"Pony is getting impatient," said my companion, as we reverently stepped from the door-way, "and it is a long ride to Halifax." So, with courteous salutation on both sides, we take leave of the good father, and once more are on the road to Deer's Castle.
CHAPTER III.
A Romp at Three Fathom Harbor—The Moral Condition of the Acadians—The Wild Flowers of Nova Scotia—Mrs. Deer's Wit—No Fish—Picton—The Balaklava Schooner—And a Voyage to Louisburgh.
Pony is very enterprising. We are soon at the top of the first long hill, and look again, for the last time, upon the Acadian village. How cosily and quietly it is nestled down amid those graceful green slopes! What a bit of poetry it is in itself! Jog on, Pony!
The corporate authority of Three Fathom Harbor has been improving his time during our absence. As we drive up we find him in high romp with a brace of buxom, red-cheeked, Nova Scotia girls, who have just alighted from a wagon. The landlady of Three Fathom Harbor, in her matronly cap, is smiling over the little garden gate at her lord, who is pursuing his Daphnes, and catching, and kissing, and hugging, first one and then the other, to his heart's content. Notwithstanding their screams, and slaps, and robust struggles, it is very plain to be seen that the skipper's attentions are not very unwelcome. Leaving his fair friends, he catches Pony by the bridle and stops us with a hospitable—"Come in—you must come in; just a glass of ale, you'll want it;" and sure enough, we found when we came to taste the ale, that we did want it, and many thanks to him, the kind-hearted landlord of the Three Fathoms.
"It is surprising," said I to my companion, as we rolled again over the road, "that these people, these Acadians, should still preserve their language and customs, so near to your principal city, and yet with no more affiliation than if they were on an island in the South Seas!"
"The reason of that," he replied, "is because they stick to their own settlement; never see anything of the world except Halifax early in the morning; never marry out of their own set; never read—I do not believe one of them can read or write—and are in fact so slow, so destitute of enterprise, so much behind the age"——
I could not avoid smiling. My companion observed it. "What are you thinking about?" said he.
The truth is, I was thinking of Halifax, which was anything but a fast place; but I simply observed: