CHAPTER LVIII.
EVENING RIDE TO MRS. KELLY’S TAVERN.—THE SUPPER, AND THE LODGING.
At a sort of half-way house, the driver of the baggage-wagon stopped to feed and water, and I walked on alone, leaving the painter with his sketch-book. For a mile or more, the road wound its way through thick woods, mostly spruce, and “I whistled as I went,” certainly not “for want of thought,” and sang for the solitude, and was answered by the ringing echoes and the wood-thrush, whose sweet melody, sounding with a silvery, metallic ring, often made me pause and listen. Red raspberries, pendent from the slender bushes, tempted me frequently to spring up the broken, earthy bank, where, to my surprise I met the first strawberries coming on from the juicier climes. Ruby darlings, they had got only thus far along, and looked timid and disheartened, dropping wearily into the mossy turf, where they trembled like drops of blood. And so I loitered along the lonely highway, up which the sweetest of all the fruits were coming, and over which the wild birds were pouring forth their songs, and felt that I was only very, very happily going on toward heaven, taking home and loving, and beloved ones by the way. In the middle of the forest, I met a tall, thin Indian in ragged, English dress. He passed me by silently, and with an air of bashfulness. I was a little disappointed. When I saw him approaching, I proposed to myself a rest upon a log near by, and a talk with the man about his people. The wagons came up presently, and I resumed the reins, having, at the outset, been voted by a small majority much the better whip.
Late in the afternoon, we came upon the shores of Bras D’or, a fiord or inlet extending in from the ocean, and winding for many miles among hills, farms and woodlands in a manner exceedingly picturesque. The ride was lovely, too lovely for the merriment in which we had been freely indulging. Ebullitions of mirth gave way to thoughts and emotions arising from the beauty of the scenery and the hour. Clouds of dazzling flame, and a rosy sunset were reflected in the purple waters. As we came on at a rapid pace through the twilight and the succeeding darkness, rounding the hills abutting on the water, and thridding bits of wood, we settled into a stillness as unbroken as if we had been riding alone. It was nearly ten o’clock when we arrived at our inn, none the worse for our drive of thirty-two miles, good measure.
Our inn! Imagine, if you will, a long, low-roofed, dingy white house, with a front piazza, and hard by a sign swinging from the limb of a broad shade tree, creaking harsh plaints to the lazy breeze, and, in dark letters, asserting from year to year that this is the traveller’s home. If it be your pleasure to indulge in such imaginings, let me at once assure you that in our Cape Breton Inn there is no corresponding reality. Instantly extinguish from your mind said white house, tree and sign, and put in the place of them a log cabin of the old school, in the naked arms of the weather, backed by a stumpy field and weedy potato-patch, and fronted by a couple of rickety log sheds. That antique mensuration accomplished by the swinging of a cat would very nearly decide the whole extent of the interior, one side of which is a fire-place and fire, around which revolve, as primary orb, the hostess, Mrs. Kelly, and as satellites, a son and daughter and maid-servant. With all these powers, and with ample time, you may guess that we sat down at last to a savory and generous supper. There was tea, somewhat intimate, to be sure, with the waterpot, and there was bread, nice as the Queen herself ever gets at Balmoral. The butter, alas! was afflicted with that ailment which seems to be chronic throughout these her majesty’s dominions, rancidity and salt. But the milk was creamy, and the eggs fresh as newly-cut marble, and the berry-pie, served at the hands of the daughter, a neat and modest girl with pretty face and figure, was a becoming finish to the meal.
Mrs. Kelly is a Highland widow, of whom a story may be told, not indeed of the tragic character of Sir Walter’s Highland Widow, but sufficiently mournful. She walked back and forth before the door, and seemed to take a melancholy pleasure in relating it. Two fine boys had been tempted to leave her, of whom she had not heard a syllable for years, but for whom, even then, she was looking with the hope and yearning love of Margaret in Wordsworth’s “Excursion.” Her husband, kind man, was in the grave. Her two children and her little farm were much to be thankful for. But then it was not Scotland. A sad day for her when they were persuaded to leave “home.” The land here was not productive, and the winters were so long and snowy. There was, however, a bright side to her fortunes, and I tried to make her see it. At the conclusion of the talk, she asked me in to read a chapter, and offer the evening prayer.
