A PAINFUL MEMORY
A week after leaving Sable Lake, Andrew and Whitney stood one night on
Portage Avenue, Winnipeg. The air was hot and oppressive, as it often
is in the prairie city during late summer, and smooth sidewalks and
roadway, wet with heavy rain, glistened like ice in the lamplight. The
downpour had now slackened to a scattered splashing of big, warm
drops, and thunder rumbled in the distance. At one place, the imposing
avenue was blocked by a crowd through which the street-cars crept
slowly with clanging bells. The crowd seemed bent on holding its
ground, but there was not much jostling, and its general air was one
of stern interest rather than excitement. The small dark figures that
filled the gap between the towering buildings were significantly
quiet, and where a ray of light fell across them, the rows of faces
were all turned in one direction.
Andrew studied them as he stood on the outskirts of the throng. Human
nature always interested him. He noticed first that these men were
better dressed and looked more prosperous than the members of similar
gatherings he had watched in the Old Country. It was, however, not
altogether their clothes that conveyed the impression: there was a
hint of self-confident optimism in their faces and bearing; though one
could see that they were graver than usual. Their appearance was
rather American than British, and although this was mainly suggested
by certain mannerisms and the cut of their clothes, Andrew was
conscious of a subtle difference he could not explain. For one thing,
an English street crowd is generally drawn from one particular walk of
life, and if units of different rank join it they stand apart and
separate. This gathering in Winnipeg included men of widely different
callings--farmers from the plains, merchants, artisans, clerks, and
flour-mill hands--but they had, somehow, an air of common purpose and
solidarity.
Whitney indicated them after he had lighted a cigarette.
"It's almost an hour before our train goes out, and these fellows
evidently expect a new bulletin to be posted up soon," he said. "They
interest me because I don't know how to class them. They're developing
themselves on our lines, but they don't belong to us. If this were a
city in the United States, there'd be something doing: joshing and
pushing, or somebody would start a song. Yet I guess they wouldn't
like you to call them Englishmen."
"That's true," Andrew agreed.
"Then they're pretty good customers of ours and anxious to trade,"
went on Whitney, "and yet when we offered them reciprocity they
wouldn't have it. They had all to gain, because the natural outlet for
their commerce is to the south, but they said they were British and
shut the door on us. On the other hand, I get on with them better than
you can, and if we wanted a job in this city, I'd get it before you.
Now our States are sovereign, but they're all American."
"Ours are sovereign, but not English," Andrew replied. "One's
strictly Canadian, another frankly Australian, and so on. We're an
individualistic race, and our different branches grow their own way.
It looks like a loose arrangement, but we've found we hold together
well. You'll see when the bulletin comes out--if it's what I expect."
"We'll wait. What's this fellow talking about?"
A short, dark-skinned man had buttonholed a neighbor and was speaking
vivaciously, his dark eyes snapping.
"But, mossieu', the alliance, _la belle alliance_!" he exclaimed, and
wheeled around to Andrew. "Is it not determine in London that we
fight?"
"Spotted you first time, partner," Whitney laughed, and then turned to
the man: "When did you come over?"
For a moment the fellow looked puzzled.
"Two hundred year, mossieu'. That is, the family she arrive. Me, I am
born in Kebec."
Whitney smiled at Andrew.
"You haven't made much of a Britisher of him yet. They'll speak better
German in Alsace in much less time, if the Prussians keep their grip."
"Alsace!" cried the French-Canadian. "_Attendez, mais attendez_; the
great day come. Together we take her back. It is an obligation,
_Mossieu'_. _Vive la belle alliance!_"
"Your people claim there isn't an alliance," Whitney said to Andrew.
"I don't know. This is certain: if our friend's attacked, we step into
the ring."
There was a sudden movement in the crowd, which pressed closer upon
the newspaper office opposite, and a cry was raised as a lighted car
came clanging down the street:
"Hold that driver up!"
The car slowed, but still came on, until a well-dressed citizen
stepped quietly in front of it.
"Stop!" he said. "You can't get through."
The car stopped and as the passengers got out, a window in the tall
building opposite was opened. A bulletin board was hoisted in, and for
the next two minutes the crowd stood silent and motionless. Andrew
felt his nerves tingle and noted that Whitney's face was tense, though
his interest in the matter could hardly be personal. There was
something that stirred the imagination in the sight of the intent,
quiet throng that awaited the result of a crisis not of their making.
