driver and the station master allowed me to lift my own luggage into
it as well as I could? What it would not take I told the man in
charge I would send for as soon as possible. There was no sleighing
yet, and that drive was the most excruciating thing I ever endured
over corduroy roads through wild and dark forests, along
interminable country roads of yellow clay mixed with mud till
finally we reached the house of the chief member of society in my
district where we were to stay until our own house was ready."
"How long did that take you?" I was quite interested. This was
unlike the other clergymen's conversation I remembered.
"O, a matter of eight hours or so. We had the eggs and bacon--the
_piece de resistance_ in every Canadian farmhouse--at about
half-past 12, for which we were thankful and--hungry. But now you
must excuse me for here come two of the boys. Now, then, Alick,
where's your mother? Isn't she coming on deck with James? Run and
fetch her and you, George, get one of the chairs ready for her. And
get the rugs at the same time Alick, do you hear?"
I excused myself in turn and watched the family preparations with
much amusement. Mrs. Saskabasquia came up from her state room with a
baby in her arms, and a big fellow he was, followed by the other six
and their aunt. The Bishop placed chairs for the two ladies and
walked up and down the deck I should think the entire afternoon,
first with two children and then with two more and finally with the
baby in his arms. This was a funny sight but still not one to be
ridiculed, far from it. Well, every day showed my new friend in an
improved light. Who was it took all the children, not only his own
but actually the entire troop on board up to the bow and down to the
stern in a laughing crowd to see this or that or the other? Now a
shoal of porpoises, now a distant sail or an iceberg, now the
beautiful phosphorescence or the red light of a passing ship--the
Bishop. Who divined the innate cliquism of life on board ship and
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