Chapter LXXIX (7)

When Lord Durham arrived in Canada, he found this party in the situation of masses of threatening, but scattered clouds. Some had voluntarily withdrawn to the States; others were there, either to escape arrest, or from consciousness of their guilt in the rebellion. The great body of the party remained in the province, with all those feelings towards England and her loyalists, that humbled pride, many sufferings, a contemptible struggle, and a mortifying defeat, were likely to engender. But though the storm had passed over, the clouds were nearly all left. The party had, in reality, gained by experience much more than it had lost in numbers. It had come to the understanding that England's great right arm could not be so easily broken. It had learned, and its friends in the States had learned--what was most useful to both under the circumstances--that if England's institutions were to be destroyed in America, it must be done by some other means than by blows and bayonets.

And it was with this party, thus situated, and composed of the materials, and influenced by the considerations, we have mentioned, that Lord Durham proposed, by a union of the provinces, to neutralise the legislative influence of the French of Lower Canada--to destroy their supremacy, which was pregnant with rebellion, and to subvert their power, which had been synonymous with decay. For without the aid of this party, or a great portion of it, the loyalists could not accomplish this; much less could it ever be accomplished if this party should happen to unite with the French. A vast power, too, whether for good or for evil, and hitherto unknown in a colony, was thrown among them all to be scrambled for. We mean a power analogous to that of the ministry in England, and known by the name of a Responsible Government in Canada. This power, always held in England by the heads of great parties--by men of lofty intellects and great characters--by men who were literally invested with the moral worth, the intelligence, the rank, and the honour of millions--this mighty power was tossed up in the Canadas like a cap in a crowd, to fall upon the head of whomsoever it might chance. It mattered not whether it was a Frenchman, the dearest object of whose existence was the destruction of England's power, that gained the majority. The cap must be his. It mattered not whether it was a democrat, whose secret but highest aim was the annihilation of England's monarchy, that succeeded at the elections: the mantle of England's honour, and of upholding England's crown in America, must fall upon him. We should be sorry to propose the curtailment of a single privilege of a single Briton, in any part of the world where the flag of his country waves over him. In what we shall have to say hereafter as to the government of the colonies, we do not intend doing so. But what we mean to say of this vast power, which was thrown among the people to be scrambled for at this time in the Canadas, is, that what in England must have been, from the very nature of things, a guarantee for all orders in the state being preserved and protected under it, was in the Canadas, equally from the nature of things, precisely the reverse. No ministry in England could be formed without the nobility, the gentry, the wealth--all that owed its all to the preservation of the institutions of the country--being represented in it. In the Canadas a ministry could be--yes, from the very nature of things, a ministry must be--formed, where Frenchmen, who hated England--where democrats, who hated monarchy, must control the destinies of England's subjects--the existence of England's empire in the west. We would not be understood, therefore, as desiring to curtail a single privilege; but we would, nevertheless, keep edge-tools out of the hands of madmen and enemies. We would not remove the rope from the neck of another to put it round our own.

Extraordinary though it seem that human credulity could go so far--if the character of the parties, if the character even of the measures of the parties, in Upper Canada was understood--as to expect that the giving to the one which had opposed the government, as it were by nature, the power, by uniting with the French, of crushing its enemies for ever, that it would not do so; that it would not join with its old allies in dividing the spoils of prosperity, as it had already done in sharing the mortifications of defeat; that it would not join them, even for the purpose of having revenge, each of its own enemy in its own province;--yet such was the hope, such the infatuation of Lord Durham. He let a little stream of abstract right fall into a whole sea of French prejudices and democratic infatuations, and he expected that it would change the great face of the waters. And what has been the result?--that the little stream has been lost in the great sea; that, instead of its changing the sea, it has but added to its weight; that all the prejudices, all the infatuations are left; and the power that was expected to change them has been converted into tools for them to work with.

Up to the last election, the French had never fairly recovered their former influence, or rather had not the opportunity of fully exerting their powers in the elections. Up to the same period, the reform party, as they styled themselves in Upper Canada, had laboured under a similar disadvantage. The latter had suffered for the want of its leaders, three of whom were outlaws in the States, as well as from other causes. But at the last election--a fair one for all parties--the French recovered all their former power, and the Upper Canadian party all its former counties. The French, therefore, were making all the strides they could towards the domination that, according to Lord Durham, was pregnant with rebellion; the reform party had just the opportunity that he fondly wished for them, of checking the evil, and of establishing an enlightened and moderate British party between the two extremes. And what did they do? The measures and the facts must speak for themselves.

The following resolution, moved by Mr Lafontaine, attorney-general for Lower Canada, taken in the abstract, would seem harmless and fair enough:--

"Resolved, that this house do now resolve itself into a
committee to take into consideration the necessity of
establishing the amount of losses incurred by certain
inhabitants of Lower Canada during the _political troubles_ of
1837 and 1838, and of providing for the payment thereof."

But when the following commentary of items, intended to be paid under it, is added to it, the nature of the _political troubles_ of 1837 and 1838, and the intention of the resolution, will be better understood:--

_Items selected from the Report of the Commissioners appointed
to ascertain the Amount of Rebellion Losses in Lower Canada,
and their observations thereon_:--

"No. 1109. Wolfred Nelson, Montreal. Property destroyed,
£23,109, 19s. 5d.; but Dr Nelson deducts the amount of his
liabilities (_for which his creditors have claimed, or may
claim_) and claims the balance only, say £12,379, 12s. 7d.

1089. Pierre Beauchere, St Ours. £69, 10s., quartering
insurgents under the command of 'General Mathiot,' and £131,
6s. 3d. for imprisonment five months and nine days.

1107. Jos. Guimond, Chateauguay, conviction recorded. The wife
claims £8, 10s. for the purchase of the confiscated estate
bought by her.

