Canada.

"No one but this here boy, sir," said the coxswain; shoving me before
him towards the skipper, who, amidst a crowd of officers in undress, sat
smoking on the after-deck.

A very significant grunt seemed to imply that the vessel's way was lost
for very slight cause.

"He says as how he belonged to a yacht, sir," resumed the coxswain.

"Whose yacht, boy?" asked one of the officers.

"Sir Dudley Broughton's, sir; the 'Firefly,'" said I.

"Broughton! Broughton!" said an old, shrewd-looking man, in a
foraging-cap; "don't you know all about him? But, to be sure, he was
before _your_ day;" and then, changing his discourse to French,--with
which language, thanks to my kind old friend Father Rush, I was
sufficiently acquainted to understand what was said,--he added, "Sir
Dudley was in the Life Guards once; his wife eloped with a Russian or a
Polish Count,--I forget which,--and he became deranged in consequence.
Were you long with Sir Dudley, boy?" asked he, addressing me in English.

"Not quite two months, sir."

"Not a bad spell with such a master," resumed he, in French, "if the
stories they tell of him be true. How did you happen to be left on
Anticosti?"

"No use in asking, Captain!" broke in the skipper. "You never get a word
of truth from chaps like that; go for'ard, boy."

And with this brief direction I was dismissed. All my fancied
heroism--all my anticipated glory--vanishing at once; the only thought
my privations excited being that I was a young scamp, who, if he told
truth, would confess that all his sufferings and misfortunes had been
but too well merited.

This was another lesson to me in life, and one which perhaps I could not
have acquired more thoroughly than by a few days on Anticosti.

CHAPTER XII. A GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER OPENING IN LIFE

Although only a few hundred miles from Quebec, our voyage still
continued for several days; the "Hampden" like all transport-ships, was
only "great in a calm," and the Gulf-stream being powerful enough to
retard far better sailers.

To those who, like myself, were not pressed for time, or had no very
pleasing vista opening to them on shore, the voyage was far from
disagreeable. As the channel narrowed, the tall mountains of Vermont
came into view, and gradually the villages on the shore could be
detected,--small, dark clusters, in the midst of what appeared
interminable pine forests. Here and there less pleasant sights presented
themselves, in the