Saturday, July 23. We were off betimes, and trundling right merrily again along the hilly shores of Bras D’or, a much more expanded sheet of water than yesterday. At three o’clock, P. M., we arrived at David Murdoch’s, the end of our journey with Dearing’s conveyances, and where we remain until Monday morning.
I have just returned from a walk through wood and meadow, picking berries by the way, and now wait for dinner, which, from the linen on the table, the look of the landlady, and the general air of things, promises uncommonly well. From this frequent mention of the quality of our dinner, it may be thought that I think them of great importance. I do think them of very great importance; not so much because good meals are necessary and the best on mere sanatory grounds, but because they are an allowable luxury, especially at a time when one is apt to have a sharp appetite and good digestion. A man is something of an animal, and likes excellent eating for the comfort of it, and the stomach’s sake, and that like is defensible on good moral grounds. I need not add, that the indulgence of it should have upon it the bit and curb of moderation; in the application of which moral force consists temperance, a virtue that stands not in the scantiness, the meanness, or the entire absence of things drank and eaten, but in the strong, controlling will. After this brief apology for the hungry traveller’s love of bountiful dinners well and neatly served, I will return to the sylvan nook where ours, for to-day and to-morrow, are to be cooked and eaten.
We are at the foot of a high, broad hill, verdant with meadows and pastures, and checkered with woods and orchards, around the lake-end of which the road comes gracefully winding down to the creek and the bridge close by. The expanse of water lying off to the west, as you might have guessed, is named St. Peter’s Bay, and the buildings, a mile or more distant along the spruce and pine-covered shore, is St. Peter’s itself, a village. The accommodations of Mr. Murdoch are ampler than those of the Widow Kelly; and the brown, wooden house stands backed into the thick evergreen forest, the front door dressing to the right and left, with its square-toed stone step in line with the trees along the street. We have each a neat room, softened under foot with a rag carpet, and dimmed by a small window and its clean white curtain. The narrow feather-beds are freshened with the cleanest linen. We have seen the last of our driver, who returns to-day as far as the Widow Kelly’s.
With one horse attached to the hinder end of the forward wagon, he went over the bridge and up the hill, “an hour and a half ago.”
Sunday, July 24. We rest according to the commandment, and have religious service in the family, the members of which, like most of the Scotch of Cape Breton, are Presbyterians. In the afternoon, we sauntered through the adjoining woods and fields, picking a few strawberries, and giving to ourselves a practical illustration of the ease with which people slip into the habit of Sabbath-breaking, who live in out-of-the-way places, distant from the parish church, and beyond the restraints of a well-ordered community. In the course of our walk, we came out upon the beach, and looked at the beautiful evening sky across the water. Bountiful Providence! Where hast thou not sown the seeds of loveliness, and made the flowers of glory bloom? Celestial colors are also beneath the foot. The swells that fretted, and left their froth along the sloping sand, were freighted with the jelly-fish, several of which were of the most exquisite purple.
CHAPTER LX.
OFF FOR THE STRAIT OF CANSO.—ST. PETER’S AND THE COUNTRY.—DAVID MURDOCH’S HORSES, AND HIS DRIVING.—ARRIVE AT PLASTER COVE.
Monday, July 25. We are out “by the dawn’s early light,” and assist in getting our baggage upon the coach, as David Murdoch calls his two-horse covered wagon, which is to carry us on to the Strait of Canso. We have breakfasted, and all is ready. As I pen these notes, here and there by the wayside, I keep them mainly in the present tense. David, a little fair-complexioned, sandy-whiskered farmer, innkeeper, stage-proprietor, and driver, all in one, is exactly the man for his vocation. Quick in his motions, intelligent and good-tempered, he is entirely to our purpose. He starts his Cape Bretons, a span of light, wiry animals, upon a canter, in our opinion an indiscreet pace. We pass St. Peter’s, a superlative place—superlatively minute, the smallest city in the world. It had, for several years, one house, but has of late been in a more thriving condition. It has now a name on the map, a population of some nine or ten souls, and two houses, a large public work in the shape of a beach, and a little shipping, not able to say how much exactly, as it is all absent but a skiff and a bark canoe, and the wreck of a schooner, in a poor and neglected condition. How long, at this rate of progress, it will take for St. Peter’s to grow out of existence, is a fair question of arithmetic, left for the statist of the island to cipher out. We pause for a moment only, and that in front of a mercantile establishment, if one may guess from a tin-foil-covered paper of tobacco, and astride of it a couple of pipes in the window, but dash through its suburbs, a pig-pen and a hen-roost, and pass the gates of a calf-pen and a potato-patch, and gain the open country, a wild and lonesome tract, half-wooded, and the other half weeds, brush, and stumps of all calibre and colors, from rotten-red and brown down to coal-black, and all torn to pieces, and tangled into one briery wilderness, just fit for the fires that occasionally scour through.
We were mistaken about the indiscretion of David, in his driving, and add two more to the list of those impertinent travellers who hastily pass judgment upon persons and things of which they are quite ignorant. David is the Jehu of the road, and his steeds are chosen, and fitted to their master. Like locomotives, they work with the greater ease and spirit as they wax hotter. For three hours they trotted, galloped, ran, as if something more than horse was in them, and something worse than man was in their driver. There was; as we knew by the flame in his face and about his nostrils, and by his breath that had spirit in it. Around the hills, and at their foot, over bridges, and through the bushy dales, the road described many a Hogarth’s line of beauty, and many a full-blooded S. In whirling through these graceful sinuosities, now strongly on the right wheels, then heavily on the left, flirting the dust or mud into the air, we seemed to swim or fly on the oily brim of peril. Expostulation flashed out upon the lips in vain. A shake of the head, and a knowing smile, sharpened off by the crack of the whip, restored assurance, and fairly straightened all things out. But all went well, and passengers as well as driver became rash and brave, and foolishly came to like and applaud what at first they were disposed to protest against.