P. N. Pacaud, Three Rivers. Claims £400 for false imprisonment,
and £25 for expenses there, and £500 for absence from the
Province, to avoid arrest, &c.

27. J. Dorion, M.D., St Ours. Claims £300 as due from Dr
Nelson's estate; £175 for three months' imprisonment, &c.

32. Theophile Robert, Montreal. Conviction recorded. Claims
£215 for loss of time whilst in exile.

34. Cyrille Beaudriault, Sault au Recollet. Claims £268, 16s.
for interest, and £200 profit, on the goods destroyed and
pillaged.

77. Church of St Cyprien, Napierville. The sum of £327, 12s.
6d. was taken from the treasury of the Church, forcibly, by Dr
Cote, against the will and remonstrance of the churchwardens.

398. Jos. Dumouchel, Ste. Martine. Conviction recorded. Claims
£1878, 13s. 9d., including £525 for compensation for seven
years' imprisonment and exile.

564. Etienne Langlois, Blairfindie. Conviction recorded. Claims
£345 for loss of time while in exile, and £34 passage from
Sidney to Canada.

565. Louis Pinsonneau, St Remi. Conviction recorded. Claims
£2275, 10s. 9d., including £855, 15s. for imprisonment and
exile.

634. David Blanchette, St Cyprien. Conviction recorded. Claims
£520, 16s. 8d. for imprisonment and exile.

654. Pierre Lavois, St Cyprien. Conviction recorded. Claims
£300 for being exiled six years, at £50 per annum.

656. Louis Laurelin, St Cyprien, claims £50 for imprisonment
and expenses, having been acquitted.

789. Luc H. Masson, St Benoit, claims £450 for the interruption
of his business during three years.

Euph. Lamard, St Réme. Conviction recorded. Claims £519,
including £150, six years' rent of property destroyed.

838. Archelaus Welch, West Farnham, claims £80, 7s. 6d. loss on
sale of timber, on account of the troubles in 1837.

850. Théodore Béchard, Blairfrudie. Conviction recorded. Claims
£670, 6s. 8d., value of his estate confiscated and purchased by
his wife.

931. Edouard Major, Ste. Scholastique, claims £921, 4s. 7d.,
including £250 for interest, and £150 for the loss of profit,
in discontinuing business.

992. Léandre Ducharme, Montreal. Conviction recorded. Claims
for imprisonment and transportation, living in exile, and
passage home, £262, 5s.

1327. B. Viger, Boucherville, claims £2000. Exile to Bermuda.

1651. C. Baiseune, St Benoit, claims £150 for three years'
exclusion from his profession as a notary, owing to the loss of
his books, when prepared to pass his examination as notary.

1812. J. B. Archambeault, and 216 others, of St Eustache, claim
£489, 13s. for guns taken and not returned to the owners.

1916. Ninety Persons of St Eustache, for guns taken and not
returned, £205, 0s. 10d.

1951. F. Dionne, St Cesaire, claims £12 per annum, or £200 for
his brother, who lost his senses from imprisonment and ill
usage.

2215. H. D'Eschambault, Boucherville, claims the sum of
£12,000, as partner of Dr Nelson, for the creditors of the
joint estate; but as the separate creditors have filed, or will
file, their separate claims, this claim is not inserted. Dr
Nelson also deducted this amount from his claim, as still due
to the creditors of the firm.

2174. L. Perrault, Montreal, claims £500, absence in the United
States, and £1105, loss of business."

That this flagitious calendar of charges was deliberately intended to be paid by her Majesty's Canadian ministry, it may probably be more satisfactory to the reader to establish by the testimony of that ministry itself, than by any statements of our own.

Mr Merritt, the president of the council, and occupying a similar position in the government of Canada that Lord John Russell does in the government of England, thus writes to his constituents, who had addressed him on the subject, and remonstrated against paying these charges:--"On becoming a member of the government (he was appointed president of the council upon Mr Sullivan's being raised to the bench, a short time before the meeting of parliament) _I found their payment determined on by the administration_." The reader will observe, that it was against the payment of the items above quoted, that Mr Merritt's constituents remonstrated. He answered, that their payment was decided upon before he took office. But he continues:--"My first impression was, I confess, against it; but I soon became convinced that they had no alternative. I neither wish to be misunderstood, nor relieved from responsibility. Although the government approved of Mr Boulton's amendment, [which was an amendment of its own resolution,] which excludes those who were sent to Bermuda, I was prepared to vote for excluding none." That is to say,--Mr Merritt had the manliness to risk his character, by voting for what his fellow-ministers had convinced him was necessary. They wanted the manliness to do what they had previously convinced him, according to their ideas, would be but an act of justice.

But the fact was, her Majesty's Canadian Executive Council had calculated too highly upon their own strength, or, having provoked the storm, they shrunk back in terror at its violence and its consequences. They were, therefore, obliged to resort to the skin of the fox, to make up what they found they wanted of that of the lion. And the substitution was managed after the following manner:

The amendment alluded to by Mr Merritt, or the operative part of it, was in these words:

"That the losses, so far only as they have arisen from
the total, or _partially unjust, unnecessary_, or wanton
destruction of the dwellings, buildings, property, and effects
of the said inhabitants [of Lower Canada], and by the seizure,
taking, or carrying away of their property and effects, should
be satisfied; provided that none of the persons who have been
convicted of high treason, alleged to have been committed in
that part of this province formerly called Lower Canada, since
the first day of November 1847, or who, having been charged
with high treason, or other offences of a treasonable nature,
and having been committed to the custody of the sheriff in
the gaol of Montreal, submitted themselves to the will and
pleasure of her Majesty, and were thereupon transported to her
Majesty's island of Bermuda, shall be entitled to any indemnity
for losses sustained during or after the said rebellion, or in
consequence thereof."

