A CONCERT.--A SINGULAR CHARACTER.--"GOD SAVE THE QUEEN."--A FENIAN.--A
GENERAL ROW.--MACRORIE TO THE RESCUE!--MACRORIE'S MAIDEN SPEECH, AND
ITS EFFECTIVENESS.--O'HALLORAN.--A STRANGE COMPANION.--INVITED TO
PARTAKE OF HOSPITALITY.
On the following day I sent my notice to the papers.
On the evening of that day there was to be a concert. Everybody was
going. It was under the patronage of the military, and of course
everybody had to go. For you must know that, in a garrison-town like
Quebec, we of the military order have it all our own way. If we smile
on an undertaking, it succeeds. If we don't, it languishes. If we
frown, the only result is ruin. But, as we are generally a good-natured
lot, we smile approvingly on almost every thing. It gets to be an awful
bore; but what can we do? Societies wish our countenance at their
public gatherings, and we have to give it. Benevolent associations ask
our subscriptions; joint-stock companies wish our names; missionaries
and musicians, lawyers and lecturers, printers and preachers, tailors
and teachers, operas and oratorios, balls and Bible-meetings, funerals
and festivities, churches and concerts--in short, every thing that
lives and moves and has its being awaits the military smile. And the
smile is smiled. And so, I tell you what it is, my dear fellow, it
amounts to this, that the life of an officer isn't by any means the
butterfly existence that you imagine it to be. What with patronizing
Tom, Dick, and Harry, inspecting militia, spouting at volunteers,
subscribing to charities, buying at bazaars, assisting at concerts,
presiding at public dinners, and all that sort of thing no end, it gets
to be a pretty difficult matter to keep body and soul together.
The concert under consideration happened to be a popular one. The best
of the regimental bands had been kindly lent to assist, and there were
songs by amateurs who belonged to the first circles in Quebec, both
civil and military. It was quite a medley, and the proceeds were
intended for some charitable purpose or other. The house was crowded,
and I could not get a seat without extreme difficulty.
The concert went on. They sang "Annie Laurie," of course. Then followed
"La ci darem;" then "D'un Pescator Ignobile;" then "Come gentil;" then
"Auld Lang-syne;" then "Ah, mon Fils!" then "Roy's Wife of
Aldivalloch;" then "The Last Rose of Summer;" then "Allister
MacAllister;" then "The Harp that once through Tara's Halls."
As this last song was being sung, I became aware of an old gentleman
near me who seemed to be profoundly affected. "The Last Rose of Summer"
had evidently touched him, but Tara had an overpowering effect on him.
It was sung confoundedly well, too. The band came in with a wild,
trailing strain, that was positively heart-breaking. The party just
mentioned was, as I said, old, and a gentleman, but he was tall,
robust, broad-shouldered, with eagle-like beak, and keen gray eyes that
were fitting accompaniments to so distinguished a feature. His dress
was rather careless, but his air and the expression of his face evinced
a mixture of eccentricity and a sense of superiority. At least, it had
evinced this until the singing of Tara. Then he broke down. First he
bowed his head down, resting his forehead upon his hands, which were
supported by his cane, and several deep-drawn sighs escaped him. Then
he raised his head again, and looked up at the ceiling with an evident
effort to assume a careless expression. Then he again hid his face. But
the song went on, and the melancholy frail of the accompaniment
continued, and at last the old gentleman ceased to struggle, and gave
himself up to the influence of that wonderful music. He sat erect and
rigid; his hands in front of him clasped tightly round his stick; and
his eyes fixed on vacancy; and as I looked at him I saw big tears
slowly coursing down his cheeks.
At length the song ceased, and he impatiently dashed his tears away,
and looked furtively and suspiciously around, as though trying to see
if any one had detected his weakness. I, of course, looked away, so
that he had not the smallest reason for supposing that I had seen him.
