Not long ago, the Canadian Government received orders that all buildings, except the barrack and magazine, must be removed from the fort enclosure; yet a garrulous old Scotchman still resides there in a tiny house, and plies his trade as cobbler.
His delight is to regale strangers with preposterous "yarns", and accounts of his adventures in her Majesty's service; accounts which must be taken with considerably more than the proverbial grain of salt, but to which we listened with delight and amazingly sober countenances. When asked how it happens that he still remains in the fort grounds, he answers, "I writ out home, to Angland, to say that I served in the arrumy fur thurty yeer, and I know the ould gurrul will let me stay." (There's respect for a sovereign!)
He talks wisely of the "bumpruf", a word which we have some difficulty in translating into bomb proof; and we are, apparently, overpowered with wonder as he explains how "with a few berrls av pouther they cud send ivery thing flying, and desthroy the whole place, avery bit av it."
Presumably misled by our simulated credulity, he goes on to describe a well in front of the magazine, and says, "When they wanted to get red av throoblesome preesoners, ploomp they'd go in the watter, and thet was the last av 'em'" Suffice it to say, that the oldest inhabitant has no recollection of the slightest trace of such a well.
The underground passage has fallen in; only the entrance being now visible and accessible Old Gill says, "I as the last man iver in it; and I got caught there with the wall fallin' in, and they were twinty fower hours gettin' me out," (a li[e]kely story!) adding, "Oh, I was a divil in them days!" and "I found in there a bit av a goon wrinch" (gun wrench); and Mr. So and So, from Halifax, "gev me some money fur it, an' he lapped it up in his han'kerchef like as if it had ben goold."
We are told of an ancient house "of the era of the French occupation," and go to see it; but learn, though it looks so aged, that it was built upon the site of the French house, and is not the old original. The owner has reached the ripe age of ninety-four, and is a remarkable man, with the polished manner of a gentleman of the old school In such a climate as this, one would naturally expect to find centenarians. He tells us many interesting things about old times here, and his grandson brings out a barrel of Acadian relics to show us.
We are interested in noting the differences between these ancient implements and those in use at the present time; here is a gridiron, with very long handle and four feet (a clumsy quadruped), and we see in fancy the picture of home comfort, as the busy housewife prepares the noonday meal, where—
"Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of the farmer
Stood on the side of a lull commanding the sea, and a shady
Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreathing around it"
Here, too, are ox chains, a curiously shaped ploughshare, an odd little spade used in mending the dikes, and digging clay for bricks, and also the long and heavy tongs of the "blacksmith".
"Who was a mighty man in the village and honored of all men
For since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations
Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people."