During the month or six weeks I spent with Father K——, that part of the country became quite familiar to me by means of his numerous drives on parish duties, when I usually accompanied him. Often, as the shades of the summer evening descended, have I watched the mists across the Basin shrouding the bluff front of Cape Blomidon—“Blow-me-down,” as it is more commonly called by the country-folk. At other times we drove up the North Mountain, where the
“Sea-fogs pitched their tents,”
and, standing there, I have looked down upon the distant glittering waters of the Bay of Fundy.
On one occasion we rode over from Kentville to Wolfville, and then up the Gaspereau, at the mouth of which
“The English ships at their anchors”
swung with the tide on the morning which ushered in the doom of Grand Pré. We rode some distance up the valley to the house of a Catholic farmer, and there put up for the day. It was the day on which the elections took place for the House of Assembly. The contest was fiercely conducted amid great popular excitement. One of those “No-Popery” cries, fomented by an artful politician—which sometimes sweep the colonies as well as the mother country—was raging in the province. Father K—— left Kentville, the county town, on that day to avoid all appearance of interference in the election, and also to get away from the noise and confusion that pervaded the long main street of the village. I can remember the news coming up the Gaspereau in the evening how every one of the four candidates opposed to Father K—— had been returned. But at that time I paid little heed to politics, and during the day I wandered down through the field to the river, and strolled along its willow-fringed banks. Some of those willows were very aged, and might have swung their long, slim wands and narrow-pointed leaves over an Evangeline and a Gabriel a hundred years before. Those willows were not the natural growth of the forest, but were planted there—by whom? No remnant of the people that first tilled the valley was left to say!
Riding home next day, a laughable incident, but doubtless somewhat annoying to Father K——, occurred. Just as we were about to turn a narrow bend of the road, suddenly we were confronted by a long procession in carriages and all sorts of country vehicles, with banners flying, men shouting, and everything to indicate a triumphal parade. It was, in fact, a procession escorting two of the “No-Popery” members elected the day before. The position was truly rueful, but Father K—— had to grin and bear it. There was no escape for us; we had to draw up at the side of the road, and sit quietly in our single wagon until the procession passed us. It was a very orderly and good-humored crowd, but there were a good many broad grins, as they rode by, at having caught the portly and generally popular priest in such a trap. Nothing would persuade them, of course, but that he had been working might and main for the other side during the election. Finally, as the tail of the procession passed us, some one in the rear, more in humor than in malice, sang out: “To h—ll with the Pope.” There was a roar of laughter at this, during which Father K—— gathered up his reins, and, saying something under his breath which I will not vouch for as strictly a blessing, applied the whip to old Dobbin with an energy that that respectable quadruped must have thought demanded explanation.
Changed indeed was such a scene from those daily witnessed when Father Felician,
“Priest and pedagogue both in the village,”
ruled over his peaceful congregation at the mouth of the Gaspereau.