Page:Irish In America.djvu/72

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
52
THE IRISH IN AMERICA.

the same Irish, of whom the gentleman in the House of Lords so utterly despaired, had, in an almost incredibly short space of time, won their way to rude comfort and absolute independence. In that interview I acquainted the Bishop of my intention to make a tour through the British Provinces and the States; and before we separated it was arranged that I should specially visit his latest settlement of our unjustly depreciated countrymen. The appointment made in London in the month of March was faithfully kept in New Brunswick in the month of October; and on the morning of Thursday, the 25th of that month, the Bishop and I were en route for the settlement, a distance of nearly 200 miles from the city of St. John.

After having passed the first evening at Frederickton, the capital of New Brunswick, where many Irish are comfortably circumstanced, and steadily increasing in wealth, and the second at "Woodstock, where there is also a fair proportion of the race equally thriving, we set out at an early hour on the following morning for the settlement of Johnville, a distance of thirty-five miles, not of rail or water, but of rough road; and about noon on Saturday we were entering the forest avenue which led to the utter most boundary on the western side. The road over which we travelled had to me all the charm of novelty, and would have appeared picturesque and striking to any one from the old country, for it resembled rather a cutting through a vast and ancient wood than an ordinary highway. The Bishop was, as I thought, unnecessarily enthusiastic in his praise of the new road, which, I must confess, I thought altogether fatal to personal comfort, and in the last degree trying to the safety of the springs of our vehicle, though the carriage had been specially adapted to meet such trifling contingencies as deep ruts, profound hollows, occasional chasms, with an abundant variety of watercourses roughly covered over with logs, not always matched with the nicest care. I appreciated the road