Whether it is the fashionable and favorite resort of the dead of the city we did not learn, but there were some old men sitting in its damp shades, and the nurses appeared to make it a rendezvous for their baby-carriages,--a cheerful place to bring up children in, and to familiarize their infant minds with the fleeting nature of provincial life.The park and burying-ground, it is scarcely necessary to say, added greatly to the feeling of repose which stole over us on this sunny day.And they made us long for Brown and his information about Baddeck.
But Mr.Brown, when found, did not know as much as the agent.He had been in Nova Scotia; he had never been in Cape Breton; but he presumed we would find no difficulty in reaching Baddeck by so and so, and so and so.We consumed valuable time in convincing Brown that his directions to us were impracticable and valueless, and then he referred us to Mr.Cope.An interview with Mr.Cope discouraged us; we found that we were imparting everywhere more geographical inform-ation than we were receiving, and as our own stock was small, we concluded that we should be unable to enlighten all the inhabitants of St.John upon the subject of Baddeck before we ran out.Returning to the hotel, and taking our destiny into our own hands, we resolved upon a bold stroke.
But to return for a moment to Brown.I feel that Brown has been let off too easily in the above paragraph.His conduct, to say the truth, was not such as we expected of a man in whom we had put our entire faith for half a day,--a long while to trust anybody in these times,--a man whom we had exalted as an encyclopedia of information, and idealized in every way.A man of wealth and liberal views and courtly manners we had decided Brown would be.Perhaps he had a suburban villa on the heights over-looking Kennebeckasis Bay, and, recognizing us as brothers in a common interest in Baddeck, not-withstanding our different nationality, would insist upon taking us to his house, to sip provincial tea with Mrs.Brown and Victoria Louise, his daughter.When, therefore, Mr.Brown whisked into his dingy office, and, but for our importunity, would have paid no more attention to us than to up-country customers without credit, and when he proved to be willingly, it seemed to us, ignorant of Baddeck, our feelings received a great shock.It is incomprehensible that a man in the position of Brown with so many boxes of soap and candles to dispose of--should be so ignorant of a neighboring province.We had heard of the cordial unity of the Provinces in the New Dominion.
Heaven help it, if it depends upon such fellows as Brown! Of course, his directing us to Cope was a mere fetch.For as we have intimated, it would have taken us longer to have given Cope an idea of Baddeck, than it did to enlighten Brown.But we had no bitter feelings about Cope, for we never had reposed confidence in him.
Our plan of campaign was briefly this: To take the steamboat at eight o'clock, Thursday morning, for Digby Gut and Annapolis; thence to go by rail through the poetical Acadia down to Halifax; to turn north and east by rail from Halifax to New Glasgow, and from thence to push on by stage to the Gut of Canso.This would carry us over the entire length of Nova Scotia, and, with good luck, land us on Cape Breton Island Saturday morning.When we should set foot on that island, we trusted that we should be able to make our way to Baddeck, by walk-ing, swimming, or riding, whichever sort of locomotion should be most popular in that province.Our imaginations were kindled by reading that the "most superb line of stages on the continent" ran from New Glasgow to the Gut of Canso.If the reader perfectly understands this programme, he has the advantage of the two travelers at the time they made it.
It was a gray morning when we embarked from St.John, and in fact a little drizzle of rain veiled the Martello tower, and checked, like the cross-strokes of a line engraving, the hill on which it stands.
The miscellaneous shining of such a harbor appears best in a golden haze, or in the mist of a morning like this.We had expected days of fog in this region; but the fog seemed to have gone out with the high tides of the geography.And it is simple justice to these possessions of her Majesty, to say that in our two weeks'
acquaintance of them they enjoyed as delicious weather as ever falls on sea and shore, with the exception of this day when we crossed the Bay of Fundy.And this day was only one of those cool interludes of low color, which an artist would be thankful to introduce among a group of brilliant pictures.Such a day rests the traveler, who is overstimulated by shifting scenes played upon by the dazzling sun.
So the cool gray clouds spread a grateful umbrella above us as we ran across the Bay of Fundy, sighted the headlands of the Gut of Digby, and entered into the Annapolis Basin, and into the region of a romantic history.The white houses of Digby, scattered over the downs like a flock of washed sheep, had a somewhat chilly aspect, it is true, and made us long for the sun on them.But as I think of it now, I prefer to have the town and the pretty hillsides that stand about the basin in the light we saw them; and especially do I like to recall the high wooden pier at Digby, deserted by the tide and so blown by the wind that the passengers who came out on it, with their tossing drapery, brought to mind the windy Dutch harbors that Backhuysen painted.We landed a priest here, and it was a pleasure to see him as he walked along the high pier, his broad hat flapping, and the wind blowing his long skirts away from his ecclesiastical legs.