ed to lend him more,
but he declined it.

"You can pay us back in Quebec," said White.

"I don't need it," replied Robert, "but I'll keep the rendezvous there
with you both."

As the _Hawk_ was to stay two or three days in port in order to take on
supplies, they went ashore together, and the three were full of
curiosity when they entered, for the first time, the town of which they
had heard so much. Boston had already made such impress upon the
imagination that all the English colonists were generally known to the
French in Canada as Bostonnais. In England it had a great name, and
there were often apprehensions about it. It was the heart and soul of
the expedition when the New Englanders surprised the world by taking the
great French fortress of Louisbourg, and it had an individuality and a
personality which it has never lost.

"I don't know how I'm going to like it," said Captain Whyte, as they
left the sloop. "I hear that they're very superior here, and consider us
English a rather backward lot. Don't you think you'd better reconsider,
Lennox, and go on with us to Louisbourg?"

Robert laughed.

"I'm not afraid of the Bostonians," he said. "I met some very competent
ones on the shores of Lake George. There was one Elihu Strong, a colonel
of Massachusetts infantry, whom I like to remember. In truth, Captain,
what I see here arouses my admiration. You noticed the amount of
shipping in the port. The Bostonians are very keen traders, and they say
there are sharp differences in character between them and the people of
our southern provinces, but as I come from a middle province, New York,
I am, in a sense, neutral. The New Englanders have a great stake in the
present war. Their country has been ravaged for more than a century by
French and Indians from Canada, and this province of Massachusetts is
sending to it nearly every man, and nearly every dollar it has."

"We know of their valor and tenacity in England," said Captain Whyte,
"but we know also that they're men of their own minds."

"Why shouldn't they be? That's why they're English."

"Since you put it that way, you're right. But here we are."

The town, about the size of New York, looked like a great city to
Robert. He had come from a land that contained only one inhabitant,
himself, and it was hard for him now to realize there were so many
people in the world. The contrast put crowds everywhere, and, at times,
it was very confusing, though it was always i