“Stay,” I said; “you are safer here.  British sailors never leave women to perish.  You have fathers, husbands, brothers on board, who will not forget you.  I beseech you to remain patiently here until the danger is past.”  I might as well have preached to the winds.  The headstrong creatures would no longer be controlled.  They rushed simultaneously upon deck, just as the Horsley Hill swung off, carrying with her part of the outer frame of our deck and the larger portion of our stern.  When tranquillity was restored, fatigued both in mind and body, I sunk into a profound sleep, and did not awake until the sun had risen high above the wave-encircled fortress of Quebec.

The stormy clouds had all dispersed during the night; the air was clear and balmy; the giant hills were robed in a blue, soft mist, which rolled around them in fleecy volumes.  As the beams of the sun penetrated their shadowy folds, they gradually drew up like a curtain, and dissolved like wreaths of smoke into the clear air.

The moment I came on deck, my old friend Oscar greeted me with his usual joyous bark, and with the sagacity peculiar to his species, proceeded to shew me all the damage done to the vessel during the night.  It was laughable to watch the motions of the poor brute, as he ran from place to place, stopping before, or jumping upon, every fractured portion of the deck, and barking out his indignation at the ruinous condition in which he found his marine home.  Oscar had made eleven voyages in the Anne, and had twice saved the life of the captain.  He was an ugly specimen of the Scotch terrier, and greatly resembled a bundle of old rope-yarn; but a more faithful or attached creature I never saw.  The captain was not a little jealous of Oscar’s friendship for me.  I was the only person the dog had ever deigned to notice, and his master regarded it as an act of treason on the part of his four-footed favourite.  When my arms were tired with nursing, I had only to lay my baby on my cloak on deck, and tell Oscar to watch her, and the good dog would lie down by her, and suffer her to tangle his long curls in her little hands, and pull his tail and ears in the most approved baby fashion, without offering the least opposition; but if any one dared to approach his charge, he was alive on the instant, placing his paws over the child, and growling furiously.  He would have been a bold man who had approached the child to do her injury.  Oscar was the best plaything, and as sure a protector, as Katie had.

During the day, many of our passengers took their departure; tired of the close confinement of the ship, and the long voyage, they were too impatient to remain on board until we reached Montreal.  The mechanics obtained instant employment, and the girls who were old enough to work, procured situations as servants in the city.  Before night, our numbers were greatly reduced.  The old dragoon and his family, two Scotch fiddlers of the name of Duncan, a Highlander called Tam Grant, and his wife and little son, and our own party, were all that remained of the seventy-two passengers that left the Port of Leith in the brig Anne.