All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography

“Are you really willing to leave Scotland, Milly?”

“I will go to the end of the earth with you, Robert.”

Then he leaped to his feet, and his face was shining, and he kissed me tenderly, “Where shall we go?” he asked. “Canada? India? Australia?”

“What do you say to the United States?” I answered. “Tomorrow I will send to the library for books on all these countries. We will read and consider, and try to be ready to leave Scotland, about the middle of August.”

“At the middle of August? Why that date?”

“Because, about any new movement, it is good to have some one point decided. That is a foundation. We are going to seek good fortune about the middle of August. Let us regard that date as positive, Robert. It is our first step.”

He was by this time in an enthusiasm of fresh hope, and we sat talking till nearly three in the morning, and, if any acquaintance met him that day, they must have thought “Robert Barr has had some good luck. He was like his old self today.” Indeed the prospect of this new life brought back again the old cheerful Robert. Every day he came home with some fresh idea on the subject, or told me of something done to forward our plans. Among other incidental arrangements, he insisted on keeping our intention from the knowledge of his family. He feared his mother’s influence and interference. John Blackie had been urging his release from any further care of the Barr estate, and Robert’s name would be necessary to many papers in connection with this change, and unavoidable delays result. It also gave an air of romance to the flitting, which took it out of the rôle of ordinary emigration. And I will be truthful, and confess, that it pleased me to think of his mother’s and sister’s futile dismay, when they discovered we had escaped forever the shadows and petty humiliations of a conventional Scotch life.

On the twenty-second of May, 1853, my daughter Eliza was born, a bright, beautiful girl, who certainly brought her soul with her – a girl who all her life has been the good genius of extremities – never quailing before any calamity, but always sure there was a road over the mountains of difficulty, which we could find, as soon as we reached them. And, I may add, she always found the road.

I recovered rapidly, for I was fed daily on fresh hopes, and, in spite of the uncertainty surrounding these hopes, I was happy, for I believed in my dreams. Then there came a letter from Father, asking in his modest, unselfish way, for the return of Mother. It was enough to alarm us, for we knew well he had felt the necessity, though he voiced it with so little urgency; and, as this letter is the only scrap of my Father’s writing that has survived the constant chances and changes of nearly half a century, I will transcribe it:

My dear Amelia,

I can assure you the very sight of your letter afforded us unspeakable delight. Yes, we do feel grateful to that Divine and attentive Providence, which has been with you the last few weeks. We may, and do, attribute much to means, but what are all means without His sanction, and His blessing? To Him be all the praise! I hope, my dear, if spared, you will evince your gratitude by a devotion of all to Him. Give yourself, give your dear little ones to Him. You know well what is meant by that. God bless you! God bless the little stranger! She has come into a cold world; still she has friends who love and pray for her. Kiss her for me.

As to Mother, I am sure she has done all in her power, and she would do it so differently to any one else. I can assure you, at the time she left me, it was no small trial; but it was for Amelia, and only on this ground could I have been induced to make the sacrifice. Now, that you are so far improved, do not detain her. I fear another painful visitation. Think of Father. He has thought of Amelia. Give my love to dear Mother. The little girls are going to school, and send their love to you, and to dear Mr. Barr.

Amelia, I am what I ever was to you,

Father.

O Father! Father! If, in the stress of my labors and sorrows, I have forgotten your lovely, patient, helpful life, forgive me this day. Let my tears wash away my fault, and be still to me, what you ever were,

Father!

As soon as it was possible for me to do so, I faithfully read all I could read about Australia, India, Canada, and the United States, and very early came to the conclusion, that we must sail westward. I held in reserve a possible Canadian settlement, but I was sure that we must first go to New York. Australia, I had no hesitation in putting out of consideration; its climate, its strange natural conditions, and its doubtful early population, as well as its great distance from England, were definitely against it. But India to me was a land of romance. There were inconceivable possibilities in India. Anything wonderful could happen in those rich cities of the upper Ganges. The Huddleston ships had been early fond of Indian voyages, and Robert had several friends in Calcutta and Benares, who were making fortunes rapidly. We could not put India summarily out of our desires and calculations. My notes about it lay side by side with those of the United States, and for some time neither Robert nor I could honestly say “I prefer this or that, before the other.”

