Susanna Moodie

“ Mason, was not unheeded by Sophy Grimshawe, who, gliding across the room, said, in a soft, persuasive voice: "Mr. Cotton, if you will step into the next house, I will give you my bed for the night."
"The bold hussy!" muttered Martha.
"Is it far to go?" and Noah shuddered, as he glanced into the black night.
"Only a step; just out of one door into the other. If you be afraid," she continued, looking up into his gloomy but handsome face with an arch smile, "I will protect you. I am afraid of thunder, but not of ghosts. Come along; depend upon it we shall not see anything worse than ourselves." ”

“ Noah. Your reasons."
My eyes sought the ground. I felt the colour glow upon my cheeks, and I answered in a voice trembling with emotion,—"Because, if I were a gentleman, Miss Ella, I might then hope that you would love me; and that I might one day ask you for my wife."
The young thing sprang from the ground as if stung by a viper, her eyes flashing and her cheek crimson with passion. "You are an impertinent, vulgar fellow," she cried! "You dare to think of marrying a lady! You, who have not even fortune to atone for your plebeian name and low origin! ”

“ Horror was depicted on every countenance. Some who had known the 'Squire for years shed tears. I could not; but I gladly buried my face in my handkerchief, to shut out the dreadful spectacle. The moon, peering down between the branches of the trees, looked full in the dead man's face. Those glassy upturned eyes chilled my heart to stone with their fixed icy stare.
Oh! it is terrible to see a man so full of life and health but yesterday, look thus.
"Is he quite dead?" said George Norton. "My poor dear master!—my good generous master! Noah, lend a hand to raise him up." ”

“ The mist penetrated every where—it hid the sails, floated above the cold, damp, slippery deck, and entered the very cabin, chilling their hearts with apathy and gloom.
Nature had suddenly started from her mesmeric trance, and was wide awake once more; and all the human hearts imprisoned in the Anne responded to her electric touch. The very ship seemed endowed with living power, and bounded over the long rolling surges as if she felt the impetus of the fresh wind which filled her canvas in all her creaking timbers. ”

“ Very few of the emigrants had ventured out of the steerage, being down with sea-sickness; but Flora never suffered once from this distressing malady during the voyage. This morning, in particular, she felt well and in high spirits—a sense of glorious freedom in thus bounding over the free, glad waves, in feeling their spray upon her lips, and the fresh wild breath of the wind fanning her cheek, and whistling through her hair. ”

“ The raven of remorse is again flapping her black wings around my head. My sleep is haunted by frightful dreams. "There is no peace for the wicked." The sight of this woman fills me with dismay.
My wife is unhappy. She does not complain, but her cheeks are deadly pale, and she is wasted to a shadow. I dare not inquire the cause of her grief. I remember the sad, patient face of my mother, and I tremble lest Sophy has discovered my guilt. ”

“ Men, like wolves, are often great cowards alone; but give them a few companions in crime, and pusillanimity is instantly converted into ferocity. The coward is always cruel; the mean-spirited, merciless. The consciousness that two of my fellow-men premeditated committing the same crime, wonderfully strengthened me in my resolution of plunging my soul into the abyss of guilt. I had another passion to gratify, which had rankled for years in my breast,—that of revenge. A wish to over-reach and disappoint Bill Martin was a stronger incentive to this deed than the mere lucre of gain. ”

“ She regarded every well-dressed female who passed the door with feelings of envy and hatred, which embittered her life, and formed the most painful feature in the poverty she loathed and despised.
Charlotte, the sick girl, was two years younger than Sophy, and very different in person, mind, and character. A fair, soft, delicate face, more winning than handsome, but full of gentleness and sweetness, was a perfect transcript of the pure spirit that animated the faithful heart in which it was enshrined. ”