After this the concert went on through a varied collection of pieces,
and all the time I wondered who the old gentleman with the eagle face
and tender sensibilities might be. And in this state of wonder I
continued until the close.
At last came the usual concluding piece--"God save the Queen."
Of course, as everybody knows, when the national anthem is sung, it is
the fashion all over the British empire for the whole audience to rise,
and any one who remains seated is guilty of a deliberate insult to the
majesty of that empire. On this occasion, as a matter of course,
everybody got up, but I was surprised to see that the old gentleman
remained seated, with his hands clinched tightly about his cane.
I was not the only one who bad noticed this.
The fact is, I had got into a part of the hall which was not altogether
congenial to my taste. I had got my ticket at the door, and found that
all the reserved seats were taken up. Consequently I had to take my
chance among the general public. Now this general public happened to be
an awfully loyal public, and the moment they found that a man was among
them who deliberately kept his seat while the national anthem was being
sung, they began to get into a furious state of excitement.
Let me say also that there was very sufficient reason for this
excitement. All Canada was agog about the Fenians. Blood had been shed.
An invasion had taken place. There was no joke about it. The Fenians
were net an imaginary danger, but a real one. All the newspapers were
full of the subject. By the Fenians every Canadian understood an
indefinite number of the disbanded veteran soldiers of the late
American war, who, having their hand in, were not willing to go back to
the monotony of a peaceful life, but preferred rather a career of
excitement. Whether this suspicion were well founded or not doesn't
make the slightest difference. The effect on the Canadian mind was the
same as if it were true. Now, since the Canadian mind was thus roused
up to this pitch of universal excitement, there existed a very general
watch for Fenian emissaries, and any of that brotherhood who showed
himself too openly in certain quarters ran a very serious risk. It was
not at all safe to defy popular opinion. And popular opinion ran
strongly toward the sentiment of loyalty. And anybody who defied that
sentiment of loyalty did it at his peril. A serious peril, too, mind
you. A mob won't stand nonsense. It won't listen to reason. It has a
weakness for summary vengeance and broken bones.
Now, some such sort of a mob as this began to gather quickly and
menacingly round my elderly friend, who had thus so rashly shocked
their common sentiment. In a few moments a wild uproar began.
"Put him out!"
"Knock him down!"
"Hustle him!"
"He's a Fenian!"
"Down with him!"
"Punch his head!"
"Hold him up, and make him stand up!"
"Stand up, you fool!"
"Get up!"
"Up with him! Let's pass him out over our heads!"
"A Fenian!"
"We'll show him he's in bad company!"
"He's a spy!"
"A Fenian spy!"
"Up with him!" "Down with him!" "Pitch into him!" "Out with him!" "Toss
him!" "Hustle him!" "Punch his head!" "Throttle him!" "Level him!"
"Give it to him!" "Turn him inside out!" "Hold up his boots!" "Walk him
off!"
All these, and about fifty thousand more shouts of a similar character,
burst forth from the maddened mob around. All mobs are alike. Any one
who has ever seen a mob in a row can understand the action of this
particular one. They gathered thick and fast around him. They yelled.
They howled. The music of the national anthem was drowned in that wild
uproar. They pressed close to him, and the savage eyes that glared on
him menaced him with something little less than death itself.
And what did he do?
He?
Why he bore himself splendidly.
As the row began, he rose slowly, holding his stick, which I now saw to
be a knotted staff of formidable proportions, and at length reared his
figure to its full height. It was a tall and majestic figure which he
revealed--thin, yet sinewy, and towering over the heads of the roaring
mob around him.
He confronted them all with a dark frown on his brow, and blazing eyes.
"Ye beggars!" he cried. "Come on--the whole pack of ye! A Fenian, ye
say? That's thrue for you. Ye've got one, an' ye'll find him a tough
customer! Come on--the whole thousand of ye!"
And saying this, he swung his big, formidable knotted stick about his
head.
Those nearest him started back, but the crowd behind rushed forward.
