NE WFO UNDLAND. 57 



"tember, and by the middle of November it has be- 

 " come permanent till April. However, the weather is 

 " generally fine ; we in the office kept good fires, took 

 " daily walks to the great gun upon Harbour Rock, or 

 "in some other direction, and contrived to enjoy our- 

 selves. Mr. Elson had returned in October and 

 " resumed his wonted authority, and Newell had sunk 

 "to mere book-keeper again. It was, I think, in this 

 " winter that St. John urged me to write a novel. I at 

 " length complied ; and taking down a quire of foolscap, 

 "began the adventures of one Edwin Something, 'a youth 

 " ' about eighteen/ who ' dropped a tear over the ship's 

 " ' side ' as he left his native country. I passed my hero 

 "through sundry scenes, and, among the rest, into a sea- 

 " fight with a Tunis corsair, in which, I said, ' the Turks 

 "'remained masters of the field.' There was no attempt 

 " at fine writing ; it was all very simple, and all very 

 " brief ; for I finished off my story in some three or four 

 " pages. St. John read it very seriously, and mercifully 

 "restricted his criticism to the expression 'field,' in the 

 "sentence above cited, which, he said, as the subject was 

 " a sea-fight, was hardly comme il fant. He did not 

 " laugh at me ; but I had sense enough to know that it 

 " was a very poor affair, and did not preserve it. 



"In the spring of 1828, when the vessels began to 

 " return from the ice, I was sent to the oil-stage to take 

 "count of the seal-pelts delivered. The stage was a 

 "long projecting wharf, roofed and inclosed, carried out 

 " over the sea upon piles driven into the bottom. I take 

 " my place, pencil and paper in hand, at the open end of 

 " this stage, seated on an inverted tub. Before me is a 

 " wide hand-barrow. A boat loaded to the water's edge 

 " with seal-pelts is being slowly pulled from one of the 

 "schooners by a noisy crew, mostly Irish. As soon as 



