244 A VOYAGE IN THE NORTH SEAS. 



Straits ere fine weather returned ; thus putting it absolutely out of 

 the power of Captain Bellamy, even if his officers (whose wages de- 

 pended chiefly on their success in the fishery) would have allowed 

 him, to return and land the shipwrecked crew. - It only remained for 

 them, therefore, to go the whole voyage. In the meantime the sea- 

 men who had been taken from the sloop regained their health and 

 strength, all but one poor fellow, who died a day or two after coming 

 on board the Labrador in a state of furious insanity, brought on by 

 his previous sufferings. The young lady for such she proved to be, 

 in the best sense of the word gradually recovered, and finding it 

 impossible to be restored to her native land before the termination of 

 the voyage, had become in some measure reconciled to her fate. For 

 a few days she seemed to hover between life and death, and until her 

 strength returned, frequently had partial fits of madness, when she 

 would shriek, tear her hair, and utter the most pathetic prayers, as 

 if to some one whose cruelty she deprecated. Gradually, however, 

 by the judicious management of Arundel, she regained composure and 

 some degree of strength, and at length was able to acquaint her pre- 

 servers with her story. We shall briefly detail it; choosing, how- 

 ever, for obvious reasons, to give it in our own words. 



Flora Me Alpine for by this name her father had called her, out 

 of a romantic respect to the preserver of the Chevalier was the 

 daughter of a Highland gentleman, whose family had been ruined by 

 their devoted adherence to the Stewarts. When a boy, Flora's father 

 had been removed from the inheritance which her grandfather's in- 

 veterate jacobitism had caused to be confiscated to the crown. The 

 old soldier fell at Culloden, and his children, driven from the land of 

 their birth, were reared and educated by the kindness of relations. 

 The eldest of them (the father of Flora) had worn out a tedious and 

 unhappy existence in fighting for his bread, in the quarrels of nations 

 in which he was not interested, in vain execrations against the house 

 of Hanover, or in as vain applications to foreign courts for an employ- 

 ment suited to his rank and education. He died in battle, leaving 

 the whole wealth of a soldier of fortune that is, a soldier without 

 any fortune at all his blessing, to this his only child, whom he had 

 left under the charge of a female relative in Paris, her mother being 

 already dead. The young orphan, however, was not destined to be 

 left dependent on the cold charity of distant kinsfolk. Her father 

 had a younger brother, who, not having his hereditary Highland 

 abhorrence for trade, had engaged in mercantile pursuits in one of the 

 coast towns in France, and had, by divers means one of which, it was 

 said, was by defrauding the revenue of England amassed consider- 

 able property. The two brothers had been long estranged ; the 

 soldier considering that the merchant had degraded and disgraced his 

 name by engaging in traffic. When the latter heard, however, that 

 his brother had fallen, and had left his child destitute, he determined 

 on supplying the place of a father to the little Flora, and by his 

 means she had been reared and educated in all the accomplishments 

 of the people among whom she resided. She had moreover been 

 taught other accomplishments, which, at that time, few natives of 

 France could or would have communicated to her to love the land 



