The next morning the Clockmaker proposed to take a drive round the neighborhood.  You hadn’t ought, says he, to be in a hurry; you should see the VIcinity of this location; there aint the beat of it to be found anywhere.  While the servants were harnessing old Clay, we went to see a new bridge, which had recently been erected over the Avon River.  That, said he, is a splendid thing.  A New Yorker built it, and the folks in St. John paid for it.  You mean of Halifax, said I; St. John is in the other province.  I mean what I say, he replied, and it is a credit to New Brunswick.  No, Sir, the Halifax folks neither know nor keer much about the country—­they wouldn’t take hold on it, and if they had a waited for them, it would have been one while afore they got a bridge, I tell you.  They’ve no spirit, and plaguy little sympathy with the country, and I’ll tell you the reason on it.  There are a good many people there from other parts, and always have been, who come to make money and nothin else, who don’t call it home, and don’t feel to home, and who intend to up killoch and off, as soon as they have made their ned out of the Blue Noses.  They have got about as much regard for the country as a pedlar has, who trudges along with a pack on his back.  He walks, cause he intends to ride at last; trusts, cause he intends to sue at last; smiles, cause he intends to cheat at last; saves all, cause he intends to move all at last.  Its actilly overrun with transient paupers, and transient speculators, and these last grumble and growl like a bear with a sore head, the whole blessed time, at every thing; and can hardly keep a civil tongue in their head, while they’re fobbin your money hand over hand.  These critters feel no interest in any thing but cent per cent; they deaden public spirit; they han’t got none themselves, and they larf at it in others; and, when you add their numbers to the timid ones, the stingy ones, the ignorant ones, and the poor ones that are to be found in every place, why the few smart spirited ones that’s left, are too few to do any thing, and so nothin is done.  It appears to me if I was a Blue Nose I’d —–­; but thank fortin I aint, so I says nothin—­but there is somethin that aint altogether jist right is this country, that’s a fact.

But what a country this Bay country is, isn’t it?  Look at that medder, beant it lovely?  The Prayer Eyes of Illanoy are the top of the ladder with us, but these dykes take the shine off them by a long chalk, that’s sartin.  The land in our far west, it is generally allowed, can’t be no better; what you plant is sure to grow and yield well, and food is so cheap you can live there for half nothin.  But it don’t agree with us New England folks; we don’t enjoy good health there; and what in the world is the use of food, if you have such an etarnal dyspepsy you can’t digest it, A man can hardly live there till next grass afore he is in the yaller leaf.  Just like one