Acadia / or, A Month with the Blue Noses

by Frederic S. Cozzens

The arrows represent the drivers, as well as the directions of the vehicles; of course when two vehicles, coming in opposite directions, pass each other on the road, each driver is nearest the point of contact, and can see readily, and provide against accidents. Now contrast our system with the former:

no wonder we have so many collisions.

"The rule of the road is a paradox quite,
In driving your carriage along,
If you keep to the left, you are sure to go right,
If you keep to the right, you go wrong."

It would be a good thing if our present senseless laws were reversed in this matter, and a few lives saved, and a few broken limbs prevented.

When I took leave of my native country for a short sojourn in this province, the great question then before the public was the invasion of international law, by the British minister and a whole solar system of British consuls. I had the pleasure of being a fellow exile on the Canada with Mr. Crampton, Mr. Barclay, and Mr. ——, Her British Majesty's representatives, and of course felt no little interest to know the fate of the Foreign Legion.

Before I left Halifax, I learned some particulars of that famous flock of jail birds. All that we knew, at home, was that a number of recruits for the Crimea had been picked up in the streets and alleys of Columbia, and carried, at an enormous expense, to Halifax, there to be enrolled. And also, that as a mere cover to this infraction of the law of Neutrality, the men were engaged as laborers, to work upon the public improvements of Nova Scotia. The sequel of that enterprise remained to be told. A majority of these recruits were Irishmen—some of them not wanting in the mother wit of the race. So when they were gathered in the great province building at Halifax, and Sir John Gaspard le Marchant, in chapeau, feather and sword, came down to review his levies, with great spirit and military pomp, "Well, my men," said he, "you are here to enlist, eh, and serve Her Majesty?" To which the spokesman of the Foreign Legion, fully understanding the beauty of his position, replied, with a sly twinkle of the eye, "We didn't engage to 'list at all, at all, but to wurruk on the railroad." Upon which Sir John Gaspard, seeing that Her Majesty had been imposed upon, politely told the legion to go to——Dante's Inferno.

Now whether the place to which the Foreign Legion was consigned by Sir John Gaspard, possessed even less attractions than Halifax, or from whatever reason soever, it chanced that the jolly boys, raked from our alleys and jails, never stirred a foot out of the province; and while the peace of the whole world was endangered by their abduction, as that of Greece and Troy had been by the rape of Helen, they were quietly enlisting in less warlike expeditions—in fact, engaging themselves to work upon that great railroad, of which mention has been made heretofore.

Now we have seen something of the clannish propensities of the people of the colonies, and the contractors knew what sort of material they had to deal with. And, inasmuch as there was a pretty large group of five-shilling Highlandmen, grading, levelling, and filling in one end of a section of the road, the gang of Irishmen was placed at the opposite end, as far from them as possible, which no doubt would have preserved peaceful relations between the two, but for the fact, that as the work progressed the hostile forces naturally approached each other. It was towards the close of a summer evening, that the ground was broken by the gentlemen of the shamrock, within sight of the shanties decorated with the honorable order of the thistle. A lovely evening in the month of June! Not with spumy cannon and prickly bayonets, but with peaceful spade and mattock, advanced the sons of St. Patrick towards the children of a sister isle. Then did Roderick Dhu step forth from his shanty, and inquire, in choice Gaelic, if a person named Brian Borheime was in the ranks of the approaching forces. Then then did Brian Borheime advance, spade in hand, and with a single spat of his implement level Roderick, as though he had been a piece of turf. Then was Brian flattened out by the spade of Vich Ian Vohr; and Vich Ian Vohr, by the spade of Captain Rock. Then fell Captain Rock by the spade of Rob Roy; and Rob Roy smelt the earth under the spade of Handy Andy. In a word, the fight became general—the bagpipe blew to arms—Celt joined Celt, there was the tug of war; but the sun set upon the lowered standard of the thistle, and victory proclaimed Shamrock the conqueror. Several of the natives were left for dead upon the field of battle, the triumphant Irish ran away, to a man, to avoid the consequences, and I blush to say it, as I do to record any act of heartless ingratitude, handbills were speedily posted up by the order of government, offering a reward of ten pounds apiece for the capture of certain members of the Foreign Legion, who had been the ringleaders in the riot, which handbill was not only signed by that seducer of soldiers, Sir John Gaspard le Marchant, but also ornamented with the horn of the unicorn and the claws of the British lion.