When we land, and take up our bags to ascend the hill to the white tavern of Port Hastings (as Plaster Cove now likes to be called), the sun lifts himself slowly over the treetops, and the magic of the night vanishes.
And this is Cape Breton, reached after almost a week of travel.Here is the Gut of Canso, but where is Baddeck? It is Saturday morning;if we cannot make Baddeck by night, we might as well have remained in Boston.And who knows what we shall find if we get there? A forlorn fishing-station, a dreary hotel? Suppose we cannot get on, and are forced to stay here? Asking ourselves these questions, we enter the Plaster Cove tavern.No one is stirring, but the house is open, and we take possession of the dirty public room, and almost immediately drop to sleep in the fluffy rocking-chairs; but even sleep is not strong enough to conquer our desire to push on, and we soon rouse up and go in pursuit of information.
No landlord is to be found, but there is an unkempt servant in the kitchen, who probably does not see any use in making her toilet more than once a week.To this fearful creature is intrusted the dainty duty of preparing breakfast.Her indifference is equal to her lack of information, and her ability to convey information is fettered by her use of Gaelic as her native speech.But she directs us to the stable.There we find a driver hitching his horses to a two-horse stage-wagon.
"Is this stage for Baddeck?"
"Not much."
"Is there any stage for Baddeck?"
"Not to-day."
"Where does this go, and when?"
"St.Peter's.Starts in fifteen minutes."This seems like "business," and we are inclined to try it, especially as we have no notion where St.Peter's is.
"Does any other stage go from here to-day anywhere else?""Yes.Port Hood.Quarter of an hour."
Everything was about to happen in fifteen minutes.We inquire further.St.Peter's is on the east coast, on the road to Sydney.
Port Hood is on the west coast.There is a stage from Port Hood to Baddeck.It would land us there some time Sunday morning; distance, eighty miles.
Heavens! what a pleasure-trip.To ride eighty miles more without sleep! We should simply be delivered dead on the Bras d'Or; that is all.Tell us, gentle driver, is there no other way?
"Well, there's Jim Hughes, come over at midnight with a passenger from Baddeck; he's in the hotel now; perhaps he'll take you."Our hope hung on Jim Hughes.The frowzy servant piloted us up to his sleeping-room."Go right in," said she; and we went in, according to the simple custom of the country, though it was a bedroom that one would not enter except on business.Mr.Hughes did not like to be disturbed, but he proved himself to be a man who could wake up suddenly, shake his head, and transact business,--a sort of Napoleon, in fact.Mr.Hughes stared at the intruders for a moment, as if he meditated an assault.
"Do you live in Baddeck?" we asked.
"No; Hogamah,--half-way there."
"Will you take us to Baddeck to-day?
Mr.Hughes thought.He had intended to sleep--till noon.He had then intended to go over the Judique Mountain and get a boy.But he was disposed to accommodate.Yes, for money--sum named--he would give up his plans, and start for Baddeck in an hour.Distance, sixty miles.Here was a man worth having; he could come to a decision before he was out of bed.The bargain was closed.
We would have closed any bargain to escape a Sunday in the Plaster Cove hotel.There are different sorts of hotel uncleanliness.There is the musty old inn, where the dirt has accumulated for years, and slow neglect has wrought a picturesque sort of dilapidation, the mouldiness of time, which has something to recommend it.But there is nothing attractive in new nastiness, in the vulgar union of smartness and filth.A dirty modern house, just built, a house smelling of poor whiskey and vile tobacco, its white paint grimy, its floors unclean, is ever so much worse than an old inn that never pretended to be anything but a rookery.I say nothing against the hotel at Plaster Cove.In fact, I recommend it.There is a kind of harmony about it that I like.There is a harmony between the breakfast and the frowzy Gaelic cook we saw "sozzling" about in the kitchen.There is a harmony between the appearance of the house and the appearance of the buxom young housekeeper who comes upon the scene later, her hair saturated with the fatty matter of the bear.
The traveler will experience a pleasure in paying his bill and departing.
Although Plaster Cove seems remote on the map, we found that we were right in the track of the world's news there.It is the transfer station of the Atlantic Cable Company, where it exchanges messages with the Western Union.In a long wooden building, divided into two main apartments, twenty to thirty operators are employed.At eight o'clock the English force was at work receiving the noon messages from London.The American operators had not yet come on, for New York business would not begin for an hour.Into these rooms is poured daily the news of the world, and these young fellows toss it about as lightly as if it were household gossip.It is a marvelous exchange, however, and we had intended to make some reflections here upon the en rapport feeling, so to speak, with all the world, which we experienced while there; but our conveyance was waiting.We telegraphed our coming to Baddeck, and departed.For twenty-five cents one can send a dispatch to any part of the Dominion, except the region where the Western Union has still a foothold.
Our conveyance was a one-horse wagon, with one seat.The horse was well enough, but the seat was narrow for three people, and the entire establishment had in it not much prophecy of Baddeck for that day.
But we knew little of the power of Cape Breton driving.It became evident that we should reach Baddeck soon enough, if we could cling to that wagon-seat.The morning sun was hot.The way was so uninteresting that we almost wished ourselves back in Nova Scotia.