Читать книгу The Young Emigrants - Catherine Laura Johnstone - Страница 3

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“COME, ladies, please make haste; the train can’t wait here all day,” said the civil old stationmaster at Cranbourne Road, to two women who were detaining a youth about to start with rather prolonged leave-takings. They stepped back, the boy jumped in, and the train was off, though, poor souls, they watched it with tender eyes till the last carriage was out of sight.

“I was sorry to hurry you, I’m sure,” said the stationmaster; “but you will see the lad again some day, a fine, strapping fellow, when his fortune’s made and he comes back to look for a sweetheart.”

“Ah! but it’s sore parting from him,” said the mother, wiping her eyes; “though they tell me there is less temptation for them across the sea, so I have reconciled myself to it.”

A boy of about eleven was buying a penny magazine at the bookstall, and listened eagerly to this conversation. “May I ask,” he said, “if your son has gone to Canada? I want to go there myself so much, but I do not know how to manage it.”

“You are rather little to go,” said the person addressed. “My boy is eighteen.”

“He was out of work, and some rather bad young fellows were leading him astray,” said the other in a low voice.

“Yes, but he loved his mother,” put in the young emigrant’s parent; “and if you love yours,” she added, addressing Johnnie Wilmot, “you had better stay in England and work for her.”

“But father is alive, and there are many of us,” replied the boy. “I hear that fellows of my age can get work better in Canada than in London.”

“Well, they do say that,” said the poor mother. “My son read a great deal about it on that steamship bill,” and she pointed to one of the Allan Line Co.’s placards on the station wall. “He then applied to the society which helps young men out, and our clergyman also gave him a loan. That was how it was.”

Johnnie thanked her for her information, and began to study the “steamship bill,” on which was depicted a vessel in full sail. It also pointed out that steerage passengers were conveyed for four pounds each to Quebec; that the food on board was of the best quality, with beef and suet-pudding on Sundays, and as much as each person could eat; and that everybody who went to Canada could get good wages, if he chose to work.

Johnnie’s father was a postman, and naturally saw very little of his family. There were eight children, and Johnnie, the eldest of them, only eleven. As he walked home from the station, the boy resolved that he would ask his mother if he might start out to Canada in the following spring. He had heard a good deal about it, for a carpenter’s apprentice that he used to know had gone out there, and had lately written home to his relations that it was a very fine country, and he only wondered that they did not all come out there to stop.

“But, child,” said his mother, when he told her of the idea he had got into his head, “what could you do out there? Ned Smith knows a trade, and can build himself a house out of the pine woods if need be; but you can do nothing to bring you in wages.”

“O mother,” said Johnnie, “I can run errands. People in Canada must want errand-boys as well as in England; and, besides, Ned Smith may help me to a job, if I get near him.”

“But whereabout is he?” said Mrs. Wilmot. “Canada is a large place, and you may be a thousand miles away from each other.”

“A thousand miles?” said Johnnie; “why, that would be as far as from London to Vienna. Indeed I do not quite recollect where he is, and his brother said the place was not marked on our maps.”

Just at that moment the father of the family came in for his tea, and Mrs. Wilmot told him what they were talking about. “Well,” he said, “I have often thought myself that we should have to send some of our children to the colonies, and Canada seems nearer than most of them. I hear that boys no older than Johnnie go there, and can pick up a living; and perhaps if he went out first, he would be able to make a home for the rest. But I have to pass the Canadian Agency to-night, so I will just look in and ask about it.”

The result of the inquiry was that a clergyman, the Rev. George Evans, was going to take out a large party of boys to Canada in April, and that if little Wilmot would apply to him, he would allow him to join his party at the Euston Station, and they would all travel together to Liverpool, and embark on board the steamship Sardinian. The railway fare would be included in the steamer ticket, and Mr. Evans would see the boys through the Custom House at Quebec, and on to the train which was to convey them to the great North-West Territory, more than fifteen hundred miles from where they would first set foot on Canadian soil.