This amendment is worded carefully enough, and, like Mr Lafontaine's resolution, is apparently just and harmless in its abstract signification; but it proves, like the former, a vastly different matter when its intentions come to be discovered by its practical application.

It is necessary that the reader should understand that there were a great number of the French rebels, particularly the leading characters, who fled the country immediately after the first few contests were over--and some of them were brave enough not even to wait so long--who came back under the amnesty, and consequently neither submitted themselves to the custody of the sheriff of Montreal, nor were prosecuted in any way: these are, therefore, no matter how high, or how notorious their treason, exempted from disability, under this amendment, to claim rebellion losses. Among these was a Doctor Wolfred Nelson, who was commander-in-chief of the rebels at the battles of St Denis and St Charles; who fought with them as well as he could; who published the declaration of independence for the Canadas; who, after he had made his escape to the States, hovered round the borders as the leader of the piratical gangs that devastated the country; and whom General Wood was finally despatched by the United States government to put down. This individual is now a member of the Canadian parliament for a French county, and is an _admitted_ claimant, under Mr Boulton's amendment, for twenty-three thousand pounds, _for his rebellion losses_. His own words in the debate upon the question are these:--"As to the claims made for my property, I had sent in a detailed account of the losses which had occurred, and which amounted to £23,000, of which £11,000 did not belong to me, but to my creditors. I mentioned their names, and as far as my memory would serve, that was the amount." Now, setting aside the doctrine, subversive even of all traitors' honour, and of all security under any government, that men may first half destroy a country by rebellion, and afterwards make up the other half of its destruction by claiming indemnity for incidental losses; setting aside this question, and viewing the matter in the abstract light, that all claims for injuries should be paid, we should like to know who is to pay the creditors of the poor widows of the soldiers and the loyalists whose blood stained the snows of Canada in suppressing Dr Wolfred Nelson's rebellion? Who is to feed their children, who are at this moment--we can vouch for the fact in at least one instance--shoeless and houseless, wandering upon the world? Yet Dr Nelson's creditors, on account of Dr Nelson's crime, must be paid. Who is to pay the creditors of the merchants, of the millers, of the lumberers, who were ruined by the general devastation that Dr Nelson's rebellion brought upon Lower Canada? Still Dr Nelson's creditors must be paid, although he spent the very money in bringing about other people's ruin. Who is to indemnify the people of England for two millions sterling spent in putting down Dr Nelson's rebellion? Yet Dr Nelson's property must be made good, and Dr Nelson's creditors must be paid, because England was under the necessity of putting down Dr Nelson's insurrection. And will--can England look on with indifference while Upper Canada--whose loyalists, when she was without a soldier to hoist her flag, did it for her--whose people freely and gladly sacrificed their lives, as well in the hardships as in the struggle with the traitor and the assassin, and whose trade and property were wellnigh ruined by this Dr Wolfred Nelson's rebellion--is now called upon to make good to him money he spent in carrying it on, and property that shared but the common ruin he brought upon the whole country? Yet Dr Nelson's payment is now decided upon by the parliament of Canada; and as the climax of such unheard-of legislation, he voted for it himself.

When such a coach-and-four as this can walk through Mr Boulton's amendment, it is needless to spend time upon smaller fry. The loyalists of Canada have now, or will have, if the governor, or the British government assents to the measure, to pay for the very torch that was employed to set fire to their homes; for the guns that were used to shoot them down by the wayside; for the shoes that an enemy who challenged them to fight, wore out in running away; for the time that men who, assassin-like, established hunters' lodges in the States, for the purpose of cutting down the defenceless, and burning up the unprotected, were engaged in the conception and execution of their diabolical designs. These may be strong statements, but they are facts. We need go no farther than Dr Nelson's case, who claims indemnity for the very money he spent in buying powder and balls to destroy her Majesty's subjects, and who claims £12,000 for injury to his property, while he himself was at the head of gangs of desperadoes laying waste the whole southern frontier of the province to sustain them.

But, to convey an idea to the English reader of the full extent to which payment may be, and is contemplated to be, made to parties engaged in the rebellion, under this amendment, we need but quote the questions that were put to Mr Lafontaine, before the final vote was taken on the question, and the manner in which he treated them.

"In committee last night, Colonel Prince stated that a great
deal of uncertainty existed as to the class of persons whom
it was intended by the ministry to pay, under the measure
introduced by them, and he begged Mr Attorney General
Lafontaine to settle the matter explicitly by replying to
certain questions which he would put to him. Colonel Prince
promised, on his part, to regard the replies as final, and
after receiving them, he would allude no further to the
rebellion claims.

He then put the following questions in a deliberate, solemn
manner, pausing between each for an answer.

'Do you propose to exclude, in your instructions to the
commissioners to be appointed under this act, all who aided and
abetted in the rebellion of 1837-1838?'

NO REPLY.

'Do you propose to exclude those, who, by their admissions and
confessions, admitted their participation in the rebellion?'

NO REPLY.

'Do you mean to exclude those whose admission of guilt is at
this very moment in the possession of the government, or of the
courts of law, unless these admissions have been destroyed with
the connivance of honourable gentlemen opposite?'

NO REPLY.

'Do you mean to exclude any of those 800 men who were
imprisoned in the jail of Montreal, for their participation
in the rebellion, and who were subsequently discharged from
custody through the clemency of the government, and whose
claims I understand to exceed some £70,000?'

NO REPLY.

'Do you not mean to pay every one, let his participation in
the rebellion have been what it may, except the very few who
were convicted by the courts-martial, and some six or seven who
admitted their guilt and were sent to Bermuda?'

NO REPLY."

