truro—on the road to halifax—drive to the left—a member of the foreign legion—irish wit at government expense—the first battle of the legion—ten pounds reward—sir john gaspard's revenge—the shubenacadie lakes—dartmouth ferry, and the hotel waverley.
pleasant truro! at last we regain the territories of civility and civilization! here is the honest little english inn, with its cheerful dining-room, its clean spread, its abundant dishes, its glass of ripe ale, its pleased alacrity of service. after our long ride from west river, we enjoy the best inn's best room, the ease, the comfort, and the fair aspect of one of the prettiest towns in the province. truro is situated on the head waters of the basin of minas, or cobequid bay, as it is denominated on the map, between the shubenacadie and salmon rivers. here we are within fifty miles of the idyllic land, the pastoral meadows of grand-pré! but, alas! there is yet a long ride before us; the path from truro to grand-pré being in the shape of an acute angle, of which halifax is the[pg 225] apex. as yet there is no direct road from place to place, but by the shores of the basin of minas. let us look, however, at pleasant truro.
one of the striking features of this part of the country is the peculiarity of the rivers; these are full or empty, with every flux and reflux of the tide; for instance, when we crossed the salmon, we saw only a high, broad, muddy ditch, drained to the very bottom. this is owing to the ocean tides, which, sweeping up the bay of fundy, pour into the basin of minas, and fill all its tributary streams; then, with prodigal reaction, sweeping forth again, leave only the vacant channels of the rivers—if they may be called by that name. this peculiar feature of hydrography is of course local—limited to this section of the province—indeed if it be not to this corner of the world. the country surrounding the village is well cultivated, diversified with rolling hill and dale, and although i had not the opportunity of seeing much of it, yet the mere description of its natural scenery was sufficiently tempting. here, too, i saw something that reminded me of home—a clump of cedar-trees! these of course were exotics, brought, not without expense, from the states, planted in the courtyard of a little aristocratic cottage, and protected in winter by warm over-coats of wheat straw.[pg 226] so we go! here they grub up larches and spruces to plant cedars.
the mail coach was soon at the door of our inn, and after taking leave of my fellow-traveller with the big hat, i engaged a seat on the stage-box beside jeangros, a french canadian, or canuck—one of the best whips on the line. jeangros is not a great portly fellow, as his name would seem to indicate, but a spare, small man—nevertheless with an air of great courage and command. jeangros touched up the leaders, the mail-coach rattled through the street of the town, and off we trotted from truro into the pleasant road that leads to halifax.
one thing i observed in the province especially worthy of imitation—the old english practice of turning to the left in driving, instead of to the right, as we do. let me exhibit the merits of the respective systems by a brief diagram. by the english system they drive thus:
english system of driving on the left.
the arrows represent the drivers, as well as the directions of the vehicles; of course when two[pg 227] 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:
american system of driving on the right.
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.[pg 228]
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, pos[pg 229]sessed 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 bayo[pg 230]nets, 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[pg 231] of soldiers, sir john gaspard le marchant, but also ornamented with the horn of the unicorn and the claws of the british lion.
but there is a nemesis even in nova scotia, for this riot produced effects, unwonted and unlooked for. one of the prominent leaders in the nova scotia parliament, a gentleman distinguished both as an orator and as a poet—the hon. joseph howe, who had signalized himself as an advocate of the right of her majesty to recruit for the crimea in the streets of columbia, and was ready to pit the british lion against the american eagle in support of that right, fell by the very legion he had been so zealous to create. the hon. joseph howe, m. p., by the support of the irish population, could always command a popular majority and keep his seat in the house, so long as he maintained his loyalty to this votive class of citizens. but, unfortunately, hon. joseph howe, in alluding to the riot, took the scotch side of the broil. this was sufficient. at the election following he was a defeated candidate, and politely advised to retire to private life. thus was the hon. j. h. "hoist by his own petard," the first man to fall by this expensive military company.
an adventure upon the shubenacadie brought one of these heroes into prominent relief. after[pg 232] we had parted from pleasant truro, at every nook and corner of the road, there seemed to be a passenger waiting for the halifax coach. so that the top of the vehicle was soon filled with dusty fellow-travellers, and jeangros was getting to be a little impatient. just as we turned into the densest part of the forest, where the evening sun was most obscured by the close foliage, we saw two men, one decorated with a pair of handcuffs, and the other armed with a brace of pistols. the latter hailed the coach.
