WHY LOCATED IN THE STATES. 133 plaintive airs of our country, sung by these simple people with such deep feeling; the eyes of the hearers were involuntarily filled with moisture, and a chord of the heart beat responsive to the music. 66 "Farewell to Lochaber, and farewell my Jean, Where heartsome with thee I hae mony days been; Why did you not settle in the Canadas ?" I enquired of several. "Some of our friends cam here before us, sir, and we didna ken the difference between the twa Governments; at the time we cam ower here, it was aa ae America to us, and since we're here we maun jist bide. The Americans have been very leeberal in the wey o' land, and are decent folk on the whole, though there's a great difference between oor menners and theirs; every man o' them, man and boy, father and sin, hae separate interests, we aa draw thegither, and try to keep up a kindly communion atween oorsels. There's nae folk like oor nain folk, sir, after aa.” I enquired the history of one man, and he said, his father was a small farmer in the highlands of Perthshire, and that his "forebears" had held the same land for two or three hundred years. A young laird succeeded to the estate who had been in England and abroad, and had acquired extravagant habits and notions. He wished to raise his rents. The farmer offered a higher rent, as much as he could afford to give, sooner than quit 134 SERGEANT MORE M'ALPIN. his beloved country and kindred, and "the graves of his people." The steward demanded more than he could give, and sorrowfully he emigrated to America" to choose his place of rest, with Providence his guide." The case of this man was similar to that of thousands of others of our warm-hearted peasantry; and I could not help cursing the coldhearted cupidity of some landlords, (alas! how degenerated from their noble ancestors,) and recalling to mind the beautifully pathetic introduction to the "Legend of Montrose," by the immortal Scott. 66 Sergeant More M'Alpin' returned after forty years hard service to the wild highland glen, in which he was born and reared to manhood; to his recollection this retired spot was unparalleled in beauty by the richest scenes he had visited in his wanderings. Even the happy valley of Rasselas would have sunk into nothing upon the comparison. He came-he revisited the loved scene-it was but a sterile glen surrounded with wild crags and traversed by a northern current. This was not the worst. The fires had been quenched upon thirty hearths. Of the cottage of his fathers he could but distinguish a few rude stones--the language was almost extinguishedthe ancient race, from which he boasted his descent, had found a refuge beyond the Atlantic. One Southland farmer, three grey-plaided shepherds, and six dogs, now tenanted the whole glen, THE STATE OF OHIO. 135 which in his youth had maintained in content, if not in competence, upwards of two hundred inhabitants. The veteran determined to follow his kindred to their American retreat, for with heavy hearts they had bid adieu to their native glen, to the strain of Ha til mi tulidh, we return no more." Of the state of Ohio it is said, that from La Belle Riviere on the south to the Canadian Lakes on the north, it affords the greatest body of good land in America; at present, the greater part of it is covered with heavy timber. There are some morasses and some barren tracts; but as a convincing proof of the superior quality of the soil in general, the New Englanders have made it their own. It is a Yankee State; and of this I was sufficiently aware when I saw the compact farms, the neat white-painted frame houses, the orchards, and the general air of comfort and frugality in the people, and in all that pertained to them in the State of Ohio. Our stage was drawn by four horses; had no outside passengers except " Mr. Driver," but nine insides, on three seats. The sides of the vehicle were of leather, and there was one door of entrance. The springs consisted of very thick and strong leather straps, which went "fore and aft” under the oval body, and were suspended to short iron uprights" front and rear." The wheels were of corresponding strength, and as the roads were very deep and heavy, all the solidity of construction of our stage could hardly save us from 136 A BLACKSMITH'S NOTIONS OF ENGLAND. breaking down under the "rude assaults" we experienced. A drunken fellow of a blacksmith commenced a series of abuse of Old England, "a land of slaves, with a despotic Government!" I let him run on without interruption, for I wished to hear the notions of the lower classes of Americans regarding our noble country; but when an eastern passenger, in the usual course of guessing and asking questions, learned to what country I belonged, he, as well as the other passengers, insisted on Vulcan's making an apology, which he did, whilst the others hoped that I would not take offence at what had happened, or conceive a bad impression of their country from the ignorance and bad manners of one man. I was highly gratified with all this, and I assured them that I had a great esteem for them and for Americans in general; that I hoped that petty jealousies would cease between two nations derived from the same stock, as soon as the ignorance of each other's character was removed, and that, so far from feeling any ill will myself to the Americans, I felt proud that such a people should have proceeded from a country to whose service I was attached. I heartily wished them success as a nation, provided there was no attempt at interference with the British American possessions, and thus we journeyed on pleasantly together. We passed a number of peach orchards, and I remarked the pigs feeding on the fallen fruit. PEACH PLUNDERERS. 137 We sallied out of the stage two or three times, and filled our hats with peaches, but they were flavourless and insipid. One passenger ate a bushel. I don't know how he passed the night after it, but it was lucky that the cholera was not in the country at the time, or he would certainly have fallen a victim to it. I remarked that at the tavern where we stopped, there was much more economy in the domestic arrangements than I had seen before in the States. The mistress of the family handed us the tea or coffee, with very scanty supplies of milk and sugar, and the eatables were also portioned out in a way that was rather tantalizing to hungry travellers. Everything was remarkably clean in and about the houses, but I observed the same thing in Holland, where the fare was equally scanty. At last I was refreshed with the sight of that great inland sea, Lake Erie, and passing Ashtabula, I sat down on its shore in the clean house of a fine specimen of a New-England farmer. A gale was agitating the waters of Erie; and as I strolled along the sandy beach, with waterworn stones and decayed timber thickly strewed upon it, it seemed as if I trod the margin of the ocean's tide. I only met with two persons in a long walk, one a hunter in search of wild turkeys and squirrels, and the other a woodsman, splitting drift logs by means of an iron wedge and a club like that of Hercules. |