“ The clay perishes; but that which gives value to the clay shall flourish in immortal youth and beauty when the heavens shall be no more. 'Then shall the righteous shine forth like the sun'—Ah, me! I [98] have forgotten the rest of the text, but you, Mary, know it well; let it console you, my dear girl, and dry these useless tears. I was pretty, like Sophy, once, and, like her, I thought too highly of myself. Look at me now. Look at these wrinkled care-worn cheeks—these wasted, useless limbs; are they not a lesson to human pride and vanity? I never knew my real character until I knew grief. ”

“ The first on deck, and the last to leave, he was a living embodiment of the long-sought-for principle of perpetual motion: his legs and tongue never seemed to tire, and his loud, clear voice and joyous peals of laughter, rang unceasingly through the ship. When not singing, whistling, shouting, or making fun for all around him, he danced hornpipes, making his fingers keep time with his feet, by a continual snapping, which resembled the strokes of the tambourine or castanets. A more mercurial jovial fellow never set old Time at defiance, or laughed in the grisly face of Care. ”

“ With returning health and spirits, Flora's mind recovered its former tone. She felt not only contented, but happy, and submitted herself with child-like confidence to the protecting care of the universal Father.
All, doubtless, she thought, is ordained for the best. If not for us, for our children. Others have toiled for us; it is but right that we should toil in our turn. It is to the workers, not to the dreamers, that earth opens up her treasures. ”

“ Carlos,—do you mean to insult me by speaking in this jeering way of my parents?"
"Not in the least, Noah; so don't look at me with that fierce black eye, as if you took me for a hare or a pheasant, or, worse than either, for Bill Martin. You ought to know that I am your friend,—have been your friend from a child; and if you continue to conduct yourself as you have done, will befriend you for life." ”

“ The night before we removed to the Porched House—for so my new home was called—I waited until after my mother had retired to her bed, and then carefully removed from its hiding-place the sack and its fatal contents. The waggoner's frock and hat, together with the sack, I burned in a field at the back of the Lodge, and then slunk back, like a guilty wretch, under the cover of night and darkness, to my own chamber. It was some time before I could muster sufficient courage to open the pocket-book. ”

“ Look at Mary: her lot is harder than yours, yet she never repines."
Sophy flashed a scornful look at her sister, as she replied—
"Mary is not exposed to the same temptations. Nature has placed her beyond them. I am handsome, and several years younger than her. She is deformed, and has a frightful impediment in her speech, and is so plain that no one could fall in love with her, or wish to make her a wife. Men think her hideous, but they do not laugh at her for being poor and shabby as they do at me." ”

“ Sophy knelt down by the hearth, and raking among the ashes succeeded at last in finding a live coal, which she blew into a blaze, and lighting a candle she had left on the table, placed it before him.
Her strange guest had sunk down into a large wooden arm-chair beside it, his head bent upon his clasped hands, his eyes shut, and traces of tears upon his death-pale cheeks; his lips were firmly compressed, and his countenance immovable and rigid.
Sophy gazed long and silently upon him. The sympathy of woman, be she good or bad, is always touched by the sight of a man's tears. ”

“ I hate gentlemen on board ship!"
Mr. Wright, with his silver hair and mild pale face, was a great favourite with Flora, and while he carried Josey in his arms to and fro the deck, she listened with pleasure to the sad history of his misfortunes, or to the graphic pictures he drew of the countries he had visited during a long life spent at sea. He fancied that Josey was the image of the last dear babe he lost,—his pet and darling, whom he never mentioned without emotion—his blue-eyed Bessy. ”

“ Sophy did not care for the rain; the dulness of the day was more congenial to her present feelings: the gay beams of the sun would have seemed a mockery to her bitter sorrow.
As they passed through the village, a troop of idle boys followed them into the turnpike road, shouting at the top of their voices,—
"There goes Noah Cotton's wife!—the murderer's wife! Look how grand she be in her fine chaise!"
"Ay," responded some human fiend, through an open window, loud enough to reach the ears of the grief-stricken woman; "but pride will have a fall." ”

