the governor Sir James Craig, and shows a lively interest in the management of his estate.  His father’s old friend, Colonel Fraser, was visiting Quebec which, more than fifty years earlier, he had helped to win for Britain but where now, it is somewhat sad to think, he has, as Tom says, very few acquaintances.  So the young Captain spends two or three hours daily with the Colonel and finds that he has many interesting subjects to talk with him about.  He drives with him into the country.  He enquires about a house in Quebec which his mother had some thought of buying and talks of a trip to Montreal to buy a horse to send to Murray Bay.  In the letters home Christine, “Rusty” is the special object of his teasing.  She has been accustomed to spend the winters at Quebec, but is now at Murray Bay, and he asks how she likes the dull country at this season.  “She never says anything about it, which is in her favour....  I trust that through the means of Picquet you contrive to keep her rusty dollars moving.”  Tom’s absence from Murray Bay was soon to end.  On March, 23rd, 1811, he wrote joyously that he has got leave of absence for six months, and is coming “to my own dear Murray Bay.”  Christine had been dangerously ill and he is naturally anxious to be at home.

So behold the young seigneur disporting himself at Murray Bay in the spring of 1811.  Old Malcolm Fraser, at the manor of Mount Murray just across the bay, kept a watchful eye on the godson who, he had begun to fear, was not proving wholly satisfactory.  The cause of Fraser’s misgiving is not clear but he lectured Tom with tactful insight.  Of his own career the young officer was now beginning to take a new view.  During the long holiday at Murray Bay he had time to taste its pleasures and to learn its chief interests.  He went out fishing and shooting; he sailed and rowed on the river; he occupied himself in the daily business of the seigniory, for which his competent mother had so long cared; she was now building a mill which would probably add to Tom’s revenues.  He made friends with the cure Mr. Le Courtois.  This gentleman, a French emigre, who found a refuge in Canada, had thrown himself with great devotion into the rough life of a missionary among the scattered peoples, Canadians and Indians alike, of his remote parish.  He was a man of culture and remained always a valued counsellor of the Protestant family in the Manor House.[22] But, in spite of all the interests and friendships at Murray Bay, Tom soon found that the little community hardly needed him.  Every thing was well looked after, prosperous and promising.  He would be only a fifth wheel to the coach and, before long, he had made up his mind that he had better stick to his military career.