As my friends know, I was born an Englishman, spending the first twenty-four years of my life in England. On my twenty-fifth birthday I set foot on the shore of the great North American Continent, destined for a time to be my home. Two days afterwards I entered the office set apart for me in the handsome Government Buildings at Ottawa, and began my duties. A transfer had recently been effected between the Home and Canadian Civil Service, and I had been chosen to fill the vacant colonial post. Having no ties or obligations of any kind I had nothing to lose by the transaction except the pleasure and advantage of living in England, which, however, had ceased for one or two reasons to be dear to me.

I did not, however, remain very long in the Service. I found it pleasant work but monotonous, and receiving shortly after I went out a legacy bequeathed by a widowed aunt I had almost forgotten, determined to leave it and devote myself to study and travel. Like many Englishmen, I had taken no trouble to ascertain the real points of interest about me. I had been content with mastering and getting through my work, and with mingling out of hours with the small but thoroughly charming set I had found ready to welcome me on my arrival as the “new Englishman.” On the whole, I was popular, though one great flaw—i.e.—lack of high birth and desirable home connections, weighed to an alarming extent with the dowagers of the Capital.

I had, on leaving the Service, made up my mind to study the people of the Dominion. The English Canadians were easily disposed of in this way; most of them were Scotch, and the rest appeared to be Irish. I then began on the Indian population. But this was not so easy. It seemed impossible to find even a single Indian without going some distance.

At last I unearthed one descendant of the Red man who kept a small tavern in the lower part of the town; a dirty frame tenement almost entirely hidden by an immense sign hanging outside, having the figure, heroic size of an Iroquois in full evening dress, feathers, bare legs and tomahawk.

This place was known as “Tommy's.” But Tommy himself was only half an Indian, and swore such bad swears in excellent English, that I was forced to leave after a minute's inspection.

Then I began on the French-Canadians. There were plenty of them. In the Buildings, on the streets, in the markets, in shops, they were all over. Some of the most charming people I know were French-Canadians. My landlady and her husband, quiet, sober devout people, were French-Canadians.

What I wanted to find, though, was a genuine unadulterated French-Canadian of the class known as the habitans. I could recollect many dark-eyed, fierce-mustached men whom I had seen since my residence in Canada, and whom I conjectured must have been habitans. Up the Gatineau and down the St. Lawrence, it would be easy to find whom I wanted, but I preferred to wait on in town. I had many a disappointment. One day it would be a cabman, another day a clerk. Though they all looked French, they invariably turned out to be English or Scotch. My notions of hair and skin and eyes were being all turned upside down; my favorite predispositions annulled, my convictions changed to fallacies—in short I was thoroughly bewildered. I could not find my habitant. At the same time, when I did find him, he would have to know how to speak some English, for I could only speak very little French. I read it well of course, wrote it quite easily, but on essaying conversation was always seized with that instinctive horror of making a fool of myself, which besets most Englishmen when they would attempt a foreign language. Besides, the patois these people spoke was vastly different from ordinary French, as taught in schools and colleges, and what it might be like I had not in those days the faintest idea, not having read Rabelais.

The worst dÉsillusionnement I suffered I will recount. One day I noticed an elderly man clad in corduroy trousers, shabby brown velveteen coat, conical straw hat and dirty blue shirt, lounging about a wharf I sometimes frequented where, at one time, would lay from thirty to fifty barges laden with lumber. Bargetown it might have been called; it was a veritable floating colony of French and Swede, Irish and Scotch, jabbering and smoking by day and lying quietly at night under the stars, save for the occasional jig and scrape of the fiddle of some active Milesian. Here, had I fully known it, was my chance for observation, but I was ignorant at that time of the ways of these people and did not venture among them. But the man in the velvet coat interested me. He gesticulated the whole time most violently, waved his arms about and made great use of his pipe, which he used to point with. I could not hear what he was saying for his back was turned to me and the wind carried all he said to the bargemen, as he wished it to do I suppose.

How splendidly that coat becomes him, thought I. The descendant of some fine old French settler, how superbly he carries himself!

The conical becomes on him a cocked hat and in place of ragged fringe and buttons hanging by a single string, I see the buckles and bows, the sword and cane of a by-gone age!

I made up my mind to address him, when to my disgust he got into one of the barges, which moved off slowly, transporting him, as I supposed, to his northern home.

The next morning the bell of my front door attracted my attention by ringing three or four times. Evidently my landlady was out. I sauntered to the door and found my habitant of the velveteen coat and duty blue shirt!

Gracious heaven! I was overcome! By what occult power had he been driven here to deliver himself into my hands? Before I could speak, he said:

“Av ye plaze, sorr, will yez be having any carrpets to bate? I'm taking orders against the sphring claning, sorr.”

