."

"Well, sir, speaking as a poor man, if I was like you, out of a
'gagement, and no character 'cept for being able to thrash your own
master--"

"Oh, Dingle!" I cried.

"Well, sir, it's true enough," he said; and he bent down to indulge in a
long silent fit of laughter.

"Don't do that," I said uneasily, "it's nothing to laugh at."

"Well, 'tis, and it 'tisn't, sir," said Dingle, wiping his eyes on the
corner of his apron.

"What would you do if you were out of an engagement?"

"Me? I should do what my brother did--hemigrate."

"Your brother did, Ding? To a nice place?" cried Esau.

"Yes, my lad, and he's getting on fine."

"Then why didn't you go too, and get on fine?"

"'Cause I've got a houseful o' children, and nearly all gals. That's
why, Clevershakes."

"But what does your brother do?" I said eagerly. "Is he an
auctioneer's porter?"

"Love and bless your heart, Mr Gordon, sir, no," he cried. "I don't
believe there's such a thing over there. He went out in the woods, and
got a bit o' land give him, and built hisself a log-house, and made a
garden, and got cows, and shoots in the woods."

"Here, hold hard, Ding," cried Esau, excitedly; "that'll do. Goes
shooting in the woods?"

"Yes, and gets a deer sometimes, and one winter he killed a bear and two
wolves, my lad."

"That's the place," cried Esau. "Hooroar! Come on, Master Gordon,
let's go there."

Dingle laughed.

"Hark at him, sir. What a one he is! Why, you don't know even where it
is."

"I don't care where it is," cried Esau. "You say you can go there, and
get some land, and live in the woods, and make your own house, and shoot
bears and wolves--that's just the thing I should like to do."

"Why, you said you wanted to jyne the Ryle Artilleree."

"Yes, but I didn't know of this place then. Where is it? How do you
go? You'll come too, won't you?"

"I don't know," I said, slowly, for my imagination was also fired by the
idea of living in such a land of liberty as that. In fact, as I spoke,
bright pictures of green forests and foaming rivers and boats began to
form in my mind. "Yes," I cried, "I think I should like to go."

"Hooroar! Where is it, Ding?"

"Oh, my brother's in Bri'ish Columbia, but it's a long, long way."

"Oh, we don't mind that," cried Esau. "How do you get there?"

"Him and his wife and their boy went eight or nine year ago. Sailed in
a ship from the docks, and it took 'em five months."