_Montreal Gazette._

But what course did the enlightened reformers of Upper Canada take in this business--did that party which Lord Durham expressly stated was made up, for the most part, of men of strong British feelings, and by whose aid the French domination was to be crushed? Out of the strongest majority--out of the most united and effective representation of the whole party that has ever been had since Sir Francis Head assumed the government of the province, one only voted against the French; seventeen voted with them, and five found it convenient to be absent.

But, bad as this measure is, and plainly as it shows that England's friends have been rendered politically powerless in the provinces, it is even better than the representation scheme, which these two parties have still more unitedly, and, if anything, more determinedly endeavoured to push through parliament. The following extracts from the leading journals of both provinces, will convey an idea of the intention of this measure, and what it is likely to lead to:--

"The rebellion claims which have roused, in every English
breast, a feeling of strong antipathy against the French
Canadian race, is but an affair of skirmishing, preparatory
to the great battle for perpetual domination in Canada by the
French Canadian race over those whom Mr Lafontaine has styled
their 'natural enemies.' It is the Representation scheme that
is to raise over us, for ever, our 'French Masters.' As an
affair of money, that of the Rebellion Losses is an injury and
insult to every man who obeyed the order of the government
in its time of need. It has planted deeply the seeds of a
never-dying irritation, but it involves not our national
existence. The Representation scheme is a triple iniquity, and
will cement, if the madness of party be strong enough to carry
it, all the little differences of parties among Englishmen,
into one settled, determined hatred of the French race. It is
a triple iniquity--an injury, an insult, and slavery to our
children."--_Montreal Gazette._

"By the Ministerial scheme, then, it is proposed to give the
British Canadian population, say 13 members--as follows:
--Ottawa 2, Argenteuil 1, Drummond (doubtful) 1, Sherbrooke 2,
Shefford 1, Huntingdon 1, Megantic 1, Missisquoi 1, Gaspé 1,
Stanstead 1, Sherbrooke Town 1. Thus leaving 62 members for
the Franco-Canadians--giving the former an increase on their
present number of 3 and the latter of 30! Can this be called a
just proportion? It cannot."--_Montreal Herald._

"That measure extends over the whole of the province--_Lower_
as well as _Upper_ Canada; and one of its leading features
being, according to the testimony of Mr Hincks, to insure to
the French Canadians the perpetuation of their ascendency in
the legislature, as a distinct race, we may look forward in
future to the infliction of the most oppressive measures, upon
the colonists of British origin, which the masters of the
Union may choose to dictate. These are the fruits of radical
ascendency in the executive and the legislature, from Upper
Canada, and the prostration of those of British origin in Lower
Canada."--_British Colonist, Toronto._

Fortunately, however--fortunately even for those it was intended to invest with so great a power, this measure did not pass. For to give a naturally unprogressive race legislative superiority over an inevitably progressive one, is but to prolong a contest, or make more desperate an immediate struggle. The race that advances will not perpetually strive with a rope round its neck, or a chain round its leg. If it cannot loose itself, it will turn round and fight its holders. The French might have bound the English, but they would have had to fight them. A miss, however, is as good as a mile. It required a vote of two-thirds of the whole house to make such a change in the representation. Fifty-six voters would have done it; they had but fifty-five; so that this part of the storm at all events has passed over.

But how did the enlightened reformers of Upper Canada act, upon a measure avowedly and undisguisedly intended to perpetuate French domination? _Every man of them voted for it._ What a melancholy comment this is upon the following--the closing reflection of Lord Durham, upon the government of Canada. What a comment it is upon the attempt to change a people by a measure; to purge out of Frenchmen errors as strong as their nature--out of democrats feelings as large as their souls, by a single pill of abstract right in the shape of responsible government.

"In the state of mind in which I have described the French
Canadian population, as not only now being, but as likely for a
long while to remain, the trusting them with an entire control
over this province would be, in fact, only facilitating a
rebellion. Lower Canada must be governed now, as it must be
hereafter, by an English population; and thus the policy which
the necessities of the moment force on us, is in accordance
with that suggested by a comprehensive view of the future and
permanent improvement of the province."--_Report Can. E._, p.
127.

But it is not alone that British prosperity is now crushed by the domination of a retrogressive race, but it is that a British people are obliged to feel the galling and unnatural fact, that the power of the government of England is wielded to keep up institutions in America, to the destruction of which, in Europe, it owes its freedom and its greatness. It is not alone that loyalty is sickened to the very death in Upper Canada, at seeing the best gifts of the crown handed over to political pickpockets--for we hold every man, and we can call upon all America to second us in it, as no better than a political pickpocket, who is a democrat in his heart and soul, and whines out "God save the Queen," to pillage her Majesty's treasury--it is not alone that loyalty is galled to madness at this, but it is that loyalty is obliged to see that, however much it may beat these men at the hustings, and by virtue of the constitution, they can still laugh at all its efforts as long as they can play the part of French tools. In all history, in short, there is not a parallel to the state of things at present existing in the Canadas. To men whose very accents, whose very faces are a living libel upon all loyalty to England, England has by her legislation given power to trample under their feet the only friends she had in the hour of her need. To men who are contending for the perpetuation of institutions which all Europe was obliged to throw off before it could breathe a free breath, or extend a free arm, England has by her legislation given the power, not only to drive her children into the slough of despond, but to mount upon their shoulders there, and sink them irretrievably. England has literally in the Canadas made her loyalists political slaves; her enemies their political task-masters.

HAMILTON, CANADA WEST.
_23d April, 1849._

Dies Boreales.

No. I.

CHRISTOPHER UNDER CANVASS.

* * * * *

SCENE--_Cladich, Lochawe-side_.

TIME--_Sunrise_.

NORTH--BULLER--SEWARD.

* * * * *

NORTH.

"Under the opening eyelids of the Morn!" Mefeels, Amici, at this moment, the charm of that Impersonation. Slowly awaking from sleep--scarcely conscious of her whereabouts--bewildered by the beauty of the revelation, nor recognising her beloved lochs and mountains--visionary and nameless all as if an uncertain prolongation of her Summer's Night's Dream.