The row increased. The people in the reserved seats in front looked
around with anxious eyes, not knowing what was going on.
The crowd yelled and hooted. It surged nearer. A moment more and the
tall figure would go down.
Now, I'm a loyal man. None more so. I'm an officer and a gentleman. I'm
ready at any moment to lay down my life for the queen and the rest of
the royal family. I'm ready to pitch into the Fenians on any proper
occasion, and all that.
But somehow this didn't seem to me to be the proper occasion. It was
not a Fenian that I saw. It was an elderly gentleman; so sensitive,
that but a few minutes before he had been struggling with his tears; so
lion-hearted, that now he drew himself up and faced a roaring, howling
mob of enemies--calmly, unflinchingly--hurling desperate defiance at
them. And was that the sort of thing that I could stand? What! to see
one man attacked by hundreds--a man like that, too--an old man, alone,
with nothing to sustain him but his own invincible pluck? Pooh! what's
the use of talking? I am an officer and a gentleman, and as such it
would have been a foul disgrace to me if I had been capable of standing
there quietly and looking at the old man at the mercies of the mob.
But, as it happened, I did nothing of the kind.
On the contrary, I sprang forward and stood by the side of the old man.
"Now, look here--you fellows!" I roared--"this is all very fine, and
very loyal, but, damn it! don't it strike you that it's an infernally
cowardly thing to pitch into an old man in this style? He may be a
Fenian, and he may be Old Nick himself, but he's never done you fellows
any harm. What the devil do you mean by kicking up such a row as this?
You touch him, if you dare, that's all! You see my uniform, and you
know what I am. I'm a Bobtail. This man is my friend. He's going out
with me, and I'd like to see the fellow that will stop us."
That's the first speech I ever made in my life, and all that I can say
is, that it was wonderfully successful. Demosthenes, and Cicero, and
the Earl of Chatham, and Burke, and Mirabeau, all rolled into one,
couldn't have been more successful. The mob rolled back. They looked
ashamed. It was a word of sense spoken in a forcible manner. And that I
take it is the essence of true oratory.
The mob rolled back. I gave my new friend my arm. He took it. The door
was not far away. We started to go out. The people fell back, and made
way for us. After all, they were a good enough lot, and had only
yielded to a kind of panic. All mobs, I suppose, are insane. The very
fact of a mob involves a kind of temporary insanity. But these fellows
had come to their senses, and so I had no difficulty in making my way
through them along with my companion. We got out into the street
without any difficulty. My new friend held my arm, and involuntarily
made a turn to the right on leaving the door of the hall. Thus we
walked along, and for some time we walked in silence.
At length the silence was broken by my companion.
"Well--well--well!" he ejaculated--"to think of me, walking with a
British officer-arrum-in-arrum!"
"Why not?" said I.
"Why not?" said he, "why there's ivlry reason in loife. I'm a Fenian."
"Pooh!" said I, "what's the use of bothering about politics? You're a
man, and a confoundedly plucky fellow too. Do you think that I could
stand there and see those asses pitching into you? Don't bother about
politics."
"An' I won't," said he. "But at any reet, I feeced them. An Oirishman
niver sirrinders to an inimy. I feeced them, I did--an' I expressed
meself in shootable sintimints."
The rich Leinster accent of my companion showed his nationality more
plainly than even his own explicit statement. But this did not at all
lessen the interest that I took in him. His sensitiveness which had
been so conspicuous, his courage which had shone so brightly, and his
impressive features, all combined to create a feeling of mingled regard
and respect for my new acquaintance.
"By Jove!" I cried, "I never saw a pluckier fellow in my life. There
you were, alone, with a mad mob howling at you."
"It's meself," said he, "that'll nivir be intimidected. Don't I know
what a mob is? An' if I didn't, wouldn't I feece thim all the seeme?
An' afther all I don't moind tellin' _you_ that it wasn't disrispict.
