nd last, but not least, a hamper of blue-nosed potatoes. So, when the
shades of the second evening were gathering grandly and gloomily around
the dismantled parapets, and Louisburgh lay in all the lovely and romantic
light of a red and stormy sunset, it seemed but fitting that the
cable-chain of the anchor should clank to the windlass, and the die-away
song of the mariner should resound above the calm waters, and the canvas
stretch towards the land opposite, that seemed so tempting and delectable.
And presently the "Balaklava" bore away across the red and purple harbor
for the new town, leaving in her wake the ruined walls of Louisburgh that
rose up higher the further we sailed from them.

The schooner dropped anchor inside the little cove on the opposite side of
the old town, which the reader will see by referring to the map; and the
old battles of the years '45 and '58 were presently forgotten in the new
aspects that were presented. The anchor was scarcely dropped fairly,
before the yawl-boat was under the stroke of the oars, and Picton and I
_en route_ for the store-house; the general, particular, and only exchange
in the whole district of Louisburgh. It was a small wooden building with a
fair array of tarpaulin hats, oil-skin garments, shelves of dry-goods and
crockery, and boxes and barrels, such as are usually kept by country
traders: on the beach before it were the customary flake for drying fish,
the brown winged boats, and other implements of the fisheries.

But alas! the new town, that looked so pastoral and pleasant, with its
tender slopes of verdure, was not, after all, a Canaan, flowing with milk
and blue-nosed potatoes. Neither was there white sugar, nor coffee, nor
good black tea there; the cabin of the schooner being as well furnished
with these articles of comfort as the store-house of McAlpin, towards
which we had looked with such longing eyes. Indeed, I would not have cared
so much about the disappointment myself, but I secretly felt sorry for
Picton, who went rummaging about the barrels in search of something to eat
or to drink. "No white sugar?" said the traveller. "_We don't have white
sugar in this town_," was the answer. "Nor coffee?" "No, Sir." And the tea
had the same flavor of musty hay, with which we were so well acquainted.
At last Picton stumbled over a prize--a bushel-basket half-filled with
potatoes, whereat he raised a bugle-note of triumph.

It may seem strange that a gentleman of fine