the garrison at
Halifax, then under the command of the royal duke himself; and the
doctor had written to say that if the squire, Eric's grandfather,
approved, he would like Eric to come out to him, as his term of service
had been extended three years beyond what he expected, and he wanted to
have his boy with him. At the same time, he left the matter entirely
in the squire's hands for him to decide.

So far as the old gentleman was concerned, he decided at once.

"Send the boy out there to that wild place, and have him scalped by an
Indian or gobbled by a bear before he's there a month? Not a bit of
it. I won't hear of it. He's a hundred times better off here."

The squire, be it observed, held very vague notions about Nova Scotia,
and indeed the American continent generally, in spite of his son's
endeavours to enlighten him. He still firmly believed that there were
as many wigwams as houses in New York, and that Indians in full
war-paint and plumes were every day seen on the streets of
Philadelphia; while as for poor little Nova Scotia, it was more than
his mind could take in how the Duke of Kent could ever bring himself to
spend a week in such an outlandish place, not to speak of a number of
years.

So soon as Eric learned of his father's request, he was not less quick
in coming to a conclusion, but it was of a precisely opposite kind to
the squire's. He was what the Irish would call "a broth of a boy."
Fifteen last birthday, five feet six inches in height, broad of
shoulder and stout of limb, yet perfectly proportioned, as nimble on
his feet as a squirrel, and as quick of eye as a king-bird, entirely
free from any trace of nervousness or timidity, good-looking in that
sense of the word which means more than merely handsome, courteous in
his manners, and quite up to the mark in his books, Eric represented
the best type of the British boy as he looked about him with his brave
brown eyes, and longed to be something more than simply a school-boy,
and to see a little of that great world up and down which his father
had been travelling ever since he could remember.

"Of course I want to go to father," said he, promptly and decidedly.
"I don't believe there are any bears or Indians at Halifax; and even if
there should be, I don't care. I'm not afraid of them."

He had not the look of a boy that could be easily frightened, or turned
aside from anything upon which he had set his heart, and the old squire
felt a