The sun has set when we come thundering down into the pretty Catholic village of Antigonish,--the most home-like place we have seen on the island.The twin stone towers of the unfinished cathedral loom up large in the fading light, and the bishop's palace on the hill--the home of the Bishop of Arichat--appears to be an imposing white barn with many staring windows.At Antigonish--with the emphasis on the last syllable--let the reader know there is a most comfortable inn, kept by a cheery landlady, where the stranger is served by the comely handmaidens, her daughters, and feels that he has reached a home at last.Here we wished to stay.Here we wished to end this weary pilgrimage.Could Baddeck be as attractive as this peaceful valley?
Should we find any inn on Cape Breton like this one?
"Never was on Cape Breton," our driver had said; "hope I never shall be.Heard enough about it.Taverns? You'll find 'em occupied.""Fleas?
"Wus."
"But it is a lovely country?"
"I don't think it."
Into what unknown dangers were we going? Why not stay here and be happy? It was a soft summer night.People were loitering in the street; the young beaux of the place going up and down with the belles, after the leisurely manner in youth and summer; perhaps they were students from St.Xavier College, or visiting gallants from Guysborough.They look into the post-office and the fancy store.
They stroll and take their little provincial pleasure and make love, for all we can see, as if Antigonish were a part of the world.How they must look down on Marshy Hope and Addington Forks and Tracadie!
What a charming place to live in is this!
But the stage goes on at eight o'clock.It will wait for no man.
There is no other stage till eight the next night, and we have no alternative but a night ride.We put aside all else except duty and Baddeck.This is strictly a pleasure-trip.
The stage establishment for the rest of the journey could hardly be called the finest on the continent.The wagon was drawn by two horses.It was a square box, covered with painted cloth.Within were two narrow seats, facing each other, affording no room for the legs of passengers, and offering them no position but a strictly upright one.It was a most ingeniously uncomfortable box in which to put sleepy travelers for the night.The weather would be chilly before morning, and to sit upright on a narrow board all night, and shiver, is not cheerful.Of course, the reader says that this is no hardship to talk about.But the reader is mistaken.Anything is a hardship when it is unpleasantly what one does not desire or expect.
These travelers had spent wakeful nights, in the forests, in a cold rain, and never thought of complaining.It is useless to talk about the Polar sufferings of Dr.Kane to a guest at a metropolitan hotel, in the midst of luxury, when the mosquito sings all night in his ear, and his mutton-chop is overdone at breakfast.One does not like to be set up for a hero in trifles, in odd moments, and in inconspicuous places.
There were two passengers besides ourselves, inhabitants of Cape Breton Island, who were returning from Halifax to Plaster Cove, where they were engaged in the occupation of distributing alcoholic liquors at retail.This fact we ascertained incidentally, as we learned the nationality of our comrades by their brogue, and their religion by their lively ejaculations during the night.We stowed ourselves into the rigid box, bade a sorrowing good-night to the landlady and her daughters, who stood at the inn door, and went jingling down the street towards the open country.
The moon rises at eight o'clock in Nova Scotia.It came above the horizon exactly as we began our journey, a harvest-moon, round and red.When I first saw it, it lay on the edge of the horizon as if too heavy to lift itself, as big as a cart-wheel, and its disk cut by a fence-rail.With what a flood of splendor it deluged farmhouses and farms, and the broad sweep of level country! There could not be a more magnificent night in which to ride towards that geographical mystery of our boyhood, the Gut of Canso.
A few miles out of town the stage stopped in the road before a post-station.An old woman opened the door of the farmhouse to receive the bag which the driver carried to her.A couple of sprightly little girls rushed out to "interview " the passengers, climbing up to ask their names and, with much giggling, to get a peep at their faces.And upon the handsomeness or ugliness of the faces they saw in the moonlight they pronounced with perfect candor.We are not obliged to say what their verdict was.Girls here, no doubt, as elsewhere, lose this trustful candor as they grow older.
Just as we were starting, the old woman screamed out from the door, in a shrill voice, addressing the driver, "Did you see ary a sick man 'bout 'Tigonish?""Nary."
"There's one been round here for three or four days, pretty bad off;'s got the St.Vitus's.He wanted me to get him some medicine for it up to Antigonish.I've got it here in a vial, and I wished you could take it to him.""Where is he?"
"I dunno.I heern he'd gone east by the Gut.Perhaps you'll hear of him." All this screamed out into the night.
"Well, I'll take it."
We took the vial aboard and went on; but the incident powerfully affected us.The weird voice of the old woman was exciting in it-self, and we could not escape the image of this unknown man, dancing about this region without any medicine, fleeing perchance by night and alone, and finally flitting away down the Gut of Canso.This fugitive mystery almost immediately shaped itself into the following simple poem:
"There was an old man of Canso, Unable to sit or stan' so.
When I asked him why he ran so, Says he, 'I've St.Vitus' dance so, All down the Gut of Canso.'"This melancholy song is now, I doubt not, sung by the maidens of Antigonish.