Governor Campbell didn't expect
to see such a country as this when he came here, I reckon; I know he
didn't.
"When I was a little boy, about knee high or so, and lived down
Connecticut river, mother used to say, 'Sam, if you don't give over
acting so like Old Scratch, I'll send you off to Nova Scotia as sure
as you are born; I will, I vow.' Well, Lord, how that 'ere used to
frighten me; it made my hair stand right up an eend, like a cat's
back when she is wrathy; it made me drop it as quick as wink; like
a tin night cap put on a dipped candle a-goin' to bed, it put the
fun right out. Neighbour Dearborne's darter married a gentleman to
Yarmouth, that speculates in the smugglin' line. Well, when she went
on board to sail down to Nova Scotia, all her folks took on as if it
was a funeral; they said she was goin' to be buried alive like the
nuns in Portengale that get a-frolickin', break out of the pastur',
and race off, and get catched and brought back agin. Says the old
Colonel, her father, 'Deliverance, my dear, I would sooner foller you
to your grave, for that would be an eend to your troubles, than to
see you go off to that dismal country, that's nothin' but an iceberg
aground;' and he howled as loud as an Irishman that tries to wake his
wife when she is dead. Awful accounts we have of the country, that's
a fact; but if the Province is not so bad as they make it out, the
folks are a thousand times worse.
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