The scene changes--Bachelor's Hall--A practical joke and its
consequences--A snow-shoe walk at night in the forest.


Leaving Charley to pursue his adventurous career among the Indians,
we will introduce our reader to a new scene, and follow for a time
the fortunes of our friend Harry Somerville. It will be remembered
that we left him labouring under severe disappointment at the idea of
having to spend a year, it might be many years, at the depot, and
being condemned to the desk, instead of realising his fond dreams of
bear-hunting and deer-stalking in the woods and prairies.

It was now the autumn of Harry's second year at York Fort. This
period of the year happens to be the busiest at the depot, in
consequence of the preparation of the annual accounts for
transmission to England, in the solitary ship which visits this
lonely spot once a year; so that Harry was tied to his desk all day
and the greater part of the night too, so that his spirits fell
infinitely below zero, and he began to look on himself as the most
miserable of mortals. His spirits rose, however, with amazing
rapidity after the ship went away, and the "young gentlemen," as the
clerks were styled _en masse_, were permitted to run wild in the
swamps and woods for the three weeks succeeding that event. During
this glimpse of sunshine they recruited their exhausted frames by
paddling about all day in Indian canoes, or wandering through the
marshes, sleeping at nights in tents or under the pine trees, and
spreading dismay among the feathered tribes, of which there were
immense numbers of all kinds. After this they returned to their
regular work at the desk; but as this was not so severe as in summer,
and was further lightened by Wednesdays and Saturdays being devoted