It was getting late, and I asked to retire. I found that we had retired. We were sitting in our private chamber, and the closely-curtained bed behind us, a match for one in an opposite corner, too long and too wide for a lad in his teens, was the appointed couch for two of us, and all ready. There were nine or ten of us, all told, and among them the daughter’s lover, a good-looking and very well-appearing young man. Now that we were provided for, it was certainly no concern of ours how and where the others were to lodge, although I could not avoid feeling some interest in the matter. To hasten things to a conclusion, I rose, wound my watch, took off my boots, my coat and vest, demonstrations of my intention of going at once to bed that were not mistaken. Immediately all walked out of the house, and remained out, talking in the open air, until we were snugly packed away and pinned in behind the scant curtains, when they returned, and noiselessly went to rest in some order peculiar to the household, dividing between them the other bed, the floor, and the small chamber under the roof. When, in her native land, an ebony lady entertained Mungo Park, she and her maids lightened their nocturnal labors—spinning cotton—by singing plaintive songs, the burden of which was “the poor white man who came and sat under our tree.” Thus our two maidens lightened both their labors and our slumbers, but by a less poetic process. While they busied themselves with sweeping the house, and washing dishes until after midnight, they kept a continual whispering, the subject of which was, in part, the poor sunburnt men who came to sleep under their curtains—but could not do it. Considering that the daughter had a sweetheart in the house, the sibilant disturbances of the girls were meekly suffered until they naturally whispered and swept their way to bed. After this we had a fair field, and did our best to improve it. The room being warm and smoky, I unpinned the curtain, and started for fresh air, stealing out as quietly as possible. Treacherous door! When I had succeeded in hitting upon the wooden latch, up it came with a jerk and a clack that went, it seemed to me, to the ears of every sleeper. I waited till I thought the effect of the noise had passed away, when I began slowly opening the door. It squealed like a bagpipe, startling the dreamers from their pillows, and arousing suspicions of a rogue creeping in, while it was only the restless traveller creeping out. There had been a kitten mewing at the door for some time. With tail erect, she whipped in between my feet. There was a puppy outside also, and some pigs; each in its way promising to keep up till daylight the serenade of barking and grunting, with which, from an earlier hour, they had entertained us. It was starlight, and I could see my ground, as I thought. I determined to have satisfaction by setting the dog upon the pigs, and then flogging the dog. Rapping one over the head with a bean-pole, by way of prelude to rapping the other, the puppy instantly joined in the assault, which, but for an unlucky stubbing of my naked toes, would have proved successful. I flung down my bean-pole with disgust, and beat, instead of the young rascal of a dog, an inglorious retreat. For the rest of the night, it was a triumph with the enemy, reinforced by some goslings and quacking ducks. If there was needed any more rosin on the bow that kept sawing across my tightly tuned nerves, two or three fleas supplied it at short intervals. The bite of the little villains made me jump like sparks of fire. There was, also, toward the chilly morning hours, a tide in our affairs, a regular ebb and flow of bed-clothes, and a final cataract of them, the entire sheet descending into some abyss, from which we never succeeded in recovering hardly any thing more than some scanty edges and corners of a blanket. It was a wonder to me how my companion in arms could sleep as he did, a pleasure he declares he did not enjoy; but in his restlessness was surprised that I could slumber on so soundly, and snore through so many troubles—a dulness from which, of course, I tried stoutly to clear myself. Thus, as frequently happens, each imagined the other to have slept, and himself to have been wakeful all night. Undoubtedly, both waked and slumbered, and magnified the several small annoyances.
When we were ready to get up, which was disagreeably early, the household was stirring. But a peep through the crevice of the curtains, which had been carefully pinned together again by some fingers unknown, while we were dreaming, gave the needful hint, when out they went again among the ducks and goslings. We sprang out of bed, and dressed with all reasonable dispatch—an exercise in which we were slightly interrupted by a younger puppy, the pestilent animal persisting, in spite of a kick or two, in springing at and nibbling our feet.