nd boath airms is sore. But I suppose it's naturely,
it's naturely--everything to its nature."

The dinner having been a success, Picton was in great spirits for the rest
of the day. The fog spread its munificent halo around us, and before
nightfall broke into myriads of white rainbows--sea-dogs the sailors call
them--and finally lifted so high that we could see the spectral moon
shining through the thin rack. Once more we sang "Annie Laurie;" the
traveller brought out his travelling blanket for a dewy slumber on deck;
the lady of the "Balaklava" put on her night-cap and retired with baby to
the double berth: Bruce took the helm. As I was passing the light in the
binnacle, I looked in at the compass for a moment. "She's nailed there,"
said the old mate. Nailed there, true to her course, as steadfast to the
guiding rudder as truth is to religion. We were but a few miles from a
dangerous coast, in a vessel of the frailest kind, but she was "nailed
there," obedient to man's intelligence, and that was security and safety.
What a text to say one's prayers upon!

"Picton," said I, the next morning, after the schooner-breakfast, "it
seems to me the strangest thing that Mrs. Capstan should have the pure
Irish pronunciation and the mate the thorough Scotch brogue, although both
were born in Newfoundland, and of Newfoundland parents. I must confess to
no small amount of surprise at the complete isolation of the people of
these colonies; the divisions among them; the separate pursuits,
prejudices, languages; they seem to have nothing in common; no aggregation
of interests; it is existence without nationality; sectionalism without
emulation; a mere exotic life with not a fibre rooted firmly in the soil.
The colonists are English, Irish, Scotch, French, for generation after
generation. Why is this, O Picton? Why is it that the captain's lady has
high cheek-bones, and speaks the pure Hibernise? why is the only railroad
in the colony but nine and three-quarter miles long, and the great
Shubenacadie Canal yet unfinished, although it was begun in the year
1826; a canal fifty-three mortal miles in length, already engineered and
laid out by nature in a chain of lakes, most conveniently arranged with
the foot of each little lake at the head of the next one--like 'orient
pearls at random strung'--requiring but a few locks to be complete: the
head of the first lake lying only twelve hundred and ten yards from
Halifax harbor, and the Shubenac