"what d'ye want?" quoth jeangros, drawing up by the roadside.
"government prisoner," said the man with the pistols.
"what the —— is government prisoner to me?" quoth jeangros.
"i want to take him to dartmouth," said the tall policeman.
"then take him there," said our jolly driver, shaking up the leaders.
"hold up," shouted out the tall policeman, "i will pay his fare."
"why didn't you say so, then?" replied jeangros, full of the dignity of his position as driver of h. b. m. mail-coach, before whose tin horn everything must get out of the way.[pg 233]
there was a doubt which was the drunkenest, the officer or the prisoner. we found out afterwards that the officer had conciliated his captive with drink, partly to keep him friendly in case of an attempted rescue, and partly to get him in such a state that running away would be impracticable. and, indeed, there would have been a great race if the prisoner had attempted to escape. the prisoner too drunk to run—the officer too drunk to pursue.
the pair had scarcely crawled up among the luggage upon the stage-top, before there was an outcry from the passengers on the box in front—"uncock your pistols! uncock your pistols!" for the officer had dropped his fire-arms, cocked and capped, upon the top of our coach, with the muzzles pointed towards us. and indeed i may affirm here, that i never saw metallic cylinders with more menacing aspect, than those which lay quietly behind us, ready to explode—unconscious instruments as they were—and carry any of the party into the next world upon the slightest lurch of the stage-coach.
"uncock your pistols," said the passengers.
but the officer, in the mellifluous dialect of his mother country, replied that "he'd be —— if he would. me prishner," said he, "me prishner[pg 234] might escape; or, the divil knows but there might be a rescue come to him, for there's a good many of the same hereabouts."
it struck me that no person upon the top of the stage-coach was so particularly interested in this dispute as the member of the foreign legion, who was on his way either to the gallows or a perpetual prison. i observed that he nervously twitched at his handcuffs, perhaps—as i thought—to prepare for escape in case of an explosion; or else to be ready for the rescue; or else to take advantage of his captor, the tall policeman—jump from the stage, and run for dear life and liberty. never was i more mistaken. true to his race, and to tradition, pat was only striving to free himself from the leather shackles, in order to fight any man who was an enemy to his friend the policeman, and the pistols, that were cocked to shoot himself. but had not poor paddy made such blunders in all times? the hubbub increased, a terrific contest was impending; the travellers below poked their heads out of the windows; there was every prospect of a catastrophe of some kind, when suddenly jeangros rose to his feet, and said, in a voice clear and sharp through the tumult as an electric flash through a storm, "uncock those pistols, or i will throw you from the top of the coach!"[pg 235]
there was a pause instantly, and we heard the sharp click of the cocks, as they were lowered in obedience to the little stage-driver. it had a wonderful power of command, that voice—soft and clear, but brief, decisive, authoritative.
it is quite interesting to ride fellow-passenger with a person who has played a part in the national drama, but more villainous face i never saw. mr. crampton, with whom i sailed on the canada, had a much more amiable expression; indeed i think we should all be obliged to him for ridding us of at least a portion of his fellow-countrymen.
but now we ride by the shubenacadie lakes, a chain—a bracelet—binding the province from the basin of minas to the seaboard. the eye never tires of this lovely feature of acadia. lake above lake—the division, the isthmus between, not wider than the breadth of your india shawl, my lady! i must declare that, all in all, the scenery of the province is surpassingly beautiful. as you ride by these sparkling waters, through the flowery, bowery, woods, you feel as if you like to pitch tent here—at least for the summer.
and now we approach a rustic inn by the roadside, rich in shrubbery before it, and green moss from ridge-pole to low drooping eaves, where we[pg 236] change horses. and as we rest here upon the wooden inn-porch, dismounted from our high perch on the stage-coach, we see right above us against the clear evening sky, her majesty's ci-devant partisan, now prisoner—by merit raised to that bad eminence. the officer hands him a glass of brandy, to keep up his spirits. the prisoner takes it, and, lifting the glass high in air, shouts out with the exultation of a fiend:
"here's to the hinges of liberty—may they never want oil,
nor an orangeman's bones in a pot for to boil."
once more upon the stage to dartmouth, where we deposit our precious fellow-travellers, and then to the ferry, and look you! across the harbor, the twinkling lights of dear old mouldy halifax. and now we are crossing chebucto, and the cab carries us again to our former quarters in the hotel waverley.
