'That is part of the new constitution granted by the King. It is the intention of the Imperial Government to make New Brunswick one of the freest countries in the world.'
We were walking up the green slope from the river to the house. Duncan broke off. 'What a herd of cattle,' he said, 'and such magnificent fields!—and the house! Roger, is it possible that this is your house? I had heard of it, but had no idea it was so fine.'
Duncan was greeted with warm cordiality by my mother and my sisters, now both young women. But it was difficult for me to long refrain from telling the news I had heard. 'Mother, think of this—the new governor—Colonel Carleton—is coming up to see us, and to go hunting and fishing.'
'The new governor!'
'Yes, the governor. He'll be here to-morrow or next day.'
Elizabeth clapped her hands gleefully.
'The governor!' she exclaimed; 'a soldier, a fine gentleman just from England, like those in books.'
From my own farm a little later I wandered with Duncan to where David Elton worked in his field.
'Better off?' David said in answer to Duncan's question; 'of course I'm better off than I ever could have been in New England. I'll confess I thought it hard to be driven away as I was; but the lan' was poor an' rocky there. There was no prospect. There I had twenty acres; here I've two hundred. Then look at my stock, my lumber property, my marsh, my frame house here. He knows,' he said, pointing to me, 'the kin' of shanty I was living in, and would have died in, yonder. This is a better country. The war was the best thing that ever happened us. Let them have their rocky, poverty-stricken lan'; and to think of them now passin' laws that we'll be hanged "without benefit of clergy;" them are the words, aren't they? if we dare to go back. Go back,—back there!' He gave a loud, shrill laugh.
'I wouldn't go back if they made me president; an' I'd rather'—this dropping his voice to a reverent pitch—'I'd rather see any child in my family under the ground than under the new American flag. That,' he said, pointing to a Union Jack that flew from the top of a staff on his largest barn, 'that's the flag for me.'