“But she was in the peas all night, boy.”

“That wor nothing to me; she worn’t in just then.  Sure I won’t get a licking for that?”

“No, no, you are a good boy; but mind what I tell you, and don’t bring me into a scrape with any of your real lies.”

Prevarication, the worst of falsehoods, was a virtue in his eyes.  So much for the old man’s morality.

Monaghan was in his glory, prepared to work or fight, whichever should come uppermost; and there was old Thomas and his sons, the contractors for the clearing, to expedite whose movements the bee was called.  Old Thomas was a very ambitious man in his way.  Though he did not know A from B, he took into his head that he had received a call from Heaven to convert the heathen in the wilderness; and every Sunday he held a meeting in our loggers’ shanty, for the purpose of awakening sinners, and bringing over “Injun pagans” to the true faith.  His method of accomplishing this object was very ingenious.  He got his wife, Peggy—­or “my Paggy,” as he called her—­to read aloud to him a text from the Bible, until he knew it by heart; and he had, as he said truly, “a good remembrancer,” and never heard a striking sermon but he retained the most important passages, and retailed them secondhand to his bush audience.

I must say that I was not a little surprised at the old man’s eloquence when I went one Sunday over to the shanty to hear him preach.  Several wild young fellows had come on purpose to make fun of him; but his discourse, which was upon the text “We shall all meet before the judgment-seat of Christ,” was rather too serious a subject to turn into a jest, with even old Thomas for the preacher.  All went on very well until the old man gave out a hymn, and led off in such a loud, discordant voice, that my little Katie, who was standing between her father’s knees, looked suddenly up, and said, “Mamma, what a noise old Thomas makes.”  This remark led to a much greater noise, and the young men, unable to restrain their long-suppressed laughter, ran tumultuously from the shanty.

I could have whipped the little elf; but small blame could be attached to a child of two years old, who had never heard a preacher, especially such a preacher as the old backwoodsman, in her life.  Poor man!  He was perfectly unconscious of the cause of the disturbance, and remarked to us, after the service was over,

“Well, ma’am, did we not get on famously?  Now, worn’t that a BOOTIFUL discourse?”

“It was, indeed; much better than I expected.”

“Yes, yes; I knew it would please you.  It had quite an effect on those wild fellows.  A few more such sermons will teach them good behaviour.  Ah, the bush is a bad place for young men.  The farther in the bush, say I, the farther from God, and the nearer to hell.  I told that wicked Captain L—–­ of Dummer so the other Sunday; ‘an’,’ says he, ’if you don’t hold your confounded jaw, you old fool, I’ll kick you there.’  Now ma’am—­now, sir, was not that bad manners in a gentleman, to use such appropriate epitaphs to a humble servant of God, like I?”