SEWARD.

I was not going to speak, my dear sir.

NORTH.

And now she is broad awake. She sees the heaven and the earth, nor thinks, God bless her, that 'tis herself that beautifies them!

SEWARD.

Twenty years since I stood on this knoll, honoured sir, by your side--twenty years to a day--and now the same perfect peace possesses me--mysterious return--as if all the intervening time slid away--and this were not a renewed but a continuous happiness.

NORTH.

And let it slide away into the still recesses of Memory--the Present has its privileges--and they may be blamelessly, wisely, virtuously enjoyed--and without irreverence to the sanctity of the Past. Let it slide away--but not into oblivion--no danger, no fear of oblivion--even joys will return on their wings of gossamer;--sorrows may be buried, but they are immortal.

SEWARD.

I see not the slightest change on this Grove of Sycamores. Twenty years tell not on boles that have for centuries been in their prime. Yes--that one a little way down--and that one still farther off--_have_ grown--and those striplings, then but saplings, may now be called Trees.

BULLER.

I never heard such a noise.

NORTH.

A cigar in your mouth at four o'clock in the morning! Well--well.

BULLER.

There, my dear sir, keep me in countenance with a Manilla.

NORTH.

The Herb! You have high authority--Spenser's--for "noise."

BULLER.

I said Noise--because it is Noise. Why, the hum of bees overhead is absolutely like soft sustained thunder--and yet no bees visible in the umbrage. The sound is like that of one single bee, and he must be a giant. Ay--there I see a few working like mad--and I guess there must be myriads. The Grove must be full of bees' nests.

NORTH.

Not one. Hundreds of smokes are stealing up from hidden or apparent cottages--for the region is not unpopulous, and not a garden without its hives--and early risers though we be, the _matutinæ apes_ are still before us, and so are the birds.

BULLER.

They, too, are making a noise. Who says a shilfa cannot sing? Of the fifty now "pouring his throat," as the poet well says, I defy you to tell which sings best. That splendid fellow on the birch-tree top--or yonder gorgeous tyke on the yellow oak--or----

NORTH.

"In shadiest covert hid" the leader of the chorus that thrills the many-nested underwood with connubial bliss.

SEWARD.

Not till this moment heard I the waterfall.

BULLER.

You did, though, all along--a felt accompaniment.

NORTH.

I know few dens more beautiful than Cladich-Cleugh!

BULLER.

Pardon me, sir, if I do not attempt that name.

NORTH.

How mellifluous!--Cladich-Cleugh!

BULLER.

Great is the power of gutturals.

NORTH.

It is not inaccessible. But you must skirt it till you reach the meadow where the cattle are beginning to browse. And then threading your way through a coppice, where you are almost sure to see a roe, you come down upon a series of little pools, in such weather as this so clear that you can count the trouts; and then the verdurous walls begin to rise on either side and right before you; and you begin to feel that the beauty is becoming magnificence, for the pools are now black, and the stems are old, and the cliffs intercept the sky, and there are caves, and that waterfall has dominion in the gloom, and there is sublimity in the sounding solitude.

BULLER.

Cladick-Cloock.

NORTH.

A miserable failure.

BULLER.

Cladig-Cloog.

NORTH.

Worser and worser.

SEWARD.

Any footpath, sir?

NORTH.

Yes--for the roe and the goat.

BULLER.

And the Man of the Crutch.

NORTH.

Good. But I speak of days when the Crutch was in its tree-bole----

BULLER.

As the Apollo was in its marble block.

NORTH.

Not so good. But, believe me, gentlemen, I have done it with the Crutch.

SEWARD.

Ay, sir, and could do it again.

NORTH.

No. But you two are yet boys--on the sunny side of fifty--and I leave you, Seward, to act the guide to Buller up Cladich-Cleugh.

BULLER.

Pray, Mr North, what may be the name of that sheet of water?

NORTH.

In Scotland we call it LOCH-OWE.

BULLER.

I am so happy--sir--that I talk nonsense.

NORTH.

Much nonsense may you talk.

BULLER.

'Twas a foolish question--but you know, sir, that by some strange fatality or another I have been three times called away from Scotland without having seen _Lock-Owe_.

NORTH.

Make good use of your eyes now, sirrah, and you will remember it all the days of your life. That is Cruachan--no usurper he--by divine right a king. The sun is up, and there is motion in the clouds. Saw you ever such shadows? How majestically they stalk! And now how beautifully they glide! And now see you that broad black forest, half-way up the mountain?

BULLER.

I do.

NORTH.

You are sure you do.

BULLER.

I am.

NORTH.

You are mistaken. It is no broad black forest--it is mere gloom--shadow that in a minute will pass away, though now seeming steadfast as the woods.

BULLER.

I could swear it is a forest.

NORTH.

Swear not at all. Shut your eyes. Open them. Where now your wood?

BULLER.

Most extraordinary ocular deception.

NORTH.

Quite common. Yet no poet has described it. See again. The same forest a mile off. No need of trees--sun and cloud make our visionary mountains sylvan: and the grandest visions are ever those that are transitory--ask your soul.

BULLER.

Your Manilla is out, my dear sir. There is the case.

NORTH.

Caught like a cricketer. You must ascend Cruachan. "This morning gives us promise of a glorious day;" you cannot do better than take time by the forelock, and be off now. Say the word--and I will myself row you over the Loch. No need of a guide: inclining to the left for an hour or two after you have cleared yonder real timber and sap wood--and then for an hour or two, to the right--and then for another hour or two straight forwards--and then you will see the highest of the three peaks within an hour or two's walk of you--and thus, by mid-day, find yourself seated on the summit.

