Port Talbot
It was not till the sixth day of my sojourn at Port Talbot that the good Colonel could be persuaded to allow of my departure.
He told me, with good-humoured peremptoriness, that he was the grand autocrat of the forest, and that to presume to order horses, or take any step towards departing, without his express permission, was against “his laws.” At last he was so good as to issue his commands—with flattering reluctance, however—that a vehicle should be prepared, and a trusty guide provided; and I bade farewell to this extraordinary man with a mixture of delighted, and grateful, and melancholy feelings not easily to be described, nor ever forgotten.
My next journey was from Port Talbot to Chatham on the river Thames, whence it was my intention to cross Lake St. Clair to Detroit, and there take my chance of a vessel going up Lake Huron to Machinaw. I should, however, advise any future traveller, not limited to any particular time or plan of observation, to take the road along the shore of the Lake to Amherstberg and Sandwich, instead of turning off to Chatham. During the first day’s journey I was promised a good road, as it lay through the Talbot settlements; what was to become of me the second day seemed a very doubtful matter.
The best vehicle which the hospitality and influence of Colonel Talbot could provide was a farmer’s cart or team, with two stout horses. The bottom of the cart was well filled with clean soft straw, on which my luggage was deposited. A seat was slung for me on straps, and another in front for the driver, who had been selected from among the most respectable settlers in the neighbourhood as a fit guide and protector for a lone woman. The charge for the two days’ journey was to be twelve dollars.
As soon as I had a little recovered from the many thoughts and feelings which came over me as we drove down the path from Colonel Talbot’s house, I turned to take a survey of my driver, and from his physiognomy, his deportment, and the tone of his voice, to divine, if I could, what chance I had of comfort during the next two days. The survey was, on the whole, encouraging, though presenting some inconsistencies I could by no means reconcile. His dress and figure were remarkably neat, though plain and homely; his broad-brimmed straw hat, encircled with a green ribbon, was pulled over his brow, and from beneath it peered two sparkling, intelligent eyes. His accent was decidedly Irish. It was indeed a brogue as “nate and complate” as ever was sent forth from Cork or Kerry; but then his face was not an Irish face; its expression had nothing of the Irish character; the cut of his features, and his manner and figure altogether in no respect harmonised with his voice and accent.