THE COMMISSIONS. 155 



was more cautious, however, with his superiors, and with 

 those whose opinions might affect his interests. But he 

 was capable of a good-natured act, was a persevering 

 fisherman could tie, roughly, a killing fly enjoyed a 

 joke made no objection to hard work, or coarse diet by 

 " flood or field," and altogether was not a bad sort of com- 

 panion for an expedition to the rivers in the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence. One of his boasts was to travel with the 

 smallest possible quantity of luggage, indeed he seldom 

 incumbered himself even with a change of linen. I re- 

 member one very wet summer, that he and the Captain 

 and I were encamped at the Upper Pool of the Groodbout : 

 we got thoroughly saturated with rain, and had to invent 

 some device for drying our clothes ; with this intention, we 

 erected, near our camp fire, two* uprights and a cross pole, 

 to act as a substitute for a clothes' horse^ on which we 

 spread our moist and heavy garments, in hopes that the 

 rain would cease . during the night, and that in the morn- 

 ing we should be enabled to array ourselves more com- 

 fortably than we had done for some days. But, " aliter 

 visum est" the rain fell in torrents, the wind blew in 

 fearful gusts, and we slept like tops, and did not even 

 venture to put our heads outside of the tent, until the 

 blushing morn tinged the heads of the dark pines, on the 

 western bank of the river with a rosy hue. Then what a 

 scene met our view ! The tempestuous wind had over- 

 turned our clothes' horse and our clothes into the blazing 