One night we had swiveled a great deal between New York and Calcutta as points of landing, Robert having had that day a letter from Andrew Blair, an old school friend, who was doing well in Delhi, and I went to sleep thinking that the children would require nothing in the way of an outfit but some white muslin. Then I dreamed a dream, and when I awakened from it I said softly, “Are you sleeping, Robert?” And he answered at once. “No. I heard you cry out in your sleep, and I was going to speak to you, if you cried again. What frightened you?”

“I thought we were in Calcutta, and we stood alone on a silent street, knowing not where to go. The sky was black as pitch, the air hot and heavy, and red as blood, and a great cry, like a woman’s cry, rang through it, and seemed to be taken up by the whole earth. Then a voice at my side said, ‘Look!’ and I saw that Calcutta was built entirely of great blocks of coal, and that, in the center of each block, there was a fierce fire burning. I must then have cried out, and awakened myself.”

For a few moments Robert did not speak, then he said in a hushed voice, “We cannot go to India. Blair told me in his letter that the whole country was restless, and the army mutinous, and that he felt a little uneasy. But that is such an old complaint, I did not heed it, and did not think it wise to trouble your decision by just a say-so.”

“Well, then, Robert,” I said, “you got the word, both for you and yours, and, as you did not heed it, another messenger was sent. I wonder if putting our own judgment first of all, and not delivering the entire message, will be counted as answering ‘No’ to the heavenly command.”

“Don’t say unpleasant things, Milly,” was Robert’s reply, and I was silent until he added, “We cannot go to India now, I suppose?”

“I would not go, for the whole wide world.”

“Then it must be America.”

“Yes, somewhere in America.”

In a very positive voice, Robert said, “It must be Canada. I am not going to give up my English citizenship for anything.”

“That is right,” I answered. “You can keep it anywhere. It is fine in you to guard your English citizenship. I have none to guard. It makes no difference to me where I live.”

“My citizenship is yours.”

“Oh, no! I do not exercise any of your citizenship rights, and they do not protect me.”

“I exercise them for you.”

“Well and good, but I am glad you do not eat, and drink, and sleep for me, and I would not like you to dream for me. You would not likely tell me the whole dream.”

“Now you are cross, Milly, and I will go to sleep.”

But I lay long awake, and felt anew, all through the silent hours, the horror and terror of that prophetic dream. For I need hardly remind my readers, that it was awfully verified in the unspeakable atrocities of the Sepoy rebellion, barely two years afterwards. And I do not believe Robert slept, but he could not endure allusions to the wrongs of women – a subject then beginning to find a voice here and there, among English women “who dared.”

CHAPTER X

PASSENGERS FOR NEW YORK

“The bud comes back to summer,And the blossom to the bee,But I’ll win back – O never,To my ain countree!“But I am leal to heaven,Where soon I hope to be,And there I’ll meet the loved,From my ain countree!”

Events that are predestined require but little management. They manage themselves. They slip into place while we sleep, and suddenly we are aware that the thing we fear to attempt, is already accomplished. It was somewhat in this way, all our preparations for America were finished. We did not speak of our intentions to any one, neither did we try to conceal them, excepting in the case already mentioned. But somehow they went forward, and that with all the certainty of appointed things.

A month after Mother left us, Robert brought home one day the tickets for our passage from Liverpool to New York, in the steamship Atlantic, then the finest boat sailing between the two ports. “You have now, Milly,” he said, “nearly four weeks to prepare for our new life. We shall sail on the twentieth of August”; and his face was glad, and his voice full of pleasure.

“And what of your preparations, Robert?” I asked.

“They go well with me. I have today made an arrangement for the closing up of my business on the twenty-second of August. And that day Forbes takes possession. He will sell my stock, and pay all I owe, which, thank God, is not much! Mother and Jessy will be in Arran; we shall be on the Atlantic. I shall have all I love and all I possess with me, and I will cast these last miserable two years out of my memory forever.”

