"No, sir; we landed--a few of us--during a calm--" "Ay, ay," he broke in, "I know all that,--the old story; you landed to shoot rabbits, and somehow you got separated from the others; the wind sprung up meantime; the yacht fired a gun to come off--eh, is n't that it! Come, my lad, no gammon with me. You 're some infernal young scamp that was 'had up' for punishment, and they either put you ashore here for the rats, or you jumped overboard yourself, and floated hither on a spare hencoop. But never mind,--we 'll give you a run to Quebec; jump in." I followed the order with alacrity, and soon found myself on board the "Hampden" transport, which was conveying the --th Regiment of Foot to Canada. "No one but this here boy, sir," said the coxswain; shoving me before him towards the skipper, who, amidst a crowd of officers in undress, sat smoking on the after-deck. A very significant grunt seemed to imply that the vessel's way was lost for very slight cause. "He says as how he belonged to a yacht, sir," resumed the coxswain. "Whose yacht, boy?" asked one of the officers. "Sir Dudley Broughton's, sir; the 'Firefly,'" said I. "Broughton! Broughton!" said an old, shrewd-looking man, in a foraging-cap; "don't you know all about him? But, to be sure, he was before _your_ day;" and then, changing his discourse to French,--with which language, thanks to my kind old friend Father Rush, I was sufficiently acquainted to understand what was said,--he added, "Sir Dudley was in the Life Guards once; his wife eloped with a Russian or a Polish Count,--I forget which,--and he became deranged in consequence. Were you long with Sir Dudley, boy?" asked he, addressing me in English. "Not quite two months, sir." "Not a bad spell with such a master," resumed he, in French, "if the stories they tell of him be true. How did you happen to be left on Anticosti?" "No use in asking, Captain!" broke in the skipper. "You never get a word of truth from chaps like that; go for'ard, boy." And with this brief direction I was dismissed. All my fancied heroism--all my anticipated glory--vanishing at once; the only thought my privations excited being that I was a young scamp, who, if he told truth, would confess that all his sufferings and misfortunes had been but too well merited. This was another lesson to me in life, and one which perhaps I could not have acquired more thoroughly than by a few days on Anticosti. CHAPTER XII. A GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER OPENING IN LIFE Although only a few hundred miles from Quebec, our voyage still continued for several days; the "Hampden" like all transport-ships, was only "great in a calm," and the Gulf-stream being powerful enough to retard far better sailers.