Long before this letter arrived the news was known at Murray Bay. Malcolm Fraser, the tried family friend, writes on September 1st, 1800, that he has just discharged the most painful task of telling the sad news to Jack's sister and companion, Christine, who was visiting in Quebec. In his grief Nairne gives an exceeding bitter cry, "Lord, help me. I shall lose all my children before I go myself." His sister Magdalen wrote from Edinburgh on March 17th, 1800, to offer comfort and to hope that he bears the trial "with Christian fortitude, and that God will reward him by sparing those that remain to be a blessing to him," Nairne's sisters now had with them in Edinburgh the two remaining children, Tom and Mary, called "Polly." John is gone but Tom is left, says the fond aunt, and to console Nairne she tells of Tom's virtues: "Never was father blessed with a more promising son than our little Tom, and though I used to dread he was too faultless and too good to live, I would now persuade myself he is intended by Providence to compensate you for the losses you have sustained." On Tom now centred the hopes of the Nairne family. [Illustration: VIEW FROM POINTE AU PIC UP MURRAY BAY] The sands of Nairne's own life were running out. As he looked around him he could see much to make his heart content. He was never unmindful of the singular beauty of the place. "I wish I could send you a landscape of this place," he wrote to a friend, John Clark, in 1798; "Was you here your pencil might be employed in drawing a beautiful one which this Bay affords, as the views and different objects are remarkably various and entertaining." This is, no doubt, a mild account of the beauties of a very striking scene, but the 18th century had not developed our appreciation for nature. Nairne tells of his delight in tramping through the woods, and over the mountains, with a gun on his shoulder. The increase of settlement, and the burning of the woods, had driven the wild animals farther back into the wilderness, but partridges and water fowl were still abundant. There was salmon fishing almost at his door and "Lake Nairne," the present Grand Lac, had famous trout fishing. The thick woods, which at his coming extended all round the bay, were now cleared away. Much land had been enclosed and brought under cultivation and to do this had been a laborious and expensive task. Now he had three farms of his own, each with a hundred acres of arable land and with proper buildings. There was also a smaller farm for hay and pasture. "I have been employed lately," he writes in 1798, "making paths into our woods and marking the trees in straight lines thro' tracts of pretty good land in order to encourage the young men to take lots of land." He tells how the successive ridges, representing, no doubt, different water levels in remote ages, were numbered. In the highest, Number 7, the lakes are all situated; the elevated land was generally