To all these exactions, these unhappy people patiently submitted. But in vain. The very existence of the subjugated race had become irksome to their oppressors. A cruelty yet more intolerable to which the history of the world affords no parallel, remained to be perpetrated.
CHAPTER XVIII.
On the road to Windsor—The great Nova Scotia Railway—A Fellow Passenger—Cape Sable Shipwrecks—Seals—Ponies—Windsor—Sam Slick—A lively Example.
A dewy, spring-like morning is all I remembered of my farewell to Halifax. A very sweet and odorous air as I rode towards the railway station in the funereal cab; a morning without fog, a sparkling freshness that twinkled in the leaves and crisped the waters.
So I take leave of thee, quaint old city of Chebucto. The words of a familiar ditty, the memory of the unfortunate Miss Bailey, rises upon me as the morning bugle sounds—
"A captain bold in Halifax, who lived in country quarters,
Seduced a maid, who hung herself next morning in her garters;
His wicked conscience smoted him, he lost his spirits daily,
He took to drinking ratifia, and thought upon Miss Bailey."
While the psychological features of the case were puzzling his brain and keeping him wide awake—
"The candles blue, at XII. o'clock, began to burn quite paley,
A ghost appeared at his bedside, and said—
behold, Miss Bailey!!!"
Even such a sprite, so dead in look, so woe-begone, drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night to tell him half his Troy was burned; but this visit was for a different purpose, as we find by the words which the gallant Lothario addressed to his victim: