The White Houses Of Digby, Scattered Over The
Downs Like A Flock Of Washed Sheep, Had A Somewhat Chilly Aspect, It
Is True, And Made Us Long For The Sun On Them.
But as I think of it
now, I prefer to have the town and the pretty hillsides that stand
About the basin in the light we saw them; and especially do I like to
recall the high wooden pier at Digby, deserted by the tide and so
blown by the wind that the passengers who came out on it, with their
tossing drapery, brought to mind the windy Dutch harbors that
Backhuysen painted. We landed a priest here, and it was a pleasure
to see him as he walked along the high pier, his broad hat flapping,
and the wind blowing his long skirts away from his ecclesiastical
legs.
It was one of the coincidences of life, for which no one can account,
that when we descended upon these coasts, the Governor-General of the
Dominion was abroad in his Provinces. There was an air of
expectation of him everywhere, and of preparation for his coming; his
lordship was the subject of conversation on the Digby boat, his
movements were chronicled in the newspapers, and the gracious bearing
of the Governor and Lady Dufferin at the civic receptions, balls, and
picnics was recorded with loyal satisfaction; even a literary flavor
was given to the provincial journals by quotations from his
lordship's condescension to letters in the "High Latitudes." It was
not without pain, however, that even in this un-American region we
discovered the old Adam of journalism in the disposition of the
newspapers of St. John toward sarcasm touching the well-meant
attempts to entertain the Governor and his lady in the provincial
town of Halifax, - a disposition to turn, in short, upon the
demonstrations of loyal worship the faint light of ridicule.
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