JACK-O'-LANTERN 



work was all behind us, soul and body cried 

 out in bitter need. Surely the Recorder, 

 with the instincts of a gentleman, turned 

 his face away at the pouring, was inatten- 

 tive to the long gurgle, or tempered his en- 

 try in the column devoted to remarks with 

 a word of kindly mitigation! 



The weather seemed propitious enough, 

 except that the wind, difficult to assign to 

 an exact quarter in a broken country, ap- 

 peared to be in the south-east. The vice 

 of this unloved air is in quality rather than 

 direction. There are east winds without 

 guile; on the other hand a shift from east 

 may bring no change of character. The 

 true nord-est, precursor of all that is ill in 

 the way of weather on the St. Lawrence, 

 fishtails up the valleys in the confining 

 sides of the imm.ense funnel, and arrives in 

 the mountains from the south-east or even 

 the south. A stranger is bewildered to find 

 it called a nord-est in defiance of the com- 

 pass, until he learns that the name describes 

 a type. On the days in question there was, 

 in truth, a nor'easterly gale below, and I 

 am bound to make it part of the record that 

 this maleficent influence was abroad. 



The purpose was to spend a long evening 

 on the remoter lake. This left but half an 

 163 



