10 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



ing attentively to the sermon, which was manly 

 and direct. A young officer read the lessons, 

 and when a cornet added its ringing tones to the 

 choir the Church militant seemed complete in its 

 equipment. It was when the prayer for the 

 Queen and the Prince of Wales was reached that 

 I suddenly realized the full meaning of the scene 

 which surrounded me. This was a garrison 

 church, owned by a foreign power and occupied 

 by foreign soldiers. These soldiers were not 

 Nova Scotians, but Englishmen, planted here 

 as much to watch the Nova Scotians as to serve 

 any other purpose. I could not help remember- 

 ing the time, long ago, when Massachusetts dis- 

 pensed with redcoats, and in the very act of driv- 

 ing them away from her coast gained new life 

 which has animated her to this day. Nova Scotia 

 men are good enough and true enough to defend 

 Nova Scotia soil. 



When the redcoats sang " God save the 

 Queen," at the close of their service, I joined 

 with them ; but the words I knew, and which I 

 sang as vigorously as prudence and courtesy per- 

 mitted, made no reference to their distant sover- 

 eign. Still, the tune was the same, we were 

 brothers in music, and there was no shadow of 

 unkindness in my feeling towards the manly sol- 

 diers as we trooped out of chapel together. 

 While they formed in ranks on the green, I met 



