Chapter 13

If he had remained long enough in Glenoro, he might have witnessed a condition of affairs which would have surprised him. Could he have seen the boys he had taught in the school, grown to men, pushing and jostling each other in their jealous and frantic efforts to be of the glorious chosen few who marched away to uphold the old flag on the African veldt, could he have foreseen that the disloyal young Neil, who had been the first on that shameful Dominion Day to throw away his flag and desert his country, would one day face a whole regiment for Queen and Empire, he might have confessed that he had mistaken British reticence for lack of sentiment. But the schoolmaster, though whole-souled and well-meaning, was not by any means far-seeing, so he went on stirring up a spirit of loyalty with an energy worthy of a better cause.

Through it all John Egerton was dissatisfied and worried. He felt positively grieved over the loss of an opportunity to show his appreciation of Mr. Ansdell's friendship, and he knew that the elder people of his own congregation blamed him. He had another trouble, too, which he scarcely confessed to himself; it was the strange, subtle change in Jessie Hamilton. When Donald ignored his humble letter, his repentant mood had slowly vanished. He told himself the young man was all he had suspected, and not worth his trouble. He would have resumed his attentions to Jessie with a clear conscience, but was met by a gentle but firm opposition. He was puzzled and annoyed by the change in her. She was as sweet and friendly towards him as of old, but her manner of timid deference seemed to have changed to an intangible air of superiority. The young pastor could not know that she had passed far beyond him on the spiritual road, and the distance between them bewildered him. He began to realise too, to his chagrin, that she was avoiding him. No matter what pains he took to seek her company, she managed, in some mysterious way, to elude him. He wondered gloomily how much Donald Neil had to do with the change.

But soon all personal affairs had to be set aside, for the date of Mr. Watson's great celebration had arrived. Whatever diverse opinions there may have been in the community regarding the aims of the patriotic society, all seemed unanimous in regard to attending their entertainment. The concert was to be given in the Methodist Church, while tea was served previously in the Temperance Hall across the street.

At an early hour eager spectators began to pour in.

Inside the hall, waiters, struggling through the crowd around the tables, left more cake and pie upon the human obstructions around them than they carried to the hungry folks already seated. Turkey, sandwiches, cake and pie disappeared as if by magic, as the long tables were filled again and again.

Waiters flew, dishes rattled, babies cried and everyone talked and laughed and made a noise. And every five minutes the door would fly open, creaking on its frosty hinges, to admit a rush of chill, fresh air and still another crowd.

The cooking had been done on a tremendous scale, and the results were beyond praise. The North and the South had "played a drawn game," Wee Andra declared; for even Mr. Egerton, seated with the Methodist minister at the head of the longest and most heavily-laden board, was unable to detect one slight shade of greater excellence in one than the other and ate Northern pies and Southern tarts with an impartial relish.

He and Mr. Watson succeeded after supper in extricating themselves from the hungry crowd. They crossed the street to where the windows of the church gleamed warm and bright.

"Well, Watson," said the minister encouragingly, "the crowd is here at any rate, whether it's a patriotic one or not."

"Yes siree!" The schoolmaster was in high spirits. "If it's not patriotic now, I'll bet my head it will be before we're done with them. This is all owing to our efforts!"

But John Egerton did not share his enthusiasm. He was watching morosely three figures that were just disappearing into the church ahead of him. They were Jessie and her father and mother. She had formed the habit lately of going out only with her parents, and when they remained at home she stayed with them, much to their wonder and delight. When he entered the church he found her safely ensconced between the two, and knew there was no opportunity for him to gain a word with her.

"Here comes the choir!" announced a voice from the back, as the broad shoulders of Wee Andra heralded their approach. That august body walked leisurely to their seats of honour in a bower of evergreens behind the organ, secure in the knowledge that the meeting could not possibly commence without them. They were soon settled in their places, and Syl Todd found to his unspeakable delight that he was seated next to Maggie Hamilton. His father and mother, seated in the front row, nudged each other in ecstasy at the sight of their son sitting up there on the platform with the minister and the schoolmaster and looking far handsomer and better dressed than either of them.

