wouldn't stop when
they said that, and so we laid beside the schooner and took off all her
crew pretty soon, and they mostly dead with the cold; but it was an awful
bad night, what with the darkness and the ice. Yes," he added, after a
pause, "they are good boys now; but they won't be with me many years."

"And why not?" I inquired, for I could not see that the young Red-Caps
exhibited any migratory signs of their species to justify the remark.

"Because all our boys go to the States just as soon as they get old
enough."

"To the States!" I echoed with no little surprise; "why, I thought they
all entered the British Navy, or something of that kind."

"Lord bless ye," said Red-Cap, "not one of them. Enter the British Navy!
Why, man, you get the whole of our young people. What would they want to
enter the British Navy for, when they can enter the United States of
America?"

"The air of Cape Breton is certainly favorable to health," said I, in a
whisper, to Picton; "look, for example, at the mistress of the hutch!" and
so surely as I have a love of womanity, so surely I intended to convey a
sentiment of admiration in the brief words spoken to Picton. The wife of
_Bonnet Rouge_ was at least not young, but her cheek was smooth, and
flushed with the glow of health; her eyes liquid and bright; her hair
brown, and abundant; her step light and elastic. Although neither Picton,
captain, or anybody else in the hutch would remind one of the Angel
Raphael, yet Mrs. Red-Cap, as

----"With dispatchful looks, in haste
She turned, on hospitable thoughts intent,"

was somewhat suggestive of Eve; her movements were grand and simple; there
was a welcome in her face that dimpled in and out with every current
topic; a Miltonic grandeur in her air, whether she walked or waited. I
could not help but admire her, as I do everything else noble and easily
understood. Mrs. Red-Cap was a splendid woman; the wife of a fisherman,
with an unaffected grace beyond the reach of art, and poor old Louisburgh
was something to speak of. Picton expressed his admiration in stronger and
profaner language.

We were not the only guests at Red-Cap's. The lighthouse keeper, Mr.
Kavanagh, a bachelor and scholar, with his sister, had come down to take a
moonlight walk over the heather; for in new Scotland as in old Scotland,
the bonny heather blooms, although not so much familiarized there by song
and story. But we shall visit lighthouse Point anon,