This melancholy song is now, I doubt not, sung by the maidens ofAntigonish.

In spite of the consolations of poetry, however, the night wore onslowly, and soothing sleep tried in vain to get a lodgment in thejolting wagon. 0ne can sleep upright, but not when his head is everymoment knocked against the framework of a wagon-cover. Even a jollyyoung Irishman of Plaster Cove, whomse nature it is to sleep underwhatever discouragement, is beaten by these circumstances. He wisheshe had his fiddle along. We never know what men are on casualacquaintance. This rather stupid-looking fellow is a devotee ofmusic, and knows how to coax the sweetness out of the unwillingviolin. Sometimes he goes miles and miles on winter nights to drawthe seductive bow for the Cape Breton dancers, and there isenthusiasm inside his voice, as he relates exploits of fiddling fromsunset till the dawn of day. 0ther information, however, the youthfulman has not; and when this is exhausted, he becomes sleepy again, andtries a dozen ways to twist himself into a posture in which sleepwill be possible. He doubles up his legs, he slides them under theseat, he sits on the wagon bottom; but the wagon swings and jolts andknocks him about. His patience under this punishment is admirable,and there is something pathetic inside his restraint from profanity.