But poor Syl did not derive as much enjoyment from his proud position as did his parents. Maggie was extremely difficult. "Ain't the decorations lovely," he remarked, by way of a propitiatory opening of conversation. "If it hadn't a' been for you, Maggie, them flags wouldn't a' been hung near so graceful."

His divinity jerked herself round impatiently. "Oh, my goodness, I wish something else had been hung besides flags," she said with heartless meaning.

Syl laughed nervously. "Oh Maggie, you are such a tease! I never seen such a monkey of a girl as you. Look here what I got you." He handed her a little white candy tablet on which was printed a sentimental inscription. "I bought three pounds of them congregational lozengers at Basketful's to-day jist for you."

Maggie glared at the unoffending piece of confectionery, but did not deign to touch it. "My, but you must have thought I could eat like a horse!" she remarked scathingly. "You can give them to Julia Duffy," and she flounced out of the seat to another at some distance, leaving Syl to endure an evening of tormenting doubt as to whether he might see her home.

Mr. Watson came bustling over nervously to confer with the choir leader. "The crowd's nearly all here, do you think we'd better start, Andrew?"

"Jist as you like," was the reply. Wee Andra was of too huge proportions to be moved by any excitement. "There's Mr. Thomas Hayes, M. P., no less, comin' in at the door now!" he added, stretching his neck to get a view of the other end of the church and sending a rather unstable cedar tree and a deluge of flags crashing upon the organ. "Gosh, I've pulled down the whole shootin' match!"

Mr. Hayes was the Member of Parliament for Glenoro's constituency, as well as the Burke of the Flats, Oro's Irish settlement. He was the only orator honoured with an invitation to address the meeting. Mr. Watson hurried down the aisle to welcome the distinguished visitor, amid a hail-storm of conversation lozenges. When he had been brought to the platform and duly honoured everything was in readiness.

Glenoro custom demanded that all such affairs should be opened with prayer, but in his capacity of chairman, Mr. Watson did not see fit to call upon either clergyman to perform that ceremony; the programme was long enough, he reflected, and the praying could be dispensed with easier than anything else. The audience settled into expectant silence as Mr. Egerton arose and in a few well-chosen words explained the double mission of the Patriotic Society, and the aim of its entertainment. His audience listened attentively, and, judging from the applause that followed, seemed to be quite in sympathy with the movement. It is true that some of the babies, not yet old enough to realise their glorious heritage, occasionally interrupted his remarks, and one disloyal youth shied a "congregational lozenger" across the room; but the speaker did not appear at all disturbed.

The programme which followed was one calculated to arouse the most sluggish soul present. The choir sang quite thrillingly "The Maple Leaf Forever"; the mouth organ and concertina band played "Upon the Heights of Queenston" four times through without stopping to take breath; while the boys at the back of the church kept time vigorously with their feet. During the performance Sim Basketful made several ineffectual excursions to that abandoned region to demand order, but was met by a fusillade of confectionery. Wee Andra roared out "The Battle of the Baltic" at the top of his prodigious lungs, and was thunderously encored. The fact that in his exit he once more knocked over the evergreen tree with its burden of flags detracted not one whit from either his or Nelson's glory. Then Annie Fraser played "The Battle of Waterloo" on the organ with an execution quite worthy of the carnage of that event. The only drawback to it was that Sandy Neil, who had been detailed to announce each different part of the action, and apprise the audience of the fact that certain sounds meant "cannonade," while others symbolised the "cries of the wounded," as usual allowed his spirit of mischief to carry him away. He sang out the names of the different movements in the long-drawn-out tone associated with "calling-off" at a dance, much to the horror of the staider portion of the audience. Mrs. Fraser told 'Liza Cotton afterwards that it just gave her a turn with her heart to see her Annie sitting right up there in the midst of such iniquity.

