“Hark at him, sir. What a one he is! Why, you don’t know even where it is.”
“I don’t care where it is,” cried Esau. “You say you can go there, and get some land, and live in the woods, and make your own house, and shoot bears and wolves—that’s just the thing I should like to do.”
“Why, you said you wanted to jyne the Ryle Artilleree.”
“Yes, but I didn’t know of this place then. Where is it? How do you go? You’ll come too, won’t you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, slowly, for my imagination was also fired by the idea of living in such a land of liberty as that. In fact, as I spoke, bright pictures of green forests and foaming rivers and boats began to form in my mind. “Yes,” I cried, “I think I should like to go.”
“Hooroar! Where is it, Ding?”
“Oh, my brother’s in Bri’ish Columbia, but it’s a long, long way.”
“Oh, we don’t mind that,” cried Esau. “How do you get there?”
“Him and his wife and their boy went eight or nine year ago. Sailed in a ship from the docks, and it took ’em five months.”
“Oh!” said Esau, in a disappointed tone. “Five months! Why, I didn’t think there was anywhere so far off as that.”