When Mr. Possy left us, Sam happened to come into the parlour, and on observing him, I said,

“How is it that you have not gone with your master?”

“He was not my master, Sir.”

“Not your’s!” exclaimed Mrs. Corbet; “and what brought you over the sea?”

“I came in a ship.”

“No doubt: but with whom did you come?”

“There were sixteen of us, besides passengers, six pigs, two sheep, a cow, and other creatures, with lots of rats.”

Perceiving something like evasion in this answer, I reprimanded him, and requested the whole truth.

“Well then, Sir,—I thought one day, that I would come, and so I spoke to the ship's captain at the London Docks, and he consented to bring me, if I would help in the cabin, which I could not refuse; so I got to Quebec, and I have come hither by an unaccountable chance.”

“And what do you intend to do?”

“Whatever you please, Sir.”

“Will you set fire to our house again?” cried my wife.

“It was not me that did it.”

“No! who then?”

“It was the flax, Ma’am.”

“But you kindled it?”

“I had only the light in my hand,—a candle's a game thing with flax.”