Crooked Sandy McDonald, who was as straight as a pine stem, but who lived under the misfortune of his ancestor's distinguishing appellation, and who, next to Syl Todd, was the best elocutionist in the neighbourhood, recited "The Charge of the Light Brigade"; and though he said "Half a leak" owing to the inconvenience of a Highland accent, he rendered the selection with such vim that his efforts brought down the house, and a deluge of lozenges.

Such a warlike programme had never before been heard in the township of Oro. The very air seemed to smell of gunpowder. The schoolmaster was electrified. He sprang to his feet almost before the Light Brigade had ceased charging, and announced in a voice high and tremulous with emotion that the auspicious moment had come, for they were now to be favoured with the great feature of the evening, a patriotic address by Mr. Thomas Hayes, Member of Parliament!

Mr. Hayes arose with the ease and deliberation of an old election campaigner. He was a tall, lean man, with bright penetrating eyes, and a delightful suspicion of an Irish brogue, a man with hands horny from the plough and a brain that belongs only to the rulers of men. He represented a political party that had its stronghold in Glenoro and its impregnable fortress in the Oa; so he took his place upon the platform amid uproarious stamping and cheering.

Canada could not well have had a better champion. He spoke in the most glowing terms of his beloved land, of her wonderful scenery, her healthful climate, her free, hardy people, her glorious future. He reeled off enough information about her mines, her fisheries, her agricultural resources and her manufactures to fill an encyclopedia. He dilated upon the beauty and grandeur of Canadian scenery. He stood his audience upon the heights of Quebec and showed them the whole panorama of their wonderful country in one sentence. He swept from ocean to ocean; he swam the great lakes and sailed down innumerable rivers; he scooped out a canal to Port Nelson and shot across Hudson's Bay; he rolled across the prairies; he hewed down the forest belt; he dug gold in British Columbia; and, finally, he climbed the highest snow-capped peak of the Rocky Mountains and poured down from its dizzy heights the torrents of his eloquence; and when his bewildered hearers recovered from the delightful deluge, they found that the exponent of the Canadian Patriotic Society had skipped across the Atlantic and was thundering forth upon the wonders and beauty of Ireland!

This was a long way from Canada and the aims of the Canadian Patriotic Society, and the chairman's face lost its rapt look. John Egerton hid a smile behind the pulpit desk and that part of the audience that was of Irish extraction applauded uproariously. When, after nearly half an hour's lauding of the Emerald Isle, the orator did stop, he was so carried away by his own feelings that he wound up with a stanza, recited most thrillingly, from "Erin-go-Bragh" and sat down amid deafening applause without referring in the remotest way to his original text.

Mr. Watson was rising to announce the next piece, in a rather doubtful mood, when a voice from the back called out, with no uncertain sound as to either the sentiments or the origin of its owner, "Wot's the matter with England?"

There was a roar of laughter and a loud clapping of hands. Mr. Hayes arose again. He was too old a politician not to see that he had made a mistake in his one-sided speech. He was about to supplement it, and was beginning "Ladies and Gentlemen," when a loud voice from the centre of the church interrupted him.

Mr. Sim Basketful had sat with an expression of utter boredom during the latter portion of the member's speech, finally working himself up into a volcanic mood as it neared an end. His face was purple and his short, thick neck showed veins standing out dangerously. He might have held down his righteous indignation had it not been for the challenge from the back of the room, but the sight of that "blathering Irishman" rising in response to it was too much. Mr. Basketful was not of Mr. Hayes' political opinions and, besides that, was his rival upon tea-meeting platforms. He had convinced himself that it was due to the Presbyterian minister's interference that he, a Methodist, had been denied the honour of being the speaker of the evening. He, a class-leader in the very church where the performance was given, to be set aside for that Irish Catholic! He would show them all a thing or two before he sat down. He was standing now, looking straight ahead of him, and grasping the back of the seat before him, with true Saxon doggedness.

"Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen," he shouted, and Mr. Hayes, who had met Sim Basketful many a time in his political campaigns, sat down, somewhat disconcerted.

"Mr. Chairman, Ladies _and_ Gentlemen, if there's anybody in this 'ere haudience wants to know wot's the matter with Hingland, I'm 'ere prepared to state, sir, that there ain't one bloomin' thing the matter with 'er!" (Loud cheers from his Anglo-Saxon hearers.) "And wot's more, _Ladies_ and Gentlemen _and_ Mr. Chairman, I think it's 'igh time we were 'earin' just a little about that country that's made us all wot we are!" (Applause, mingled with noises of an indefinite character.) "We've been 'earin' a lot o' nonsense about Hireland and Hirish scenery and Hirish soldiers, but wot I'd like to be hinformed about, Ladies and Gentlemen _and_ Mr. Chairman, is if anybody in this 'ere haudience is under the himpression that a Canadian Patriotic Society is a _Hirish_ society!"

The withering contempt of the last words, and the cheers they elicited, brought the first speaker indignantly to his feet. Not one word could he get in, however. Mr. Basketful was a true Briton, and with the aid of a voice which drowned all competitors he clung to his theme with magnificent tenacity. When the noise calmed sufficiently for him to be heard, the audience found that he was discoursing fiercely and doggedly upon the inimitable land of his birth.

Sandy Neil, his eyes dancing, slipped out of his place in the choir, and made his way softly down the aisle at the side of the church. "Catchach's down there," he whispered to the choir leader as he passed; "I'm goin' to stir him up;" and Wee Andra threw back his head with a laugh which blew out the lamp on the organ.

But none of these things moved the patriotic Englishman. He was launched upon his favourite theme, his native land, and was irresistible. England was the only country in the world. He stamped, he sawed the air, he used metaphors and similes and hyperboles in a vain endeavour to give some idea of her glory. He eulogized her commerce, her statesmen, her Queen. He brought up her infantry, he charged with her cavalry, he poured upon his hearers her heavy artillery. And at last, backed by the whole great English navy, he swept every other country off the face of the globe and retired to his seat behind the stove, the Wellington of one last, grand, oratorical Waterloo.

Mr. Egerton reached over and, catching the distracted chairman by the sleeve, shouted above the din that if he wanted to avoid further trouble he must either close the meeting or make the choir sing something, and be quick about it. The chairman arose and strove to make his voice heard above the noise, but the chirping of a sparrow in a tempest would have been as effectual.

For down at the other end of the church a most alarming tumult was in progress. Cries of "Order!" and "Sit down!" were mingled with "Go on, Catchach; speak up! Scotland forever!" and equally ominous sounds.

Through the struggling crowd a man was fighting his way fiercely to the platform.

"Order! Order!" shrieked the chairman. But the disorderly person had reached the platform, his red whiskers flying, his blue eyes blazing, and his big fists brandishing threateningly above his head. It was Catchach! The schoolmaster sat down very discreetly and hastily. It was Catchach, worked up to a white fury over the insult to Scotland--Scotland, the flower of creation, to be neglected, while the scum of the earth was being exalted!

"Mister Chairman, Ladies an' Chentlemen!" he shouted, "I will not pe a public spoke, as you will pe knowing, put--" he went off into a storm of Gaelic, but suddenly checked himself, at the roars of laughter from his Sassenach enemies. The ridicule saved him--and Scotland. He had been incoherent with rage, but that laugh steadied him, and settled him into a cold fury. He would make a speech for the glory of Scotland now, if they pulled the church down about his ears. And he did it well, too. England was forgotten, Ireland was in oblivion, Canada did not exist. But Scotland! the land of the Heather and the Thistle! Catchach grew wildly poetic over her. The noise of English groans and Irish jeers and Scottish applause was so great that much of the effusion was lost, but in the intervals of the uproar could be caught such snatches as, "Who iss it that hass won efery great pattle in the last century? Ta Hielanders!" "Who won ta pattle of Palacklafa? Ta Hielanders!" "Who stormed ta heights of Awlma? Ta Hielanders!"

