On the second day after “the festival,” as Mr. Waft ever spoke of the ploy we had at Judiville, the preparations being completed for Robin's departure, he set out for New York, and I went with him as far as Olympus. It was at first intended I should have gone to Utica, but the business of the store would not admit of so long an absence: we were expecting daily a fresh supply of goods, and moreover, many enquiries were making about the land; all which constituted a cause for me to ‘bide at home.

From Olympus he was to make the best of his way, by any kind of conveyance he could obtain cheapest; and as he was furnished by me with letters to some of my old friends at New York, especially to Mr. Primly, a most respectable Quaker, whom I had known from his boyhood, my heart was light concerning him. The chief source of my confidence was in the boy himself, whom it had pleased God to endow with a cheerful spirit, an airy taking manner that won much with strangers, and a high sense of rectitude and honour. It is true, that some of the neighbours, especially that never-ending tribulation Bailie Waft, used to jeer me about the favour and affection I had for my children, and to say that my geese were all swans; nevertheless, even the bailie himself, when discoursing with sobriety, confessed that he had seen few lads of his years to compare with Robin Todd. Mr. Herbert, the schoolmaster, told me, on the morning before his departure, that he had every quality necessary to make an honest man and a clever trader.

But although all these assurances were most agreeable, and although I was bound to acknowledge that hope was above anxiety with me in looking forward to the prospects of my first-born, and the son of my first love; sadness at times overcast my spirit, and as we drove on in the wagon to Olympus, I felt the difference between the pang a parent suffers in parting with his child to the world, and the regret of a son taking leave of his father.