“But, Robert,” I asked timidly, “have you money enough for such a change?”

“Quite sufficient. Donald’s legacy has turned out much better than I dared to hope. A syndicate has bought the land for building purposes. I expected three thousand pounds for it; they have paid me five thousand, and I have already transmitted it to the Bank of New York. Next,” he continued, “I will sell this furniture, and we will take the proceeds with us.”

“But we must get rid of Kitty first,” I answered. “If Kitty saw an article leave the house, she would write to your mother, and she, with David and Jessy, would be here by the next boat.”

“Listen!” he replied, with a confident smile. “On Monday, the fifteenth, you will tell Kitty that you and the children are going to Kendal. Let her help you pack your trunk, give her a sovereign, and bid her take a month’s holiday. She will be glad enough to get away. On Tuesday morning let her go to the Kendal train with you, bid her good-bye there, and advise her to take the next train for Greenock, from which place she can easily get passage to Campbeltown. She will not hurry out of Greenock, if she has money, and it may be two weeks before she sees Mother.”

“I shall reach Kendal on Tuesday afternoon, and you, Robert, when?”

“I will come for you on Thursday. On Friday we will go to Manchester, stay all night there, as you wish to see your sister, and early on Saturday morning take the train for Liverpool. The Atlantic sails about four in the afternoon; do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand what I am to do. What are your own plans?”

“As soon as you have left on Tuesday morning, I will bring home the large packing cases already ordered. These I will fill with our personal belongings, which you must quietly place in your own wardrobe, and the drawers and presses in the spare room. The boxes are very large, and you need not deny yourself anything that is comfortable, or dear to you.”

“I know the boxes; I have seen them.”

“Impossible! They are not yet made.”

“I saw them last night. They were of rough, unpainted wood, and very large, and, as I looked, a man came in and soldered thin iron bands around them.”

“Upon my soul, Amelia, what do you mean!”

“What I say. They were standing in this room.”

“You dreamed this?”

“Yes. Then I saw you, and the children, and we were on a ship sailing up a wide river, and we passed an island with many drooping willow trees close by the water side, and southward there were the outlines of a great city before me, and I knew the city was New York.”

“It is no wonder you dream of New York. You think and read and talk of it so much. But the packing cases, and the man soldering on the thin iron bands! That puzzles me. I never told you anything about them.”

“No, you never told me, but Some One who knew all about them, showed them to me. After you have packed the boxes on Tuesday, what then?”

“I shall go with them to Liverpool. A steamer leaving here on Tuesday night is in Liverpool Wednesday morning. A dray will take them to the Atlantic’s pier, and put them with her freight, after which duty done, I will start at once for Kendal. I may be there on Wednesday night, but allow something for detentions, and say some time Thursday.”

Robert’s plans appeared to be well considered and not difficult to carry out, and I began that day to go through my girlhood’s treasures, choosing some and leaving others. And, when Kitty was out marketing or walking with Mary I placed them ready for the big packing cases, that I knew were coming for them. Was I happy while thus busy? No. I knew that I was on the road appointed me to travel, but it was a new road, and a far distant one from the father and mother and sisters I loved so sincerely. Nor was I a woman who liked change and adventure. My strongest instincts were for home, and home pleasures, and the tearing to pieces of the beautiful home given me with so much love was a great trial. But to have shown this feeling might have saddened and discouraged Robert. In those days I was learning some of the hardest lessons wives have to become acquainted with, notably, to affect pleasure and satisfaction, when they are not pleased and satisfied; to hold up another’s heart, while their own heart faints within them; to give so lavishly of their vitality, hope, and confidence that they themselves are left prostrate; and yet, to smilingly say, “It is only a little headache,” and to make no complaint of their individual loves and losses, lest they should dash the courage or cool the enthusiasm of the one who, at all costs, must be encouraged and supported.

