"Well, good enough. Both her husbands is dead."
The gossips continued talking of the burying. Poor old woman Larue! It was mournful enough to encounter you for the only time in this world in this plight, and to have this glimpse of your wretched life on lonesome Gilead Hill. What pleasure, I wonder, had she in her life, and what pleasure have any of these hard-favored women in this doleful region? It is pitiful to think of it. Doubtless, however, the region isn't doleful, and the sentimental traveler would not have felt it so if he had not encountered this funereal flitting.
But the horses are in. We mount to our places; the big doors swing open.
"Stand away," cries the driver.
The hostler lets go Kitty's bridle, the horses plunge forward, and we are off at a gallop, taking the opposite direction from that pursued by old woman Larue.
This last stage is eleven miles, through a pleasanter country, and we make it in a trifle over an hour, going at an exhilarating gait, that raises our spirits out of the Marshy Hope level. The perfection of travel is ten miles an hour, on top of a stagecoach; it is greater speed than forty by rail. It nurses one's pride to sit aloft, and rattle past the farmhouses, and give our dust to the cringing foot tramps. There is something royal in the swaying of the coach body, and an excitement in the patter of the horses' hoofs. And what an honor it must be to guide such a machine through a region of rustic admiration!
The sun has set when we come thundering down into the pretty Catholic village of Antigonish,—the most home-like place we have seen on the island. The twin stone towers of the unfinished cathedral loom up large in the fading light, and the bishop's palace on the hill—the home of the Bishop of Arichat—appears to be an imposing white barn with many staring windows. At Antigonish—with the emphasis on the last syllable—let the reader know there is a most comfortable inn, kept by a cheery landlady, where the stranger is served by the comely handmaidens, her daughters, and feels that he has reached a home at last. Here we wished to stay. Here we wished to end this weary pilgrimage. Could Baddeck be as attractive as this peaceful valley? Should we find any inn on Cape Breton like this one?
"Never was on Cape Breton," our driver had said; "hope I never shall be. Heard enough about it. Taverns? You'll find 'em occupied."
"Fleas?
"Wus."