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.
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