He had, too, an odious way of finding fault with everything. I never could cook to please him; and he tried in the most malicious way to induce Moodie to join in his complaints. All his schemes to make strife between us, however, failed, and were generally visited upon himself. In no way did he ever seek to render me the least a.s.sistance. Shortly after Jacob left us, Mary Pine was offered higher wages by a family at Peterborough, and for some time I was left with four little children, and without a servant. Moodie always milked the cows, because I never could overcome my fear of cattle; and though I had occasionally milked when there was no one else in the way, it was in fear and trembling.
Moodie had to go down to Peterborough; but before he went, he begged Malcolm to bring me what water and wood I required, and to stand by the cattle while I milked the cows, and he would himself be home before night.
He started at six in the morning, and I got the pail to go and milk.
Malcolm was lying upon his bed, reading.
"Mr. Malcolm, will you be so kind as to go with me to the fields for a few minutes while I milk?"
"Yes!" (then, with a sulky frown), "but I want to finish what I am reading."
"I will not detain you long."
"Oh, no! I suppose about an hour. You are a shocking bad milker."
"True; I never went near a cow until I came to this country; and I have never been able to overcome my fear of them."
"More shame for you! A farmer"s wife, and afraid of a cow!
Why, these little children would laugh at you."
I did not reply, nor would I ask him again. I walked slowly to the field, and my indignation made me forget my fear. I had just finished milking, and with a br.i.m.m.i.n.g pail was preparing to climb the fence and return to the house, when a very wild ox we had came running with headlong speed from the wood. All my fears were alive again in a moment. I s.n.a.t.c.hed up the pail, and, instead of climbing the fence and getting to the house, I ran with all the speed I could command down the steep hill towards the lake sh.o.r.e; my feet caught in a root of the many stumps in the path, and I fell to the ground, my pail rolling many yards a-head of me. Every drop of my milk was spilt upon the gra.s.s. The ox pa.s.sed on. I gathered myself up and returned home. Malcolm was very fond of new milk, and he came to meet me at the door.
"Hi! hi!--Where"s the milk?"
"No milk for the poor children to-day," said I, showing him the inside of the pail, with a sorrowful shake of the head, for it was no small loss to them and me.
"How the devil"s that? So you were afraid to milk the cows. Come away, and I will keep off the buggaboos."
"I did milk them--no thanks to your kindness, Mr. Malcolm--but--"
"But what?"
"The ox frightened me, and I fell and spilt all the milk."
"Whew! Now don"t go and tell your husband that it was all my fault; if you had had a little patience, I would have come when you asked me, but I don"t choose to be dictated to, and I won"t be made a slave by you or any one else."
"Then why do you stay, sir, where you consider yourself so treated?"
said I. "We are all obliged to work to obtain bread; we give you the best share--surely the return we ask for it is but small."
"You make me feel my obligations to you when you ask me to do anything; if you left it to my better feelings we should get on better."
"Perhaps you are right. I will never ask you to do anything for me in future."
"Oh, now, that"s all mock-humility. In spite of the tears in your eyes, you are as angry with me as ever; but don"t go to make mischief between me and Moodie. If you"ll say nothing about my refusing to go with you, I"ll milk the cows for you myself to-night."
"And can you milk?" said I, with some curiosity.
"Milk! Yes; and if I were not so confoundedly low-spirited and--lazy, I could do a thousand other things too. But now, don"t say a word about it to Moodie."
I made no promise; but my respect for him was not increased by his cowardly fear of reproof from Moodie, who treated him with a kindness and consideration which he did not deserve.
The afternoon turned out very wet, and I was sorry that I should be troubled with his company all day in the house. I was making a shirt for Moodie from some cotton that had been sent me from home, and he placed himself by the side of the stove, just opposite, and continued to regard me for a long time with his usual sullen stare.
I really felt half afraid of him.
"Don"t you think me mad!" said he. "I have a brother deranged; he got a stroke of the sun in India, and lost his senses in consequence; but sometimes I think it runs in the family."
What answer could I give to this speech, but mere evasive common-place!
"You won"t say what you really think," he continued; "I know you hate me, and that makes me dislike you. Now what would you say if I told you I had committed a murder, and that it was the recollection of that circ.u.mstance that made me at times so restless and unhappy?"