For I did not forget that all Robert’s energies at this time were required for one end and object, and that the smaller asides of individual feelings must not be allowed to interfere with that purpose. So I made no remark about the sale of my furniture. It was my contribution to our new life, and I resolved to give it cheerfully. Robert had told me I had four weeks, but, in reality, I had only three, for I was to leave on Tuesday, the sixteenth of August, for Kendal, and the fifteenth was to be spent in packing. But the three weeks felt too long. What I had to do, I did quickly; and then there was the weary waiting on others. Life became agitated and exigent, and the atmosphere of the house restless and expectant. Every room was full of Presence, evidently the wraiths of the departed were interested in what was going on; for,

“All houses wherein men have lived and diedAre haunted houses. Through the open doorsThe harmless phantoms on their errands glide,With feet that make no sound upon the floor.”

During the whole three weeks of preparation I was singularly prescient both by day and night, but only once did I mention this condition to Robert. I had lain down on my bed in the afternoon, weary with thought and feeling, and had fallen fast asleep. Then I heard a commotion in the house, the moving of furniture, the voices of men calling to each other, and, above all, I heard one strident voice of command, accompanied by a kind of stamp upon the floor. Presently my room door was opened, and a remarkable man entered. He was tall and rather stout, his face was large and white, his dress clerical, his whole manner intensely authoritative. He walked round my room, and stood a moment and looked at me. It was an inquisitive look, quite without interest or kindness. Then he began to give orders, and I awoke.

To Robert I said that night, “I saw your father this afternoon,” and I described the man who was directing the moving of the furniture; laying particular stress upon the stamp in his walk. Robert looked at me with amazement, then told me that the peculiarity in the walk was caused by his father having a false leg. “He received an injury to his knee while playing golf,” he said, “and his walk with the artificial limb, was of the character you observed. But I never told you of it.”

“No, you never told me, Robert, but there are tiding bringers whom we do not summon. ‘God also speaks to his children in dreams, and by the oracles that dwell in darkness.’ We do not realize it, yet there is no doubt that our daily life is the care of angels, and the theme of their conversation. Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who are the heirs of salvation?”

“Then what of those who are not heirs of salvation?”

“There are no such unfortunates. God is ‘not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’ Once I heard my father quote that verse in the pulpit, and after a moment’s pause he cried out, ‘a great all that,’ and a very old man spoke out loudly, ‘Glory be to God! A great all. It covers every soul.’ Then Father quoted the words again, and there was a wonderful happiness, and the dull old chapel seemed to glow, and the faces of the people were lifted heavenward.”

And Robert called me a dear little Methodist, and drew me close to his side, and kissed me. “No wonder!” he continued, “my father felt no interest in you – but that was a strange dream, Milly.”

“Dreams are large possessions, Robert,” I answered; “they are an expansion of life, an enlightenment, and a discipline. I thank God for my dream life; my daily life would be far poorer, if it wanted the second sight of dreams. The dreams I have had during this movement of ours have kept me serene and satisfied. They have shown me what is appointed, and things appointed come to pass.”

“In three weeks we shall see if your dreams come to pass.”

“Yes, but three weeks is a long time.”

Indeed I felt it to be almost a cruel lengthening of suspense; for I did not understand at the time I was learning one of the most difficult lessons the soul has to master – that of “waiting patiently for the Lord.” It is easy to ask, but to wait patiently for the answer, is a far more difficult duty. However, when I had carefully arranged in the places indicated our household treasures of napery, clothing, silver, and so forth, I wished I could go to Kendal. But I saw Robert’s face change as soon as I mentioned Kendal.

“We made a plan for our movements, Milly,” he said, “and I do not wish a single point altered. It might disarrange all I have been working for.”

Then I declared I was quite content, but I was not always content. In spite of my undoubted confidence in the wisdom of the change we were making, I had days of utter weariness. My life, with all its orderly habits and duties, seemed to be the same; but I knew that its foundation was destroyed; reading had ceased to interest me; I had no more sewing to do; my soul often sank back upon itself, and sometimes even retired from sympathy and affection. All have had such hours, and know what they mean. As for me, when this dark mental and spiritual inertia attacked me, and I could not pray, I just told God so, and waited until some blessed wind of Heaven unlocked the mood, which bound me like a chain.

