'Yes, like our Scottish Edinburgh, the old city, being built in dangerous times, lies huddled close together under protection of its guardian rock,' said the Captain. 'But within, you could fancy yourself suddenly transported into an old Normandy town, among narrow crooked streets and high-gabled houses: nor will the degree of cleanliness undeceive you. For, unlike most other American cities, Quebec has a Past as well as a Present: there is the French Past, narrow, dark, crowded, hiding under a fortification; and there is the English Present, embodied in the handsome upper town, and the suburb of St. John's, broad, well-built, airy. The line of distinction is very marked between the pushing Anglo-Saxon's premises and the tumble-down concerns of the stand-still habitan.'

Perhaps, also, something is due to the difference between Protestant enterprise and Roman Catholic supineness.

'There's a boat boarding us already,' said Robert.

It proved to be the Custom-house officers; and when their domiciliary visit was over, Robert and Arthur went ashore. Navigating through a desert expanse of lumber rafts and a labyrinth of hundreds of hulls, they stepped at last on the ugly wooden wharves which line the water's edge, and were crowded with the usual traffic of a port; yet singularly noiseless, from the boarded pavement beneath the wheels.

Though the brothers had never been in any part of France, the peculiarly French aspect of the lower town struck them immediately. The old-fashioned dwellings, with steep lofty roofs, accumulated in narrow alleys, seemed to date back to an age long anterior to Montcalm's final struggle with Wolfe on the heights; even back, perchance, to the brave enthusiast Champlain's first settlement under the superb headland, replacing the Indian village of Stadacona. To perpetuate his fame, a street alongside the river is called after him; and though his 'New France' has long since joined the dead names of extinct colonies, the practical effects of his early toil and struggle remain in this American Gibraltar which he originated.

Andy Callaghan had begged leave to accompany his young masters ashore, and marched at a respectful distance behind them, along that very Champlain Street, looking about him with unfeigned astonishment. 'I suppose the quarries is all used up in these parts, for the houses is wood, an' the churches is wood, and the sthreets has wooden stones ondher our feet,' he soliloquized, half audibly. 'It's a mighty quare counthry intirely: between the people making a land on top of the wather for 'emselves by thim big rafts, an' buildin' houses on 'em, and kindlin' fires'——

Here his meditation was rudely broken into by the sudden somerset of a child from a doorstep he was passing; but it had scarcely touched the ground when Andy, with an exclamation in Irish, swung it aloft in his arms.

'Mono mush thig thu! you crathur, is it trying which yer head or the road is the hardest, ye are? Whisht now, don't cry, me fine boy, and maybe I'd sing a song for ye.'

'Wisha then, cead mille failthe a thousand times, Irishman, whoever ye are!' said the mother, seizing Andy's hand. 'And my heart warms to the tongue of the old counthry! Won't you come in, honest man, an' rest awhile, an' it's himself will be glad to see ye?'

'And who's himself?' inquired Andy, dandling the child.