BULLER.

Seated on the summit!

NORTH.

Not too long, for the air is often very sharp at that altitude--and so rare, that I have heard tell of people fainting.

BULLER.

I am occasionally troubled with a palpitation of the heart--

NORTH.

Pooh, nonsense. Only the stomach.

BULLER.

And occasionally with a determination of blood to the head--

NORTH.

Pooh, nonsense. Only the stomach. Take a calker every two hours on your way up--and I warrant both heart and head--

BULLER.

Not to-day. It looks cloudy.

NORTH.

Why, I don't much care though I should accompany you--

BULLER.

I knew you would offer to do so, and I feel the delicacy of putting a decided negative on the proposal. Let us defer it till to-morrow. For my sake, my dear sir, if not for your own, do not think of it; it will be no disappointment to me to remain with you here--and I shudder at the thought of your fainting on the summit. Be advised, my dear sir, be advised--

NORTH.

Well then, be it so--I am not obstinate; but such another day for the ascent there may not be during the summer. On just such a day I made the ascent some half-century ago. I took it from Tyanuilt--having walked that morning from Dalmally, some dozen miles, for a breathing on level ground, before facing the steepish shoulder that roughens into Loch Etive. The fox-hunter from Gleno gave me his company with his hounds and terriers nearly half-way up, and after killing some cubs we parted--not without a tinful of the creature at the Fairies' Well--

BULLER.

A tinful of the creature at the Fairies' Well!

NORTH.

Yea--a tinful of the creature at the Fairies' Well. Now I am a total-abstinent--

BULLER.

A total-abstinent!

NORTH.

By heavens! he echoes me. Pleasant, but mournful to the soul is the memory of joys that are past! A tinful of the unchristened creature to the health of the Silent People. Oh! Buller, there are no Silent People now.

BULLER.

In your company, sir, I am always willing to be a listener.

NORTH.

Well, on I flew as on wings.

BULLER.

What! Up Cruackan?

NORTH.

On feet, then, if you will; but the feet of a deer.

BULLER.

On all-fours?

NORTH.

Yes--sometimes on all-fours. On all-fours, like a frog in his prime, clearing tiny obstructions with a spang. On all-fours, like an ourang-outang, who, in difficult places, brings his arms into play. On all-fours, like the--

BULLER.

I cry you mercy.

NORTH.

Without palpitation of the heart; without determination of blood to the head; without panting; without dizziness; with merely a slight acceleration of the breath, and now and then something like a gasp after a run to a knowe which we foresaw as a momentary resting-place--we felt that we were conquering Cruachan! Lovely level places, like platforms--level as if water had formed them, flowing up just so far continually, and then ebbing back to some unimaginable sea--awaited our arrival, that on them we might lie down, and from beds of state survey our empire, for our empire it was felt to be, far away into the lowlands, with many a hill between--many a hill, that, in its own neighbourhood, is believed to be a mountain--just as many a man of moderate mental dimensions is believed by those who live beneath his shade to be of the first order of magnitude, and with funeral honours is interred.

BULLER.

Well for him that he is a hill at all--eminent on a flat, or among humbler undulations. All is comparative.

NORTH.

Just so. From a site on a mountain's side--far from the summit--the ascender hath sometimes a sublimer--often a lovelier vision--than from its most commanding peak. Yet still he has the feeling of ascension--stifle that, and the discontent of insufficiency dwarfs and darkens all that lies below.

BULLER.

Words to the wise.

NORTH.

We fear to ascend higher lest we should lose what we comprehend: yet we will ascend higher, though we know the clouds are gathering, and we are already enveloped in mist. But there were no clouds--no mist on that day--and the secret top of Cruachan was clear as a good man's conscience, and the whole world below like the promised land.

BULLER.

Let us go--let us go--let us go.

NORTH.

All knowledge, my dear boy, may be likened to stupendous ranges of mountains--clear and clouded, smooth and precipitous; and you or I in youth assail them in joy and pride of soul, not blind but blindfolded often, and ignorant of their inclination; so that we often are met by a beetling cliff with its cataract, and must keep ascending and descending ignorant of our whereabouts, and summit-seeking in vain. Yet all the while are we glorified. In maturer mind, when experience is like an instinct, we ascertain levels without a theodolite, and know assuredly where dwell the peaks. We know how to ascend--sideways or right on; we know which are midway heights; we can walk in mist and cloud as surely as in light, and we learn to know the Inaccessible.

BULLER.

I fear you will fatigue yourself--

NORTH.

Or another image. You sail down a stream, my good Buller, which widens as it flows, and will lead through inland seas--or lochs--down to the mighty ocean: what that is I need not say: you sail down it, sometimes with hoisted sail--sometimes with oars--on a quest or mission all undefined; but often anchoring where no need is, and leaping ashore, and engaging in pursuits or pastimes forbidden or vain--_with the natives_--

BULLER.

The natives!

NORTH.

Nay, adopting their dress--though dress it be none at all--and becoming one of themselves--naturalised; forgetting your mission clean out of mind! Fishing and hunting with the natives--

BULLER.

Whom?

NORTH.

The natives--when you ought to have been pursuing your voyage on--on--on. Such are youth's pastimes all. But you had not deserted--not you: and you return of your own accord to the ship.

BULLER.

What ship?

NORTH.

The ship of life--leaving some to lament you, who knew you only as a jolly mariner, who was bound afar! They believed that you had drawn up your pinnace for ever on that shore, in that lovely little haven, among reeds and palms--unknowing that you would relaunch her some day soon, and, bounding in her over the billows, rejoin your ship, waiting for you in the offing, and revisit the simple natives no more!

BULLER.

Methinks I understand now your mysterious meaning.

NORTH.

You do. But where was I?

BULLER.

Ascending Cruackan, and near the summit.

NORTH.