I looked up in his face, not knowing what to believe.
""Tis fact," said he, nodding his head; and I hoped that he would not go mad, like his brother, and kill me.
"Come, I"ll tell you all about it; I know the world would laugh at me for calling such an act MURDER; and yet I have been such a miserable man ever since, that I FEEL it was.
"There was a noted leader among the rebel Buenos-Ayreans, whom the government wanted much to get hold of. He was a fine, dashing, handsome fellow; I had often seen him, but we never came to close quarters. One night, I was lying wrapped up in my poncho at the bottom of my boat, which was rocking in the surf, waiting for two of my men, who were gone on sh.o.r.e. There came to the sh.o.r.e, this man and one of his people, and they stood so near the boat, that I could distinctly hear their conversation. I suppose it was the devil who tempted me to put a bullet through the man"s heart. He was an enemy to the flag under which I fought, but he was no enemy to me--I had no right to become his executioner; but still the desire to kill him, for the mere devilry of the thing, came so strongly upon me that I no longer tried to resist it. I rose slowly upon my knees; the moon was shining very bright at the time, both he and his companion were too earnestly engaged to see me, and I deliberately shot him through the body. He fell with a heavy groan back into the water; but I caught the last look he threw upon the moonlight skies before his eyes glazed in death. Oh, that look!--so full of despair, of unutterable anguish; it haunts me yet--it will haunt me for ever.
I would not have cared if I had killed him in strife--but in cold blood, and he so unsuspicious of his doom! Yes, it was murder; I know by this constant tugging at my heart that it was murder. What do you say to it?"
"I should think as you do, Mr. Malcolm. It is a terrible thing to take away the life of a fellow-creature without the least provocation."
"Ah! I know you would blame me; but he was an enemy after all; I had a right to kill him; I was hired by the government under whom I served to kill him; and who shall condemn me?"
"No one more than your own heart."
"It is not the heart, but the brain, that must decide in questions of right and wrong," said he. "I acted from impulse, and shot that man; had I reasoned upon it for five minutes, the man would be living now. But what"s done cannot be undone. Did I ever show you the work I wrote upon South America?"
"Are you an author," said I, incredulously.
"To be sure I am. Murray offered me 100 pounds for my ma.n.u.script, but I would not take it. Shall I read to you some pa.s.sages from it?"
I am sorry to say that his behaviour in the morning was uppermost in my thoughts, and I had no repugnance in refusing.
"No, don"t trouble yourself. I have the dinner to cook, and the children to attend to, which will cause a constant interruption; you had better defer it to some other time."
"I shan"t ask you to listen to me again," said he, with a look of offended vanity; but he went to his trunk, and brought out a large MS., written on foolscap, which he commenced reading to himself with an air of great self-importance, glancing from time to time at me, and smiling disdainfully. Oh, how glad I was when the door opened, and the return of Moodie broke up this painful tete-a-tete.
From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. The very next day, Mr. Malcolm made his appearance before me, wrapped in a great-coat belonging to my husband, which literally came down to his heels.
At this strange apparition, I fell a-laughing.
"For G.o.d"s sake, Mrs. Moodie, lend me a pair of inexpressibles.
I have met with an accident in crossing the fence, and mine are torn to shreds--gone to the devil entirely."
"Well, don"t swear. I"ll see what can be done for you."
I brought him a new pair of fine, drab-colored kersey-mere trousers that had never been worn. Although he was eloquent in his thanks, I had no idea that he meant to keep them for his sole individual use from that day thenceforth. But after all, what was the man to do? He had no trousers, and no money, and he could not take to the woods.
Certainly his loss was not our gain. It was the old proverb reversed.
The season for putting in the potatoes had now arrived. Malcolm volunteered to cut the sets, which was easy work that could be done in the house, and over which he could lounge and smoke; but Moodie told him that he must take his share in the field, that I had already sets enough saved to plant half-an-acre, and would have more prepared by the time they were required. With many growls and shrugs, he felt obliged to comply; and he performed his part pretty well, the execrations bestowed upon the mosquitoes and black-flies forming a sort of safety-valve to let off the concentrated venom of his temper. When he came in to dinner, he held out his hands to me.