sound of sleighbells brought us to our feet,
and at the door was the sleigh with the broken cutter piled into it
with all the parcels that had been picked out of the snow, and tied
to the seat was Archie’s mare. I hesitated leaving Alice on such a
day, but she insisted I must go with my friend. It was not a long
drive but it was a slow one. I turned back into Yonge street, where
there would be a track broken, and kept on it until we reached the
corner to turn westward. We halted an hour at the corner-tavern to
feed and rest the horses, which could not have made the headway they
were making had they not been a noble team, Allan’s pride. The way,
however, was not long to us, for we had much to talk about Archie
narrated his past life, and, curious about mine, I had to tell him
my simple story. Reserve there was none. Once again we were boys,
rejoicing in each other, and warming to one another as true friends
do in exchanging their inmost confidences.
I will not relate
what he told, for I will weave into his narrative what I got
afterwards from his sister and his father and mother, and present it
in connected form. We were passing down a concession, which had
every indication of being a prosperous settlement, when Archie
pointed to a brick house in the far-distance as his. On drawing near
we found its inmates had been on the watch, for tumbling through the
snow came four children, who clambered in beside us, rejoiced to see
their father and anxious to know what he had brought for them. On
reaching, at last, the house there was gathered at the door the two
oldest of the family, a fine-looking girl and a tall lad, with the
mother, and behind them an aged couple. A hired man took the team,
but the mare, looking to the lad at the door, whinnied. He jumped
forward and led her to her stall. ‘That is his pony,’ remarked
Archie. What a scene of rejoicing on that day of joy the world over!
Mrs Craig, to give
her name, told how they had waited the night before for the coming
of Archie until the younger members fell asleep in their chairs, how
they had kept supper warm, and how, not until two in the morning,
they had gone to bed, convinced he had stayed overnight somewhere on
the road, for the possibility of misadventure they would not admit.
The forenoon had been of more anxious waiting, for as time slipped
they began to dread an accident had befallen him. To have him back
safe, and the parcels safe, was perfect joy, and the two youngest
darted from the house to try the sleds Santa Claus had sent them by
their father. Mrs Craig, a tidy purpose-like woman was profuse in
thanks to me for helping her husband. Archie's father and mother
struck me, at the first glance, as the finest old couple my eyes had
ever rested upon. He was tall and rugged in frame, as became an old
shepherd, but his face was a benediction—so calm, so composed, such
a look of perfect content. His companion recalled grannie, only more
alert. Burns might have taken them as models for his song, John
Anderson, my Jo.
As the sun was
setting there was a shout of ‘Auntie,’ and the youngsters bounded
down the long lane to meet a sleigh that was dragging its way
through snow as high as the box. Auntie was Archie’s sister—like him
yet unlike, the same features of softer mould, lighted up with merry
smiles that told of a happy heart. And there were children with her,
and her husband, a stout hearty man with a loud voice. Sleigh after
sleigh drove up the lane, each hailed with shouting and laughter,
for each one brought not only the elders of the household but their
children. What a shaking of hands and interchange of good wishes
there was, and then came supper. There were over fifty guests, but
there was ample preparation in the big back kitchen, where supper
was served. When all had enough, including the dogs and Maisie’s
pussies, the older folk moved to the front room. In a jiffy dishes
and temporary tables disappeared in that big back kitchen, and the
youngsters began their games. By-and-by a fiddle was heard, and I am
afraid there was dancing. We had a happy evening. Two-handed cracks,
stories, jokes, songs, made the time pass too quickly. It was a
novelty to me that all the guests were either Irish or English; fine
people, intelligent, wideawake as to the necessity of advancing and
making improvements. Plates of apples and fruit cake appearing
notified the time for parting had come, and in more than one
mother’s arms rested a little one who had crept in from the big
kitchen too sleepy to remain longer. In shaking hands with my
newfound acquaintances, they all pled with me to pay them a visit.
Before I fell asleep, I thought of what a fine yeomanry dwelt in the
settlement, and the misfortune it would be if, by any legislative
misstep, they were constrained to leave the farm.
Next morning I had, of course, to visit the stables and see the
live-stock, and to judge as far as was possible, with two feet of
snow resting upon it, of the farm and its surroundings. Every detail
told of a capable and energetic farmer, who knew a good horse and
the best use that could be made of pig and cow. There were no loose
ends, everything was in its place and in the best of order. The hour
I was left alone with Archie’s father and mother was as refreshing
as a breeze from Scotia’s heath-clad hills. On asking grannie
whether Mirren and Archie were her only children she answered,
‘There are two biding with the Lord.’ After listening to what they
told me of how they came to Canada, of what Mirren and Archie had
done for them, my heart swelled in thanking God that filial piety
still cast luster on humanity. After an early dinner I left and
reached Allan’s in time to share in the after-feast of the fragments
of Christmas good things. Many a visit I have since that day paid to
Archie, and many he has to me. It may be that neither of us having a
brother we crept so close together that we are supremely happy in
each others company even if we utter not a word. |
