asant enough country, on the whole,
is this which the road runs through up the Salmon and down the
East River. New Glasgow is not many miles from Pictou, on the great
Cumberland Strait; the inhabitants build vessels, and strangers drive
out from here to see the neighboring coal mines. Here we were to dine
and take the stage for a ride of eighty miles to the Gut of Canso.

The hotel at New Glasgow we can commend as one of the most unwholesome
in the Province; but it is unnecessary to emphasize its condition, for
if the traveler is in search of dirty hotels, he will scarcely go amiss
anywhere in these regions. There seems to be a fashion in diet which
endures. The early travelers as well as the later in these Atlantic
provinces all note the prevalence of dry, limp toast and green tea; they
are the staples of all the meals; though authorities differ in regard
to the third element for discouraging hunger: it is sometimes boiled
salt-fish and sometimes it is ham. Toast was probably an inspiration of
the first woman of this part of the New World, who served it hot; but
it has become now a tradition blindly followed, without regard to
temperature; and the custom speaks volumes for the non-inventiveness
of woman. At the inn in New Glasgow those who choose dine in their
shirt-sleeves, and those skilled in the ways of this table get all they
want in seven minutes. A man who understands the use of edged tools
can get along twice as fast with a knife and fork as he can with a fork
alone.

But the stage is at the door; the coach and four horses answer the
advertisement of being "second to none on the continent." We mount
to the seat with the driver. The sun is bright; the wind is in the
southwest; the leaders are impatient to go; the start for the long ride
is propitious.

But on the back seat in the coach is the inevitable woman, young and
sickly, with the baby in her arms. The woman has paid her fare through
to Guysborough, and holds her ticket. It turns out, however, that she
wants to go to the district of Guysborough, to St. Mary's Cross Roads,
somewhere in it, and not to the village of Guysborough, which is away
down on Chedabucto Bay. (The reader will notice this geographical
familiarity.) And this stage does not go in the direction of St. Mary's.
She will not get out, she will not surrender her ticket, nor pay her
fare again. Why should she? And the stage proprietor, the stage-driver,
and the hostler mull over the problem,