On he swept down to the last page of history, shouting the answers to this glorious catechism with a ferocious defiance that challenged denial; and at every shout there was an answering roar from the inhabitants of the Oa which threatened to dislodge the roof.

The distracted chairman had not the courage to attempt to stem the torrent. He did not care to obtrude himself inside Catchach's range of vision, for before he was done with Scotland the orator was rolling up his sleeves and calling out like Goliath of Gath for all the township of Oro to come forward and contradict him. Many of the audience became alarmed, and some of the older folk were starting for the door, when at last the flow of fiery eloquence ceased. How he ever managed to stop, no one could understand; some people said they supposed he had come to the limit of his English. If Catchach had been able to address his audience in Gaelic, it is likely they would not have seen their homes until morning.

But he did stop at last, and went tearing down the aisle and out of the door, shaking the dust of the place from off his feet. The back row arose in a body, and went roaring after him, for Catchach in a rage was better than all the patriotic demonstrations on earth.

The meeting broke up in complete disorder. The hour was unconscionably late, and the remainder of the long inspiriting programme had perforce to be omitted. Those of the audience who remained sang "God Save the Queen" in a rather distracted fashion and hurried away with the firm conviction that a patriotic concert was an exceedingly improper performance.

As the unhappy chairman and his confederate were leaving the scene of their disappointment Sim Basketful brushed violently past the Irish orator and confronted them. He informed them in a choking voice that if the Presbyterians were contemplating getting up any more such disgraceful performances, they would see that they were held in their own church, as the Methodists objected to having their place of worship turned into a den of thieves.

XIV

DONALD'S RETURN

In the rush of preparation for the concert the winter had slipped away, and by the time it was over the days had come when the sun was too ardent for the snow's white resistance, when the roads became soft and almost impassable, and spring began peeping at the wintry world in brilliant sunrises and sunsets.

When the young minister of Glenoro found that the long winter evenings, in which he had planned to accomplish so much, had gone, he could not help looking back over the past season of feverish activity with regret. One evening in early spring as he walked down the great stairway that led into Glenoro he was reviewing his winter's work with the feeling of self-dissatisfaction that was so common to him now. Every step he took seemed to lead him into greater depths of despondency.

The evening was one which might have raised the most discouraged soul. Before him lay the white valley overspread with the soft radiance of a late winter sunset. The gold of the hilltops where the sun's rays had full play, the soft rose, the delicate green and the faint lilac where the shadows of the valley met and mingled with the brightness, the deep purple-and-grey tones of the woods by the river made a picture such as only the magic of winter can paint. The air was motionless, and the smoke from the houses in the village rose in stately columns straight into the still atmosphere, colourless and ethereal in the shadow of the hills, but changing into pearl-white as they rose beyond their rim, and blossoming, where the sun's rays caught them, into gigantic frost-flowers of rose and amethyst and violet.

The noise of children playing on the millpond, the barking of a dog, the musical clang of Peter McNabb's anvil arose to the hills where the minister walked. Away across the valley a sleigh was moving slowly down the winding road; he could hear the clear tinkle of the bells as though they were at his side.

But the young man was too absorbed in his own sad reflections to notice his surroundings. He was asking himself what progress he had made in Glenoro with his tremendous activity and his multiplicity of meetings? What had he accomplished in the past winter? He thought with disgust of the Canadian Patriotic Society. He had given up the revival services for the concert and Mr. Watson's romantic nonsense, with the result that it had brought upon him both ridicule and discredit. He could not help wondering, now that he was on such intimate terms with all the young people of the congregation, what was to be the result. Were the pleasant relations he had established to be the means to a better end or was this all? Was he really going to be their pastor in the true sense of the word, or merely an agreeable companion?