They had had no say in the quarrel that began far off in the obscure
East; but one could not doubt that they meant to make it their own.
Their stern gravity caused Andrew a half-conscious thrill of pride.
After all, they sprang from British stock and he knew what kind of men
they were. He had seen the miles of wheat that covered the broken,
prairie waste, cities that rose as if by magic in a few months' time,
and railroads flung across quaking muskegs and driven through towering
rocks, at a speed unthought of in the mother country. He had heard the
freight-trains roaring through the great desolation between the Ottawa
and the Western plains, where no traffic would ever be found, and had
wondered at the optimism which, in spite of tremendous obstacles, had
built eight hundred miles of track to link the St. Lawrence to the
rich land beyond. These Canadians were hard men who tempered with cool
judgment a vast energy and enthusiasm, and the mother country's foes
would have to reckon with them.
There was a strange, dead silence, as the board was replaced and the
bold black letters stood out in the lamplight. So far as Andrew could
afterward remember, the bulletin read:
_War inevitable. England must keep her word!_
_Kaiser's armies marching. British fleet sails with sealed orders._
A few cablegrams followed, and when they were read a deep murmur rose
from the crowd; but there was no strong excitement. These were not the
men to indulge in emotional sentiment; their attitude indicated relief
from suspense, and steady resolve. Perhaps it was characteristic that
the man who had stopped the car waved his hand to the driver.
"Now you may go ahead," he said.
Breaking into groups, they began to talk, and Andrew caught snatches
of their conversation.
"A big thing, but we're going to put it through," said one. "If you
hadn't fired out Laurier, we'd have been rushing our own fleet across
the ocean now."
"Well," his neighbor replied, "we've got the boys. We want to call a
city meeting right off. Manitoba can't be left behind."
"Manitoba's all right!" another declared. "We'll send them all the
flour they want, besides men who can ride and shoot. They'll put the
Maple Leaf right up to the front. But we want to hustle before Regina
and Calgary get a start on us."
The man turned to a companion and the two moved off. They were
followed by other groups, and as one passed, Andrew heard an exultant
voice.
"I tell you what happen. _Vive la belle alliance!_"
Whitney and Andrew crossed the emptying street and walked toward the
station. "I guess you noticed they didn't talk about the Old Country's
program," Whitney remarked. "It's what Manitoba and the West are going
to do that interests them. My notion is that it will be something
big."
"One feels that," Andrew agreed. "Somehow, it's stirring."
"And it's contagious. When they hoist the flag you'll see some of the
boys from our side riding across the frontier to the rally."
"You're bound to keep neutral," Andrew objected.
"Officially, yes. But when a man can drop a flying crane with the
rifle and bust a wild range horse, they won't ask if he was born in
Montana or Saskatchewan."
They walked up Main Street and it was obvious that the news had
spread, for talking men blocked the sidewalk here and there, and the
wide windows of the hotels were full. When they reached the station,
Whitney went off to check their baggage, and Andrew sat down, rather
disconsolately, in the great waiting-room. The damp weather had
affected his knee, and he frowned as he stretched it out, for his
aches reminded him painfully of his disadvantages. While he sat there,
a summer-evening train from Winnipeg Beach arrived and a stream of
smartly-dressed excursionists passed through the hall breaking off to
ask for the latest news. Their keen interest was significant, and
Andrew felt downcast. Canada approved the Old Country's action and
meant to do her part; but he was useless, nobody wanted him.
Moodily lighting a cigarette, he recalled his youthful ambitions, for
he had meant to follow where his ancestors had led. It was not for
nothing that their crest was the flying spur, and their traditions had
fired him to the study of difficult sciences, which he had mastered by
dogged determination rather than cleverness. His heart was in his
work; he meant to make a good horse-artilleryman; and he had thrilled
with keen satisfaction when the examiners placed him near the top of
the list. Then came the momentous day in Ennerdale that altered
everything. Six months after the accident he had resigned his
commission, knowing that he would never walk quite straight again.
Well, all that was done with; but now, when Britons everywhere were
springing to arms, he was good for nothing. He reflected gloomily that
he might as well stay in Canada. Yet, if he were in England, there was
a chance that something might turn up for him to do.
Besides, there was little Elsie. . . .
Whitney came swinging across the marble floor of the waiting-room just
as an official at the door announced that their train was ready to
start.