ive years after the deed which makes his fame was this
memorial erected: a tardy recognition of the service which placed the
noblest of our dependencies--a Province large as an old-world empire--in
British hands.

CHAPTER VII.

THE RIVER HIGHWAY.

'Well, Misther Robert! if ever I laid my eyes on the likes of such a
ship, in all my born days!'

With this impressive ejaculation, Andy Callaghan backed on the wharf to
take a completer view of the wondrous whole. His untravelled imagination
had hitherto pictured steamers after the one pattern and similitude of
those which sailed upon the river Lee and in the Cove of Cork--craft
which had the aquatic appendages of masts and decks, and still kept up
an exterior relation with the ship tribe. But this a steamboat! this
great three-storied wooden edifice, massive-looking as a terrace of
houses!

'An' a hole in the side for a hall-door!' soliloquized Andy. 'No, but
two holes, one for the quality an' the other for the commonality. An'
no deck at all at all for the people to take the air, only all cabins
intirely! If it isn't the very dead image of a side of a sthreet
swimmin' away!'

Andy's outspoken remarks attracted some notice when he was fairly
aboard.

'This is the fore-cabin, and you must try to keep quiet,' said Arthur.
'We'll be off presently; and whatever you do,' he added in a low tone,
'keep clear of that bar'--indicating a counter recess where liquors were
sold, and where customers had congregated already.

'Never fear, sir,' was the reply; 'though they've no right to put it
there forenent us, an' they knowin' that the bare sight of it is like
fire to tow with many a one. But sure they're not thinkin' only how to
get money:' and Mr. Callaghan ended his moral reflections by sitting
down beside a family of small children, who squalled in different keys,
and treating one of them to a ride on his foot, which favour, being
distributed impartially, presently restored good humour.

'An' isn't there any peep of the fresh air allowed us at all?' inquired
Andy of a man near him, whose peculiar cut of garments had already
excited his curiosity. 'It's a quare vessel that hasn't aither a sail or
deck: we might all go to the bottom of the say in this big box, 'athout
bein' a bit the wiser.'

The emigrant with the six children looked rather anxious, and hugged her
baby closer, poor woman; glancing for a minute at the bar, where her
husband was sipping gin, and al