the retired partners fall in.




CHAPTER II.

I ENTER THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S SERVICE--PADRE GIBERT.


I entered the service of the Company in the winter of 1820-21, and
after passing my contract at Montreal in the month of January, I took
up my residence for the remainder of the season with a French priest,
in the parish of Petit le Maska, for the purpose of studying the
French language. The Padre was a most affable, liberal-minded man, a
warm friend of England and Englishmen, and a staunch adherent to their
government, which he considered as the most perfect under the sun. The
fact is, that the old gentleman, along with many others of his
countrymen who had escaped from the horrors of the French Revolution,
had found an asylum in our land of freedom, which they could find
nowhere else; and the personal advantages that had accrued to him from
that circumstance, naturally induced a favourable disposition towards
his benefactors, their laws, and their institutions. Though the Padre
was extremely liberal in his political opinions, his management of his
worldly affairs bore the stamp of the most sordid parsimony. He
worshipped the golden calf, and his adoration of the image was
manifest in everything around him. He wore a cassock of cloth which
had in former times been of a black colour, but was now of a dusky
grey, the woollen material being so completely incorporated with dust
as to give it that colour. His table was furnished with such fare as