EVENING RIDE TO MRS. KELLY’S TAVERN.—THE SUPPER, AND THE
LODGING.
AT a sort of half-way house, the driver of the baggage-wagon stopped to
feed and water, and I walked on alone, leaving the painter with his
sketch-book. For a mile or more, the road wound its way through thick
woods, mostly spruce, and “I whistled as I went,” certainly not “for
want of thought,” and sang for the solitude, and was answered by the
ringing echoes and the wood-thrush, whose sweet melody, sounding with a
silvery, metallic ring, often made me pause and listen. Red raspberries,
pendent from the slender bushes, tempted me frequently to spring up the
broken, earthy bank, where, to my surprise I met the first strawberries
coming on from the juicier climes. Ruby darlings, they had got only thus
far along, and looked timid and disheartened, dropping wearily into the
mossy turf, where they trembled like drops of blood. And so I loitered
along the lonely highway, up which the sweetest of all the fruits were
coming, and over which the wild birds were pouring forth their songs,
and felt that I was only very, very happily going on toward heaven,
taking home and loving, and beloved ones by the way. In the middle of
the forest, I met a tall, thin Indian in ragged, English dress. He
passed me by silently, and with an air of bashfulness. I was a little
disappointed. When I saw him approaching, I proposed to myself a rest
upon a log near by, and a talk with the man about his people. The wagons
came up presently, and I resumed the reins, having, at the outset, been
voted by a small majority much the better whip.
Late in the afternoon, we came upon the shores of Bras D’or, a fiord or
inlet extending in from the ocean, and winding for many miles among
hills, farms and woodlands in a manner exceedingly picturesque. The ride
was lovely, too lovely for the merriment in which we had been freely
indulging. Ebullitions of mirth gave way to thoughts and emotions
arising from the beauty of the scenery and the hour. Clouds of dazzling
flame, and a rosy sunset were reflected in the purple waters. As we came
on at a rapid pace through the twilight and the succeeding darkness,
rounding the hills abutting on the water, and thridding bits of wood, we
settled into a stillness as unbroken as if we had been riding alone. It
was nearly ten o’clock when we arrived at our inn, none the worse for
our drive of thirty-two miles, good measure.
Our inn! Imagine, if you will, a long, low-roofed, dingy white house,
with a front piazza, and hard by a sign swinging from the limb of a
broad shade tree, creaking harsh plaints to the lazy breeze, and, in
dark letters, asserting from year to year that this is the traveller’s
home. If it be your pleasure to indulge in such imaginings, let me at
once assure you that in our Cape Breton Inn there is no corresponding
reality. Instantly extinguish from your mind said white house, tree and
sign, and put in the place of them a log cabin of the old school, in the
naked arms of the weather, backed by a stumpy field and weedy
potato-patch, and fronted by a couple of rickety log sheds. That antique
mensuration accomplished by the swinging of a cat would very nearly
decide the whole extent of the interior, one side of which is a
fire-place and fire, around which revolve, as primary orb, the hostess,
Mrs. Kelly, and as satellites, a son and daughter and maid-servant. With
all these powers, and with ample time, you may guess that we sat down at
last to a savory and generous supper. There was tea, somewhat intimate,
to be sure, with the waterpot, and there was bread, nice as the Queen
herself ever gets at Balmoral. The butter, alas! was afflicted with that
ailment which seems to be chronic throughout these her majesty’s
dominions, rancidity and salt. But the milk was creamy, and the eggs
fresh as newly-cut marble, and the berry-pie, served at the hands of the
daughter, a neat and modest girl with pretty face and figure, was a
becoming finish to the meal.
Mrs. Kelly is a Highland widow, of whom a story may be told, not indeed
of the tragic character of Sir Walter’s Highland Widow, but sufficiently
mournful. She walked back and forth before the door, and seemed to take
a melancholy pleasure in relating it. Two fine boys had been tempted to
leave her, of whom she had not heard a syllable for years, but for whom,
even then, she was looking with the hope and yearning love of Margaret
in Wordsworth’s “Excursion.” Her husband, kind man, was in the grave.
Her two children and her little farm were much to be thankful for. But
then it was not Scotland. A sad day for her when they were persuaded to
leave “home.” The land here was not productive, and the winters were so
long and snowy. There was, however, a bright side to her fortunes, and I
tried to make her see it. At the conclusion of the talk, she asked me in
to read a chapter, and offer the evening prayer.