It was only a kind of abstraction, an' I wasn't conscious that it was
the national anthim, so I wasn't. I'd have stood up, if I'd knowed it.
But whin those divils began reelin' at me, I had to trait thim with
scarrun and contimpt. An' for me--I haven't much toime to live, but
what I have ye've seeved for me."
"Oh, nonsense, don't talk about that," said I, modestly.
"Sorr," said he, "I'm very well aware that I'm under deep
obleegeetions, an' I owe ye a debt of grateechood. Consequintly, I
insist on bein' greetful. I hold iviry British officer as me personal
inimy; but, in you, sorr, I'm sinsible of a ginirous frind. Te've
seeved me loife, so ye have, an' there's no doubt about it. We'll weeve
politics. I won't spake of the Finians. Phaylim O'Halloran isn't the
man that'll mintion onsaisonable politics, or dwell upon uncongainal
thames, so he isn't."
"Well," said I, "Mr. O'Halloran, since you've introduced yourself, I
must give you my humble address. I'm Lieutenant Macrorie."
"Macrorie?" said he.
"Macrorie," said I, "of the Bobtails, and I assure you I'm very happy
to make your acquaintance."
We walked along arm-in-arm in the most friendly manner, chatting about
things in general. I found my companion to be very intelligent and very
well informed. He had travelled much. He expressed himself fluently on
every subject, and though his brogue was conspicuous, he was evidently
a gentleman, and very well educated too. I gathered from his
conversation that he had studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and that
he had been leading a desultory sort of life in the United States for
twenty years or so. Ho had been in Canada for something less than a
year, and was anxious to get back to a more southern clime.
Chatting thus, and arm-in-arm, we walked along. I had nothing to do,
and so I went with my new-found friend, with a vague idea of seeing him
safe home. Of course such an idea was preposterous, for he could have
got home just as well without me, but I had taken a fancy to my new
acquaintance, and found a strange charm in his conversation. He talked
incessantly and on many subjects. He discoursed on theology,
literature, science, the weather, the army, the navy, music, painting,
sculpture, photography, engraving, geology, chemistry, and on a
thousand other arts and sciences, in all of which he showed himself
deeply versed, and far beyond my depth. He had a brogue, and I had
none, but as for intellectual attainments I was only a child in
comparison with him.
At length we reached a house where he stopped.
"I'm infeenetely obloiged to ye," said he. "And now, won't ye koindly
condiscind to step in and parteek of me hospitalitee? It'll give me
shuprame deloight."
After such an invitation what could I say? I had nothing to do.
Accordingly, I accepted it in a proper spirit, and, thanking him for
his kind invitation, I went in along with him.
O'Halloran led the way in. It was a comfortable house. The parlor which
we entered was large, and a huge grate filled with blazing coals
diffused a cheerful glow. Magazines and periodicals lay on the table.
Pictures illustrative of classical scenes hung round the walls, done in
the old-fashioned style of line engraving, and representing such
subjects as Mutius Scaevola before Porsenna; Belisarius begging for an
obolus; Aeneas carrying his father from Troy; Leonidas at Thermopylae;
Coriolanus quitting Rome; Hamilcar making the boy Hannibal swear his
oath of hate against Home; and others of a similar character.
O'Halloran made me sit in a "sleepy-hollow" easy-chair by the fire.
Beside me were two huge book-shelves crammed with books. A glance at
them showed me that they were largely of a classical order. Longinus,
Aeschylus, Demosthenes, Dindorf, Plato, Stallbaum--such were the names
that I saw in gilt letters on the backs of the volumes.
About the room there was that air of mingled comfort and refinement
that is always suggestive of the presence of ladies. A work-basket
stood beside the table. And on a little Chinese table in a corner lay
some crochet-work. I took in all these things at a glance and while my
host was talking to me. After a time he excused himself and said that
he would call the "leedies." He retired, leaving me alone, and striving
to picture to myself--