One afternoon, about a week before I was to go to Kendal, Robert’s mother called, and the moment she entered the room, a look of amazement and anger came over her face.

“Amelia!” she cried, “Amelia, what are you doing? Do stop that foolishness at once. It is fairly sinful, and nothing less.”

What I was doing, was spinning some half-crowns on the polished table for the amusement of Mary, who was sitting in her high chair and laughing with delight. I looked up at Mother, and explained how I had given Kitty a sovereign for some marketing, and she had brought the change in silver pieces, so I was just showing Mary how prettily the crowns and half-crowns could dance.

“Don’t you see that you are teaching the child, before she is two years old, that money is a thing to play with? And, what is more, suppose she puts one of those shilling bits in her mouth, and it gets into her throat; nothing could save her. And it would be your fault, and not God’s will, at all.”

“Thank you, Mother,” I said, as I rapidly gathered up the coins. “It was very thoughtless of me; I will never do the like again. Will you have a cup of tea, and will you stay all night?”

“No,” she answered, “I just came to see if Robert was at home. It is not possible to find him in his office lately, and I want a few words with him.”

“I have not seen him since early this morning,” I said; and I ordered her tea, and tried to introduce a more pleasant conversation. But the incident of the coins mortified me, and I could see Mother anxiously glancing at them, as they lay on the chimney-piece; so I carried them to my desk, locked the desk, and put the key in my pocket. As I was doing this, I was thinking that it might be the last time I should see her, and was trying to find some homely, sympathetic subject, that would bring us, at least for this hour, closer together.

But it was not a pleasant visit, and Robert was troubled and silent for a long time, after I told him about it. Then I was troubled, for I knew so little of Robert’s family affairs, that I was like a woman walking in the dark any step might be a false one; any moment I might stumble. But often, I had heard my father say, “When you do not know what to do, then stand still.” So I was still, and appeared to be puzzling over a new pattern of crochet work.

For I was determined that Robert should take the initiative, and after a little while he did so. “Milly,” he said, “I have been trying to discover what makes Mother and you always at swords’ points. If you do not quarrel, you come so near it, that you might as well, perhaps better, do so. You do not quarrel with any one else, why cannot you two agree?”

“The disagreement is probably behind, and beyond us, Robert,” I answered. “We are not responsible for it. You have heard me speak of Ann Oddy?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, Ann would say, that your mother’s angel and my angel did not agree. I think Mother’s angel is probably a wise, stern spirit, who has made Mother look well after her own interests, and despise frivolities; and I am sure my angel is one easily entreated, and anxious to give me everything I want – when she can – but she cannot always manage it.”

Robert laughed and said, “Then I suppose your angel and mine are good friends.”

“Yes,” I answered; “they both approved our marriage, and did all they could to forward it.”

“Suppose they had not approved it?”

“Then your mother’s angel would have had her way, and we should have been separated.”

“If you hold such opinions, Milly, you must also believe that angels still retain human feelings?”

“Why not?” I answered. “They are not perfect. They are still going forward, even as we are.”

“Then they cannot be equal.”

“Far from it. Some are in authority, some under authority. Some are tidings bringers, others are invisible helpers of all kinds. Some minister to little children, others to men fainting in the van of a hard life, and many console the dying. I have heard it said that ‘we come into the world alone, and we die alone.’ We do neither. No, indeed!”

“You little preacher! Where do you get such ideas?” asked Robert.

“Ideas do not float about in the air, so then some intelligent being sends them to me. They are the fruits of some soul. A good message will always find a messenger.”

“Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth,

Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.”

Every one knows that in times of great anxiety, conversation is sure to turn either on some trivial occurrence, or else on some speculative subject. It was so with Robert and myself. We did not talk more than was necessary about our own affairs; as long as they were in uncertainty and transition, they were at the mercy of contingencies, which we could neither alter nor hurry. A few words every evening informed me of any progress made and then I knew it was wise to turn the conversation upon some irrelevant subject, that would provoke argument.