ork, which
would complete its readiness for Devonport dockyards, or perchance for
the Cherbourg shipwrights. During this operation the foreman made an
excursion to visit his other gangs, and then took his visitors a little
aside into the woods to view what he termed a 'regular take-in.' It was
a group of fine-looking pines, wearing all the outward semblance of
health, but when examined, proving mere tubes of bark, charred and
blackened within, and ragged along the seam where the fire had burst
out.

'How extraordinary!' said Argent. 'Why were they not burned equally
through?'

'I hae been thinkin' the fire caught them in the spring, when the sap
rins strong; so the sap-wood saved thae shells, to misguide the puir
axmen. I thought I had a fair couple o' cribs o' lumber a' ready to
hand, when I spied the holes, and found my fine pines naething but empty
pipes.'

He had been fashioning two saplings into strong handspikes, and now
offered one each to the gentlemen. 'Ye'll not be too proud to bear a
hand wi' the mast aboon: it'll be a kittle job lugging it to the pond;
so just lend us a shove now and then.'

The great mass was at last got into motion, by a difficult concerted
starting of all the oxen at the same moment.

Round the brilliant log fire, while pannikins of tea circulated, and
some flakes of the falling snow outside came fluttering down into the
blaze, the lumberers lay on their bunks, or sat on blocks, talking,
sleeping, singing, as the mood moved. French Canadians are native-born
songsters; and their simple ballad melodies, full of _refrain_ and
repetition, sounded very pleasing even to Argent's amateur ears.

'I can imagine that this shanty life must be pleasant enough,' said
Argent, rolling himself in his buffalo robe preparatory to sleep by the
fire.

'I'll just tell ye what it is,' returned the foreman; 'nane that has
gane lumbering can tak' kindly to ony ither calling. They hae caught
the wandering instinct, and the free life o' the woods becomes a
needcessity, if I might say sae. D'ye ken the greatest trouble I find
in towns? Trying to sleep on a civilised bed. I canna do't, that's the
fact; nor be sitting to civilised dinners, whar the misguided folk spend
thrice the time that's needfu', fiddling with a fork an' spune. I like
to eat an' be done wi' it.'

Which little social trait was of a piece with Mr. Foreman's energy and
promptness in all the circumstances of life. In a very few minutes fro