It was getting late, and I asked to retire. I found that we had retired.
We were sitting in our private chamber, and the closely-curtained bed
behind us, a match for one in an opposite corner, too long and too wide
for a lad in his teens, was the appointed couch for two of us, and all
ready. There were nine or ten of us, all told, and among them the
daughter’s lover, a good-looking and very well-appearing young man. Now
that we were provided for, it was certainly no concern of ours how and
where the others were to lodge, although I could not avoid feeling some
interest in the matter. To hasten things to a conclusion, I rose, wound
my watch, took off my boots, my coat and vest, demonstrations of my
intention of going at once to bed that were not mistaken. Immediately
all walked out of the house, and remained out, talking in the open air,
until we were snugly packed away and pinned in behind the scant
curtains, when they returned, and noiselessly went to rest in some order
peculiar to the household, dividing between them the other bed, the
floor, and the small chamber under the roof. When, in her native land,
an ebony lady entertained Mungo Park, she and her maids lightened their
nocturnal labors—spinning cotton—by singing plaintive songs, the
burden of which was “the poor white man who came and sat under our
tree.” Thus our two maidens lightened both their labors and our
slumbers, but by a less poetic process. While they busied themselves
with sweeping the house, and washing dishes until after midnight, they
kept a continual whispering, the subject of which was, in part, the poor
sunburnt men who came to sleep under their curtains—but could not do
it. Considering that the daughter had a sweetheart in the house, the
sibilant disturbances of the girls were meekly suffered until they
naturally whispered and swept their way to bed. After this we had a fair
field, and did our best to improve it. The room being warm and smoky, I
unpinned the curtain, and started for fresh air, stealing out as quietly
as possible. Treacherous door! When I had succeeded in hitting upon the
wooden latch, up it came with a jerk and a clack that went, it seemed to
me, to the ears of every sleeper. I waited till I thought the effect of
the noise had passed away, when I began slowly opening the door. It
squealed like a bagpipe, startling the dreamers from their pillows, and
arousing suspicions of a rogue creeping in, while it was only the
restless traveller creeping out. There had been a kitten mewing at the
door for some time. With tail erect, she whipped in between my feet.
There was a puppy outside also, and some pigs; each in its way promising
to keep up till daylight the serenade of barking and grunting, with
which, from an earlier hour, they had entertained us. It was starlight,
and I could see my ground, as I thought. I determined to have
satisfaction by setting the dog upon the pigs, and then flogging the
dog. Rapping one over the head with a bean-pole, by way of prelude to
rapping the other, the puppy instantly joined in the assault, which, but
for an unlucky stubbing of my naked toes, would have proved successful.
I flung down my bean-pole with disgust, and beat, instead of the young
rascal of a dog, an inglorious retreat. For the rest of the night, it
was a triumph with the enemy, reinforced by some goslings and quacking
ducks. If there was needed any more rosin on the bow that kept sawing
across my tightly tuned nerves, two or three fleas supplied it at short
intervals. The bite of the little villains made me jump like sparks of
fire. There was, also, toward the chilly morning hours, a tide in our
affairs, a regular ebb and flow of bed-clothes, and a final cataract of
them, the entire sheet descending into some abyss, from which we never
succeeded in recovering hardly any thing more than some scanty edges and
corners of a blanket. It was a wonder to me how my companion in arms
could sleep as he did, a pleasure he declares he did not enjoy; but in
his restlessness was surprised that I could slumber on so soundly, and
snore through so many troubles—a dulness from which, of course, I tried
stoutly to clear myself. Thus, as frequently happens, each imagined the
other to have slept, and himself to have been wakeful all night.
Undoubtedly, both waked and slumbered, and magnified the several small
annoyances.
When we were ready to get up, which was disagreeably early, the
household was stirring. But a peep through the crevice of the curtains,
which had been carefully pinned together again by some fingers unknown,
while we were dreaming, gave the needful hint, when out they went again
among the ducks and goslings. We sprang out of bed, and dressed with all
reasonable dispatch—an exercise in which we were slightly interrupted
by a younger puppy, the pestilent animal persisting, in spite of a kick
or two, in springing at and nibbling our feet.