226 



AMERICAN JOURNEY. 



[Chap. V. 



length got to a shanty-man's hut : were shot down the river with 

 amazing rapidity by the Indians : and at last reached Brooks', 

 the first place of civilized life. This was about ten days before 

 I was there, and the paper came which they promised to send, 

 with the account of their adventures. This I read aloud to 

 them." 



He returned by the stage. Near the Peche (a resort of 

 fishing and hunting tourists), " an Irishmen getting in, and 

 having forgotten something, began to curse ; so that I ventured 

 a few words very quietly. He fired up terribly, and gave me 

 a great volley, to which I did not reply, having borne my 

 testimony. He kept on harping on it to his fellow-passengers, 

 who endeavoured to pacify him, and yet considered that cursing 

 was not a good thing after all ! Once, in walking up a hill, I 

 talked to him quietly, when he apologized for his Irish blood — 

 said he had sworn more than for twenty years before," etc. 



On the following Saturday, Philip left Canada with great 

 regret. On landing at Osnaburgh, on the south side of the 

 St. Lawrence, "the instant we touched American shore (I 

 had got my botany-box, etc., shouldered) a Yankee asked me 

 what I had got to sell ! I had not prepared my mind for 

 Yankeedom, and, being taken aback, simply stared at him : and 

 having made my way through the runners (who generally give 

 me up as a bad job), proceeded to survey the town ; the keen 

 stares of the men, and the sharp, sneering look of the boys, 

 evidently not Canadian." 



The next day found him at his old quarters at Albany, 

 where good Colonel Jewett gave him a hearty greeting, but his 

 letters brought him sad tidings. Some friends whom he had 

 lately seen had lost their only boy, and his dear niece, Margaret 

 Anna Gaskell, set. 8, was gone. In writing to her parents, he 

 dwells on the beauties of her character; and adds: "I trust 

 you will always talk, and let us talk, of Margaret, not as if she 

 were alive, but as being alive : more truly so than if she had gone 

 into a far country; for there you would have had the same 

 separation, joined with anxiety. To me, in this foreign land, 

 Margaret is nearer than when in the body ; it may be so even 