“Oh! are you?” said I. I began to feel very sorry for myself, very sorry, indeed, at this supreme instant. “Do you live near here?” I further inquired.

“Shure and I do, sorr. Jist beyant yez. I pass yez every day in the week. Me number's 415”—He was about handing me a greasy bit of paper, when I slammed the door in his face and retired to my own room to meditate on the strange accent and peculiar calling of this descendant of the “fine old French settler.”

My next choice, however, proved a fortunate one. I got into a street-car one evening late in the month of March. It was the winter street-car, a great dark caravan, with a long narrow bench down either side and a mass of hay all along the middle, with a melancholy lamp at the conductor's end. Although fairly light outside, it was quite dark inside the caravan, so the conductor set about lighting the lamp. This is the way he did it. Opening the door he put his head in, looked all around, shut the door and stopped his horses. Then he opened the door again and put his head in again, keeping the door open this time that we might inhale the fresh March night air. I say we, because when I grew accustomed to the dark, I saw there was another occupant of the car, a man seated on the opposite seat a little way down. The conductor felt under the seat for something which I suppose was the can which, taken presently by him to the corner grocery before which we had stopped, came back replenished with coal oil. After he had filled the lamp, he lit in succession three matches, persistently holding them up so that they all went out one after the other. He felt in his pockets but he had no more. Then he asked me. I had none. Then he asked the other man. The other man laughed and replied in French. I did not understand what he said but saw him supply the conductor with a couple of matches. When the lamp was finally lighted I looked more closely at him. He was a working man from his attire: colored shirt, coat of a curious bronze colour much affected by the Canadian labourer, old fur cap with ears, and moccasins. At his feet stood a small tin pail with a cover. His face was pale and singularly well-cut. His hair was black and very smooth and shiny; a very slight moustache gave character to an otherwise effeminate countenance and his eyes were blue, very light blue indeed and mild in their expression. We smiled involuntarily as the conductor departed. The man was the first to speak:

“De conductor not smoke, surely,” he said, showing me his pipe in one hand. “I always have the matches.”

“So do I, as a general thing,”. I rejoined. “One never knows when a match may be wanted in this country.” I spoke rather surlily, for I had been getting dreadfully chilled while the conductor was opening and shutting the door. The man bent forward eagerly, though without a trace of rudeness in his manner.

“You do not live here, eh?”

“Oh! yes, I do now, but I was thinking of England when I spoke.”

“That is far away from here, surely.”

“Ah! yes,” I sighed. So did the man opposite me. We were silent then for a few moments when he spoke again.

“There is a countree I should like to see and dat is France. I hear, sir, I hear my mother talk of dat countree, and I tink—I should like to go there. But that is far away from here, too far away, sure.”

My heart leapt up. Here, if ever, must be the man I was in search of.

“You are a French-Canadian, I suppose?”

“Yes, Sir, I am dat.”

“And where do you live?” said I.

“I work in de mill; de largess mill in the ChaudiÈre. You know dat great water, the fall under the bridge, dat we call the ChaudiÈre.”

“I know it well,” said I, “but I have never gone properly over any of the mills. I should like to go some day very much. Should I see you anywhere if I went down?”

He stared, but gave me the name of his mill. It belonged to one of the wealthiest lumber kings of the district. I resolved to go down the next day.

“What is your name,” I asked. The man hesitated a minute before he replied,

“Netty.”

“Netty!” I repeated “What a curious name! You have another name, I expect. That must only be a nickname.”

“Mais oui Monsieur. My name is much longaire than dat. My whole name is Etienne Guy ChÈzy D'Alencourt, but no man call me dat, specially in de mill. 'Netty'—dey all know 'Netty.'”

It was a long name, truly, and a high-sounding one,—but I preferred thinking of him by it than by the meaningless soubriquet of “Netty.” At the next corner he got out, touching his cap to me quite politely as he passed.

I was in high spirits that evening, for I believed I had found my habitant. I went down to the ChaudiÈre the following day, and got permission to go over Mr. ——'s mill I found it very interesting, but my mind was not sufficiently centered on planks and logs and booms to adequately appreciate them. I wanted “Netty.” After I had made the complete round of the mill I came upon him hard at work in his place turning off planks in unfailing order as they whizzed along. The noise was deafening, of bolts and bars, and saws and chains, with the roar of the great cascade outside. He saw me and recognized me on my approach, but he could not speak for some time. It was most monotonous work, I thought. No conversation allowed, not even possible; the truly demoniacal noise, yet just outside on the other side of a small window, the open country, the mighty waters of the ever-boiling “Kettle,” or Chauldron, and the steep spray-washed cliff. Standing on my toes I could, looking out of Netty's small window, discover all this. The ice was still in the river, half the fall itself was frozen stiff, and reared in gabled arches to the sky. I watched the two scenes alternately until at 6 o'clock the wheels ran down, the belts slackened and the men knocked off.

