"You are going to stab me upon the king's highway, beside this mighty St. Lawrence, untouched by all the beauty of nature which surrounds us--untouched by yon lovely cascade of Montmorency, which the _habitants_ call 'The Cow,' a title very much the reverse of poetic, but which, nevertheless, expresses well enough the exquisite whiteness of the stream which leaps from its bosom like the rich and foaming flow from the milch-cow's udder. You are going to stab me right in sight of the Isle of Orleans, which, as we go on, conceals from our view the lovely waterfall which I have so poetically described! Heartless wretch! will nothing make you relent--not even the sight of poor José here, who is touched by all this wisdom and eloquence in one so young, as Fénelon would have said could he have written my adventures?" "Do you know," interrupted Archie, "you are at least as remarkable in poetry as you are in geometry?" "Who can doubt it?" answered Jules. "No matter, my perpendicular made you all laugh and myself most of all. You know, however, that that was only another trick of that scamp De Chavigny, who had stolen my exercise and rolled up another in place of it, which I handed in to the teacher. You all pretended not to believe me, since you were but too glad to see the trickster tricked." José, who ordinarily took little part in the young men's conversation, and who, moreover, had been unable to understand what they had just been talking about, now began to mutter under his breath: "What a queer kind of a country that, where the sheep have only heads, feet, and tails, and not even a handful of a body! But, after all, it is none of my business; the men who are the masters will fix things to suit themselves; but I can't help thinking of the poor horses!" José, who was a regular jockey, had a most tender consideration for these noble beasts. Then, turning to Archie, he touched his cap and said: "Saving your presence, sir, if the gentry themselves eat all the oats in your country, which is because they have nothing better to eat, I suppose, what do the poor horses do? They require to be well fed if they do much hard work." The young men burst out laughing. José, a little abashed by their ridicule, exclaimed: "Excuse me if I have said anything foolish. One may make mistakes without being drunk, just like Master Jules there, who was telling you that the _habitants_ call Montmorency Falls 'The Cow' because their foam is white as milk. Now, I have a suspicion that it is because they bellow like a cow in certain winds. At least that is what the old bodies say when they get chattering." "Don't be angry, old boy," answered Jules, "you are probably quite right. We were laughing because you thought there were horses in Scotland. The animal is unknown in that country." "What! no horses, sir? What do the folks do when they want to travel?"