“ Can you lend a willing ear to such idle tales? He can neither divorce his wife nor marry you, poor, foolish girl—wicked, I should add, for your conduct, when your situation is taken into consideration, is an aggravation of hardened guilt."
"It's no business of yours, at any rate," sobbed Hannah, who had tears always at command. "I don't mean to lose the chance of being a lady in order to keep my word with you. You may get somebody else to wait on you and the child; I won't."
And she flounced back to her berth, and cried till the Captain went to console her. ”

“ In the meridian of life she found her physical strength prostrate, and her body a useless broken machine, no longer responsive to the guidance, or obedient to the will of its possessor. An active mind shut up in a dead body,—an imprisoned bird, vainly beating itself against the walls of its cage. Human nature could scarcely furnish a more melancholy spectacle; speech, sight, and hearing, were still hers; but the means of locomotion were lost to her for ever. ”

“ Vast sheets of foam enveloped the vessel, and huge billows thundered upon her deck. Not a stitch of canvas was to be seen; some of the sails had been rent from the mast by the gale; the rest were close furled. Lyndsay and four other men [290] were at the rudder, to keep the ship in her course. The roaring of the winds and waves was deafening. Flora's heart beat violently for a moment, then grew calm before the grandeur of the scene.
"We are in the hands of God!" she thought; "in life and death we are His. Submission to His will is the sublimity of faith!"
In the cabin everything was loose. ”

“ I have heard papa say—and he fought under him in Spain—that it takes a century to produce a Wellington."
"I think papa did the Duke great injustice," said Walter. "There is not one of the heroes of antiquity to compare to him. Julius Cæsar was not a greater conqueror than Napoleon, and Wellington beat him. But great as the Duke is, Miss Ella, he was a boy once—a soldier of fortune, as I shall be; and who knows but that I may win as great a name?"
"It is a good thing, to have a fine conceit of one's self," said the provoking girl. "And what would you like to be, Noah?" ”

“ Sophy's hand trembled in his. A bright crimson suffused her cheek, her heart leaped wildly within her breast; but she could not find a word of answer.
"I have been a bachelor all my life," continued Noah, "and a dull, cheerless life it has been to me. I had a mother to take care of in her old age, and I loved her too well to place a wife over her, who had been so long the mistress of my home. She is only lately dead, and I feel lonely and sad without her. I have often thought that I could love a wife very much. I am sure I could love you. ”

“ Stephen Corrie was one whom the world generally calls an "excellent-hearted fellow, an enemy to no one but himself."
We must confess that our faith in this class of excellent fellows is very small;—these men who are always sinning, and tempting others to sin, in the most amiable manner. There are few individuals who do more mischief in their day and generation than these good-hearted young men, these sworn enemies to temperance and morality. Like phosphoric wood, they only shine in the dark, concealing under a gay, brilliant exterior, the hollowness and corruption that festers within. ”

“ My paradise was in the past, but the avenging angel guarded the closed gates with his flaming sword. My present was the gulf of black despair; my future was a blank, or worse. Oh, agony of agonies!—how have I contrived to endure so much, and yet live?
Death! The good alone can contemplate death with composure. Guilt is a dreadful coward. The bad dare not die. ”

“ I never knew how dear you were to me, Noah, until that night. How painful it would be to me to part with you for ever!"
"It was cruel and selfish in me, Sophy, to join your fate to mine,—a monster, stained with the blackest crimes. But I thought myself secure from detection; thought that my sin would never find me out, that I had managed matters with such incomparable skill that discovery was impossible, that the wide earth did not contain a witness of my guilt. Fool that I was! The voice of blood never sleeps ”

“ How often amid the dark woods of Canada did the stern sublimity of that awful scene return to Flora Lyndsay in her dreams! The barren coast of Anticosti, the pine-covered precipices of freestone that frown over Chaleur Bay, and the mountain range which extends on the north of the St. Lawrence from the Gulf to Quebec, though they present every variety of savage scenery, cannot compete with the lonely, sterile grandeur which [37] marks the dashing of the ocean waves into that Highland loch. ”