Netty walked out with me at my request, and learning that he had to return in an hour I proposed we should have a meal together somewhere and a talk at the same time. He must have been greatly astonished at a complete stranger in another walk of life fastening upon him in this manner, but he gave no hint of either surprise or fear, and maintained the same mild demeanour I had noticed in him the day before.

It was darkening rapidly and I did not know where to go for a meal. Netty told me he ought to go to St. Patrick St. I knew the locality and did not think it necessary to go all that way, “unless anybody will be waiting for you, expecting you.”

“Oh! not dat I live in a boarding house, my mother—she in the countree, far from here.”

“Then, 'I said,' you can go where you like. Do you know any place near here where we can get a cup of tea and some eggs? What will do for you, I daresay, and I hardly want as much.”

But he knew of no reliable place and after walking about for a quarter of an hour we finally went to the refreshment room at the station and ordered beer and tea and sandwiches.

“I daresay you wonder at my bringing you out here with me. You'd get a better meal perhaps at your boarding-house. But do you know I've taken a fancy to you and, I want to see a little more of you and learn how you live, if you will kindly tell me. I am interested in your people, the French-Canadians.”

This sounds very clumsily put and so it did then, but I was obliged to explain my actions in some way and what is better than the truth? Lies, I have no doubt to some people, but I was compelled to be truthful to this man who carried a gentle and open countenance with him. No gentleman could have answered me more politely than he did now.

“Sir I am astonish—oui un peu, but if there is anyting I can tell you, anyting I can show you I shall be ver glad. The mill—how do you find dat, Sir?

“I like to watch you work very much, but the noise”—

Netty laughed, showing his radiant white teeth.

“Mais oui, de noise is bad, but one soon custom to dat. I am in de mill for four year. I come from up in de north—from the Grand Calumet—do you know there, Sir?”

“That is an island is it not? Yes, I know where it is, near Allumette, but I have never been so far up on the Ottawa. And the Gatineau, that is a river, is it not? What pretty names these French ones are! Gatineau!” I repeated thinking. “That comes, I fancy having heard somewhere, from Demoiselle Marie Josephe Gatineau Duplessis, wife of one of the first French settlers. By the way your name is a curious one. Say it again.”

Netty very gravely repeated, “Etienne Guy ChÉzy D'Alencourt.”

“Was your father a native Canadian?”

“Oui Monsieur.”

“The name seems familiar to me,” I remarked. “I daresay if you cared to look the matter up, you might find that your great grandfather was something or other under the Intendant Bigot or Vaudreuil, or earlier still under Maisonneuve the gallant founder of Montreal. Ah! how everybody seems to have forgotten those old days. Even in Canada, you see, there is something to look back upon.”

My companion seemed rather puzzled as I talked in this strain. Very probably it was over his head. I found he could neither read nor write, had been reared in the pine-clad and icy fastnesses of Grand Calumet Island all alone by his mother—an old dame now about seventy. He himself was about thirty he judged, though he was far from sure. He was a good Catholic in intention, though very ignorant of all ritual. From his youth he had been employed on the rafts and lumber-slides of the Ottawa river until his four years' session at the mill, where he had picked up the English he knew. He had made no friends he told me. The more I conversed with him the more I was impressed with his simple and polite manners, his innate good breeding, and his faith and confidence in the importance of daily toil and all honest labour. He smoked a little, drank a little, but never lost his head became obtrusively familiar, noisy or inquisitive. I felt ashamed to think how deliberately I had sought him out, to pry into the secrets and facts of his daily life, but solaced myself into the assurance that it could not at least bode him harm and it might possibly do him some service.

When we returned to the mill, I was astonished at the weirdness of the scene. The entire premises were flooded with the electric light and the men were working away, and the saws, belts and bars all in motion as if it were the middle of the day. What a pandemonium of sound and colour and motion it was! The strong resinous odor of the pine-wood mingled with the fresh air blown in from the river, and I inhaled both eagerly.

It was almost powerful enough to affect the head, and I fancied I caught myself reeling a little as I walked out on to the bridge, swaying just the least bit as the torrent of angry water swept under it I had said “Bonsoir” to my friend the Frenchman and was free to go home. But I lingered long on the heaving bridge, though it was cold and starless, and I got quite wet with the dashed-up spray.

Up the river gleamed the icy masses of the frozen fall, beyond that the northern country of the northern waters stretched away up to the North Pole with little, if any, human interruption.

Down the river on the three superb cliffs, rising high out of the water, sparkled the many lights in the Gothic windows of the buildings. On either side were the illuminated mills with their rushing logs and their myriad busy hands piling, smoothing and sawing the monsters of the forest helpless under the fetters of leather and steel.