On the summit. Not a whit tired--not a bit fatigued; strong as ten--active as twenty ownselves on the flat--divinely drunk on draughts of ether--happier a thousand times, greater and more glorious, than Jupiter, with all his gods, enthroned on Olympus.

BULLER.

Moderately speaking.

NORTH.

In imagination I hear him barking now as he barked then--a sharp, short, savage, angry and hungry bark--

BULLER.

What? A dog? A Fox?

NORTH.

No--no--no. An Eagle--the Golden Eagle from Ben-Slarive, known--no mistaking him--to generations of Shepherds for a hundred years.

BULLER.

Do you see him?

NORTH.

Now I do. I see his eyes--for he came--he comes sughing close by me--and there he shoots up in terror a thousand feet into the sky.

BULLER.

I did not know the Bird was so timid--

NORTH.

He is not timid--he is bold; but an Eagle does not like to come all at once within ten yards of an unexpected man--any more than you would like suddenly to face a ghost.

BULLER.

What brought him there?

NORTH.

Wings nine feet wide.

BULLER.

Has he no sense of smell?

NORTH.

What do you mean, sir?

BULLER.

No offence.

NORTH.

He has. But we have not always all our senses about us, Buller, nor our wits either--he had been somewhat scared, a league up Glen Etive, by the Huntsman of Gleno--the scent of powder was in his nostrils; but fury follows fear, and in a minute I heard his bark again--as now I hear it--on the highway to Benlura.

BULLER.

He must have had enormous talons.

NORTH.

My hand is none of the smallest--

BULLER.

God bless you, my dear sir,--give me a grasp.

NORTH.

There.

BULLER.

Oh! thumbikins!

NORTH.

And one of his son's talons--whom I shot--was twice the length of mine; his yellow knobby loof at least as broad--and his leg like my wrist. He killed a man. Knocked him down a precipice, like a cannon-ball. He had the credit of it all over the country--but I believe his wife did the business, for she was half-again as big as himself; and no devil like a she-devil fighting for her imp.

BULLER.

Did you ever rob an Eyrie, sir?

NORTH.

Did you over rob a Lion's den? No, no, Buller. I never--except on duty--placed my life in danger. I have been in many dangerous-looking places among the Mountains, but a cautious activity ruled all my movements--I scanned my cliff before I scaled him--and as for jumping chasms--though I had a spring in me--I looked imaginatively down the abyss, and then sensibly turned its flank where it leaned on the greensward, and the liberated streamlet might be forded, without swimming, by the silly sheep.

BULLER.

And are all those stories lies?

NORTH.

All. I have sometimes swam a loch or a river in my clothes--but never except when they lay in my way, or when I was on an angling excursion--and what danger could there possibly be in doing that?

BULLER.

You might have taken the Cramp, Sir.

NORTH.

And the Cramp might have taken me--but neither of us ever did--and a man, with a short neck or a long one, might as well shun the streets in perpetual fear of apoplexy, as a good swimmer evade water in dread of being drowned. As for swimming in my clothes--had I left them on the hither, how should I have looked on the thither side?

BULLER.

No man, in such circumstances, could, with any satisfaction to himself, have pursued his journey, even through the most lonesome places.

BULLER.

Describe the view from the summit.

NORTH.

I have no descriptive power--but, even though I had, I know better than that. Why, between Cruachan and Buchail-Etive lie hundreds on hundreds of mountains of the first, second, and third order--and, for a while at first, your eyes are so bewildered that you cannot see any one in particular; yet, in your astonishment, have a strange vision of them all--and might think they were interchanging places, shouldering one another off into altering shapes in the uncertain region, did not the awful stillness assure you that there they had all stood in their places since the Creation, and would stand till the day of doom.

BULLER.

You have no descriptive power!

NORTH.

All at once dominion is given you over the Whole. You gradually see Order in what seemed a Chaos--you understand the character of the Region--its Formation--for you are a Geologist, else you have no business--no right there; and you know where the valleys are singing for joy, though you hear them not--where there is provision for the cattle on a hundred hills--where are the cottages of Christian men on the green braes sheltered by the mountains--and where may stand, beneath the granite rocks out of which it was built, the not unfrequent House of God.

BULLER.

To-morrow we shall attend Divine Service--

NORTH.

At Dalmally.

BULLER.

I long ago learned to like the ritual of the Kirk. I should like to believe in a high-minded purified Calvinist, who could embrace, in his brotherly heart, a high-minded purified English Bishop, with all his Episcopacy.

NORTH.

And why should he not, if he can recognise the Divine Spirit flowing through the two sets of sensible demonstrations? He can; unless the constitution of the Anglican Christian Religion wars, either by its dogmas or by its ecclesiastical ordinances, against his essential intelligence of Christianity.

BULLER.

And who shall say it does?

NORTH.

Many say it--not I.

BULLER.

And you are wise and good.

NORTH.

Many thousands--and hundreds of thousands, wiser and better. I can easily suppose a Mind--strong in thought, warm in feeling, of an imagination susceptible and creative--by magnanimity, study, and experience of the world, disengaged from all sectarian tenets--yet holding the absolute conviction of religion--and contemplating, with reverence and tenderness, many different ways of expression which this inmost spiritual disposition has produced or put on--having a firmest holding on to Christianity as pure, holy, august, divine, true, beyond all other modes of religion upon the Earth--partly from intuition of its essential fitness to our nature--partly from intense gratitude--partly, perhaps, from the original entwining of it with his own faculties, thoughts, feelings, history, being. Well, he looks with affectionate admiration upon the Scottish, with affectionate admiration on the English Church--old affection agreeing with new affection--and I can imagine in _him_ as much generosity required to love his own Church--the Presbyterian--as yours the Episcopalian--and that, Latitudinarian as he may be called, he loves them both. For myself, you know how I love England--all that belongs to her--all that makes her what she is--scarcely more--surely not less--Scotland. The ground of the Scottish Form is the overbearing consciousness, that religion is immediately between man and his Maker. All hallowing of things outward is to that consciousness a placing of such earthly things as interpositions and separating intermediates in that interval unavoidable between the Finite and the Infinite, but which should remain blank and clear for the immediate communications of the Worshipper and the Worshipped.