Johnnie had a little money in the post-office savings-bank, saved up from the pence he got for holding a horse, running errands, and assisting in the post-office on Christmas Eve and New-Year’s Day. His father also had a little laid by, and Johnnie promised that, if he would advance what was required for his journey, which at his age would be half-fare, he would faithfully pay him back when he was in a position to do so. The boy bought with his own money two railway rugs and a few tools, and his mother, like the good, industrious woman that she was, made him some flannel shirts, knitted him some warm pairs of stockings, and gave him a corduroy suit, as well as one of thick, warm serge lined with flannel.

Mr. Evans took the boys by a midnight train from Euston, to save the expense of sleeping in Liverpool, because all the steerage passengers had to be ready to embark at ten o’clock in the morning. Mrs. Wilmot would have liked very much to go and see her son off at Liverpool, but she could not afford the time or the money, so she contented herself with coming to the Euston Station, to see the last of him there.

Johnnie felt very uncomfortable in his mind when he was having his supper just before going to the station. The other children had already been put to bed, and his father wished him good-bye at home. “Well, Johnnie,” he said, “I suppose you will have grown into a tall man before I see you again, and a rich one too, perhaps.”

“I have been very happy at home,” said Johnnie, “but I knew I must get my own living somehow, and it would be more expense if I learned a trade here.”

“Yes, and we should never make a scholar of you, I am sure,” said his father. “But all the same, be a good boy where you are going. Keep out of public-houses, and be honest to your employers.”

“And go to church, Johnnie, whenever you have the chance,” said his mother; “but in those wild parts I am afraid it won’t be every Sunday by a long way off.”

“Well, you can read a piece out of your Bible and prayer-book, even when you cannot go to church, Johnnie,” said his father, “so mind and do that.”

Johnnie promised he would, and then he and his father carried his box between them to meet the omnibus which would pass nearest to Euston Station. It came up sooner than they expected, so there was no more time for saying good-bye, and he and his mother jumped into it.

The great London and North-Western Railway terminus was brilliantly lighted up, and the bookstalls and refreshment-rooms were closed for the night, and very little seemed to be going on compared with what there is in the day-time. Johnnie and his mother were very early, and one by one the rest of the party began to arrive. At last about fifty boys and two or three young men had assembled on the platform, before their conductor, Mr. Evans, made his appearance. They began to make acquaintance with one another. One was going to join a brother, in trade at Montreal; another had taken his ticket to Vancouver, all the way across British North America; a third was bound for Toronto, a large city close to a lake; a fourth was going to Winnipeg. Johnnie was booked for Qu’appelle, between Winnipeg and Regina, by Mr. Evans’s advice, because it was an important farming centre, and there could be no doubt that he would easily get some sort of work in that neighbourhood.

Johnnie had never lived in the country in his life, and his chief acquaintance with sheep and cows was to see them driven along the streets of London on their way to Smithfield Market. But he had read in the circulars about Canada that people could get free grants of land out there, and become the owners of an estate and a house in time, and this was what he hoped to do when he was old enough.

Mr. Evans arrived about ten minutes before the train started, and packed the boys into a number of third-class carriages. He observed that they would have plenty of time on board ship to make up for the loss of a night’s rest. Still some of them did contrive to sleep on the way to Liverpool. Little Wilmot’s eyes were growing rather damp when his mother came up to wish him good-bye. “Mind,” she said, “and write a long letter directly you get settled. Father says the postage will be twopence halfpenny in Canadian money, so you must fill it full to make it worth so much. And there’s sixpence, Johnnie, to get some oranges in Liverpool to take on board, for the salt sea air will make you thirsty; and they can hardly afford to give you fruit, I should think, when they charge so little for your passage and food.” Poor Johnnie quite wished he was coming home again from Liverpool, and not going to Canada just at present. But it was too late to change his mind. The train whistled, and they were off, while all the last words he had meant to say to his mother had got choked up in his throat, and he could not anyhow get them out, and perhaps it was the same with her.

A few more people had come to see their boys off, and the brother of one of the young men was going with them as far as Liverpool. This young man had paid four pounds extra, and was going second class instead of in the steerage. He said that if that did not look comfortable he should pay still more, and go first-class. Johnnie thought he must be very rich.

It seemed strange to be rushing through the country when all the houses were closed and their owners asleep, and then to see the early morning beginning to break and the sun to rise. But by the time they arrived in Liverpool the whole city was awake, and Johnnie looked forward to his first view of the sea.