"Well, well, we will see. Doctor, don't let that man starve himself outright, while he is shaming the others into not complaining." Then the welcome wind came, rations were increased, and on September 17, Ned saw Canada--Halifax, with the deep green of the all-embracing forest round her, and the vivid scarlet of the British flag still above her forts. The regiment with its officers, and the soldiers' wives were packed on the "Herald", a little 70-gun warship. They sailed up a mile-wide river, Ned straining his eyes to see a line of distant hills clothed with the same unbroken forest. Then the hills were blotted out by dark driving clouds, and sheets of rain. The waves rose, and the "Herald" plunged through a night of storm and great discomfort to all on board. Sunshine came with the morning, but the ship stopped off a rocky mountainous spot, with no sign of human habitation. Orders were given, the men took their arms and knapsacks, the women their children, and all were landed with much difficulty. There was no sign of a road anywhere. They climbed a rugged slope only to descend on its further side, and find another and steeper one before them, many of the men having to get up the worst places on their hands and knees. Mrs. Ferguson was being helped by Dr. Tam, and Ned took her child on his back as they scrambled up the second hill and slipped down it into a wide deep bog. "Sure, and I don't see why we don't present this country to the Yankees as a gift," grumbled Tim Kelly. "It's not fit for a decent Christian to live in. I don't wonder it hasn't any people. Murder! there's my shoe gone, and I daren't swear with the little Swaddler so near." "Forward," said a voice, and with demoralized ranks the regiment crawled out of the mud, leaving many more shoes behind it. Night came, but there was no halt till it seemed to Ned that he had spent weeks falling over bushes and into creeks. At last, however, the worn-out men were allowed to rest, and soon forgot their fatigues as they ate their suppers round huge fires of logs, and then bivouaced by them. "I wonder where we are, and if the enemy is anywhere near?" said Ned as he lay down by Ferguson, "I guess you are pretty done up." "I certainly feel the need of being under the grace of God," said the Methodist, "to lay the rough path of my peevish nature even, and open in my heart a constant Heaven." The next day they marched back to the ship, and soon reached Quebec, the excursion being an official idea to "break-in" fresh troops to campaigning in Canada. The fortress city on the cliff with the many priests in her streets, and French spoken everywhere, seemed very foreign to Ned. "I thought Canada was English," Ferguson said to him as they went out together.