NEWFOUNDLAND, 85 



miserable, limping style, but with thumping emphasis on 

 the more incisive passages. Sad to say, in spite of his 

 orthodoxy, poor Loader was a confirmed drunkard. One 

 Saturday night, as my father and his colleagues were 

 coming home from their several choir-practice, the snow 

 being deep, they saw a dark object lying across the ditch. 

 They went to it, and, behold ! it was Loader, fallen help- 

 lessly on his front, happily in such a manner that his face 

 hung over the ditch. " Why, Mr. Loader, is this you ? 

 What's the matter ? " " Let me alone ! " " Can we help 

 you, Mr. Loader ? You mustn't lie here, you know, Mr. 

 Loader ! " " Go along, ye imperdent fellers ! Can't you 

 see I'm a — looking — for — something? G'long!" They 

 managed, however, to drag him to his own door, much 

 against his will, he protesting to the very last that he had 

 been " looking for something." 



Philip Gosse's indentured engagement with the firm had 

 expired in the spring of 1833. Since then he had remained 

 on, with no expressed agreement, as copyer, receiving 

 a small salary, besides board and lodging. Hitherto he 

 had formed no plans for the future. In the autumn of 

 1834, his friends Mr. and Mrs. Jaques, their mercantile 

 business in Carbonear not being very successful, were 

 turning their eyes towards Upper Canada as a residence. 

 They had met with some flaming accounts of the fertility 

 of the regions around Lake Huron, and of the certainty 

 of success being attained in agriculture by emigrants 

 settling there. They determined to remove thither and 

 begin life anew as farmers in a Western forest. Philip 

 Gosse's intimacy with them had by this time become very 

 close. He could not support the notion of parting with 

 them; and, moreover, the social gloom which hung over 

 Newfoundland in consequence of the ever-increasing ran- 

 cour of the Irish, was making the colony extremely 



