The incidents of our journey were few and uninteresting. At Montreal I received a very civil note from Mrs. Davis, accompanying my trunk and my purse. In the few lines I had written to her from the packet-office, I said that my performance of a servant's character in her establishment had been undertaken for a wager, which I had just won; that I begged of her, in consequence, to devote the wages owing to me to any charitable office she should think fit, and kindly to forward my effects to Montreal, together with a certificate, under her hand, that my real rank and station had never been detected during my stay in her house: this document being necessary to convince my friend Captain Pike that I had fulfilled the conditions of our bet.
Mrs. Davis's reply was a gem. "She had heard or read of Conacre, but didn't suspect we were the Cregans of that place. She did not know how she could ever forgive herself for having subjected me to menial duties. She had indeed been struck--as who had not?--with certain traits of my manner and address." In fact, poor Mrs. D., what with the material for gossip suggested by the story, the surprise, and the saving of the wages--for I suspect that, like the Duke in Junius, her charity ended where it is proverbially said to begin, at home,--was in a perfect paroxysm of delight with me, herself, and the whole human race.
To me, this was a precious document; it was a patent of gentility at once. It was a passport which, if not issued by authority, had at least the "visa" of one witness to my rank, and I was not the stuff to require many credentials.
Before we had decided on what day we should leave Montreal, a kind of small mutiny began to show itself among our party. The old man, grown sick of travelling, and seeing the America of his hopes as far off as ever, became restive, and refused to move farther. The sons had made acquaintances on board the steamer, who assured them that "about the lakes "--a very vague geography--land was to be had for asking. Peggy and Susan had picked up sweethearts, and wanted to journey westward; and poor Joe, pulled in these various directions, gave himself up to a little interregnum of drink, hoping that rum might decide what reason failed in.