“An so you thinks you’ve got onto Newfoundland or Gaspé,” he said.
“Yes. Why? Where are we? Can you tell us? And who are you? and what are you doing here?”
Tom said this.
“Me?” said the man. “Look at me. Can’t you see what I be? Do I look like a gentleman farmer? Is this the country for a emigrant? Me!” he repeated, with a bitter laugh. “Poor boys! poor boys! Why, I’m jest like you. I’m ship-wracked—on’y I knows where I be, an that’s more’n you do, it seems.”
“Shipwrecked!” exclaimed Tom.
“Yes, wracked—the worst sort; an this here country—so you think it’s Newfoundland or Gaspé? Well—it ain’t either.”
“What is it?”
“The worst place in the world—that’s what it is; a place where there ain’t no hope, and there ain’t no life. It’s only death that a man can find here.”
“What do you mean?” asked Tom. “Tell us what place it is.”
The man looked at them both, one after the other, with a solemn face.