CHAPTER VIII.


The winter had set in unusually early. Along the bleak coast of
Newfoundland, and through its dreary and sparsely inhabited islands,
November blasts raged fiercely, lashing to fury the crested waves that
beat against the giant rocks, which, standing sentinel-like on the
shore, seemed to frown defiantly on them; or laving, far and wide, the
long, flat sand beach, that afforded less obstruction to their impetuous
progress. To a remote part of this dreary coast we would now direct the
attention of our reader. Scarcely fair, even when Summer lavished upon
it her fairest smiles, there, no traces of beauty invited the weary
pilgrim to tarry and rest within their refreshing shade; no garden, gay
with flowers, rang with childish laughter, as the little ones plucked
their fragrant blossoms; but rugged hills, frowning rocks, and desolate
sand beaches, assumed the place of waving woods, smiling corn-fields,
and blooming orchards; while for the melodious notes of woodland
songsters, was heard the wild cry of the stormy petrel, or the shrill
scream of the large sea-gull.

But "Nature never fails the heart that loves her," and while destitute
of the exuberant charms of more genial climes, the spot to which we
allude was not without attraction to an admirer of the sublime and
picturesque.

Nor was there wanting wild beauty in the scene which greeted the