BULLER.

I believe, sir, you are a Presbyterian?

NORTH.

He that worships in spirit and in truth cannot endure--cannot imagine, that anything but his own sin shall stand betwixt him and God.

BULLER.

_That_, until it be in some way or another extinguished, shall and must.

NORTH.

True as Holy Writ. But intervening saints, images, and elaborate rituals--the contrivance of human wit--all these the fire of the Spirit has consumed, and consumes.

BULLER.

The fire of the Presbyterian spirit?

NORTH.

Add history. War and persecution have afforded an element of human hate for strengthening the sternness----

BULLER.

Of Presbyterian Scotland.

NORTH.

Drop that word--for I more than doubt if you understand it.

BULLER.

I beg pardon, sir.

NORTH.

The Scottish service, Mr Buller, comprehends Prayer, Praise, Doctrine--all three necessary verbal acts amongst Christians met, but each in utmost simplicity.

BULLER.

Episcopalian as I am, that simplicity I have felt to be most affecting.

NORTH.

The Praise, which unites the voices of the congregation, must be written. The Prayer, which is the burning towards God of the soul of the Shepherd upon the behalf of the Flock, and upon his own, must be unwritten--unpremeditated--else it is not Prayer. Can the heart ever want fitting words? The Teaching must be to the utmost, forethought, at some time or at another, as to the Matter. The Teacher must have secured his intelligence of the Matter ere he opens his mouth. But the Form, which is of expediency only, he may very loosely have considered. That is the Theory.

BULLER.

Often liable in practice, I should fear, to sad abuse.

NORTH.

May be so. But it presumes that capable men, full of zeal, and sincerity, and love--fervent servants and careful shepherds--have been chosen, under higher guidance. It supposes the holy fire of the new-born Reformation--of the newly-regenerated Church-----

BULLER.

Kirk.

NORTH.

Of the newly-regenerated Church, to continue undamped, inextinguishable.

BULLER.

And is it so?

NORTH.

The Fact answers to the Theory more or less. The original Thought--simplicity of worship--is to the utmost expressed, when the chased Covenanters are met on the greensward, between the hillside and the brawling brook, under the coloured or uncoloured sky. Understand that, when their descendants meet within walls and beneath roofs, they _would_ worship after the manner of their hunted ancestors.

BULLER.

I wish I were better read than I am, in the history of Scotland, civil and ecclesiastical.

NORTH.

I wish you were. I say, then, my excellent friend, that the Ritual and whole Ordering of the Scottish Church is moulded upon, or issues out of, the human spirit kindling in conscious communication of the Divine Spirit. The power of the Infinite--that is, the Sense of Infinitude, of Eternity--reigns there; and the Sense in the inmost soul of the sustaining contact with Omnipotence, and self-consciousness intense, and elation of Divine favour personally vouchsafed, and joy of anticipated everlasting bliss, and triumph over Satan, death, and hell, and immeasurable desire to win souls to the King of the Worlds.

BULLER.

In England we are, I am ashamed to say it, ill informed on----

NORTH.

In Scotland we are, I am ashamed to say it, ill informed on----

BULLER.

But go on, sir.

NORTH.

What place is there for Forms of any kind in the presence of these immense overpowering Realities? For Forms, Buller, are of the Imagination; the Faculty that inhales and lives by the Unreal. But some concession to the humanity of our nature intrudes. Imagination may be subordinated, subjugated, but will not, may not, forego all its rights. Therefore, Forms and hallowing associations enter.

BULLER.

Into all Worship.

NORTH.

Form, too, is, in part, Necessary Order.

BULLER.

Perhaps, sir, you may be not unwilling to say a few words of our Ritual.

NORTH.

I tremble to speak of your Ritual; for it appears to me as bearing on its front an excellence which might be found incompatible with religious truth and sincerity.

BULLER.

I confess that I hardly understand you, sir.

NORTH.

The Liturgy looks to be that which the old Churches are, the Work of a Fine Art.

BULLER.

You do not urge that as an objection to it, I trust, sir?

NORTH.

A Poetical sensibility, a wakeful, just, delicate, simple Taste, seems to have ruled over the composition of each Prayer, and the ordering of the whole Service.

BULLER.

You do not urge that as an objection to it, I trust, sir?

NORTH.

I am not urging objections, sir. I seldom--never, indeed--urge objections to anything. I desire only to place all things in their true light.

BULLER.

Don't frown, sir--smile. Enough.

NORTH.

The whole composition of the Service is copious and various. Human Supplication, the lifting up of the hands of the creature knowing his own weakness, dependence, lapses, and liability to slip--man's own part, dictated by his own experience of himself, is the basis. Readings from the Old and New Volume of the Written Word are ingrafted, as if God audibly spoke in his own House; the Authoritative added to the Supplicatory.

BULLER.

Finely true. We Church of England men love you, Mr North--we do indeed.

NORTH.

The hymns of the sweet Singer of Israel, in literal translation, adopted as a holier inspired language of the heart.

BULLER.

These, sir, are surely three powerful elements of a Ritual Service.

NORTH.

Throughout, the People divide, the service with the Minister. They have in it their own personal function.

BULLER.

Then the Homily, sir.

NORTH.

Ay, the Homily, which, one might say, interprets between Sunday and the Week--fixes the holiness of the Day in precepts, doctrines, reflections, which may be carried home to guide and nourish.

BULLER.