ll. Only one enemy can
ruin a Scotchman here, and that's the "drap drink." Ten to one that in
twenty years you find this ground covered with factories and thousands
of houses; that solitary store is the germ of streets of shops, and the
tavern will expand into half a score hotels. Sandy will do it all.'

'I'm afraid you could not speak so well of Irish progress.'

'Because the canker of their religion continues to produce its legitimate
effects in most cases; and the influence of whisky--the great bane of
social life in our colony--is even more predominant than over the lower
class Scotch settlers. Still, they do infinitely better here than at
home; and you'll meet with many a flourishing Hibernian in the backwoods
and pioneer cities.'

'I presume this is a pioneer city?' looking round at the handful of
wooden shanties.

'Don't despise it; Rome had as small a beginning, and was manned by no
more indomitable hands and hearts than our frontier emigrants.'

'We are producing quite a sensation,' said Robert. For the major part
of the inhabitants came out of doors to view the strangers, with that
curiosity which characterizes a new-born society; many of the men
bethought themselves of some business at the wooden tavern by the
water-side, where the waggon drew up and the new arrivals entered in.

A store where everything was sold, from a nail or a spool of 'slack' to
a keg of spirits or an almanac: sold for money when it could be had,
for flour or wool or potash when it couldn't; likewise a post-office,
whither a stage came once a week with an odd passenger, or an odd dozen
of newspapers and letters; likewise the abode of a magistrate, where
justice was occasionally dispensed and marriages performed. The dwelling
that united all these offices in its single person, was a long, low,
framed house, roofed with shingles, and but one storey in height;
proprietor, a certain canny Scot, named Angus Macgregor, who, having
landed at Quebec with just forty shillings in the world, was making
rapid strides to wealth here, as a landed proprietor and store-keeper
without rivalry. Others of the clan Gregor had come out, allured by
tidings of his prosperity; and so the broad Doric of lowland Scotch
resounded about the tavern table almost as much as the Canadian twang.

All doing well. Labour was the sole commodity they possessed, and it
sufficed to purchase the best things of life in Canada, especially that
slow upward rising in circum