MRS. MACARTNEY’S IMPRESSIONS OF CANADA
A bright-faced lad with dark blue Irish eyes and glossy hair came
hurrying down the deck, his hands thrust into the pockets of his long
ulster, his whole expression that of one suffering from extreme cold.
“Are you frostproof,” he exclaimed, “that you stand here motionless in
this stinging air? I am not surprised at you, Miss Delavigne,” and he
made her a low bow, “as you are a Canadian, but I marvel at Geoffrey,”
and he glanced at his brother, “fresh from India’s suns as he is. Shall
we not have a last promenade, mademoiselle? The cold is biting me like a
dog.”
Vivienne laughed and placed herself beside him, while Captain Macartney
murmured, “There go our guns; we are announcing ourselves.”
“Will you not tell me, Miss Delavigne,” said the boy in a confidential
tone of voice, “about this matter of signaling? I have asked Geoffrey
several times, but he only grunts like an Irish pig, and gives me no
answer.”
“With all my heart, Mr. Patrick,” said the girl with a businesslike air.
“From the outposts at the harbor mouth every vessel is reported to the
citadel.”
“What is the citadel?” he asked.
“It is the fort on the hill in the middle of the town.”
“What a quarrelsome set you Halifax people must be,” said the boy, “to
require so many fortifications and such a number of redcoats to keep you
in order.”
“Not for ourselves do we need them, Mr. Patrick,” she said teasingly,
“but for our troublesome guests from the old country.” Then hastily, to
avoid the wordy warfare that he was eager to plunge into, she went on.
“Up there is an island that is all fort.”
“Shades of my uncle the general!” he said; “can that be so? Let us go
forward and see it.”
“A French vice-admiral who ran himself through with his sword is buried
on it,” said Vivienne, as they proceeded slowly along the deck.
“Hush!” said the boy. “What is mamma doing?”
Vivienne smiled broadly. Mrs. Macartney, the good-hearted, badly
educated daughter of a rich but vulgar Dublin merchant, was a constant
source of amusement to her. Just now she was waddling down the deck,
driving before her a little dapper Nova Scotian gentleman who had become
known to them on the passage as excessively polite, excessively shy,
and, like Vivienne, excessively patriotic.
Hovering over her victim like a great good-natured bird she separated
him from a group of people standing near, and motioned him into the
shadow of a suspended lifeboat.
“Ducky, ducky, come and be killed,” said Patrick wickedly. “Do you know
what mamma is going to do, Miss Delavigne?”
“No, I do not.”
“She is going to cross-question that man about Canada in such a
ladylike, inane way that he won’t know whether he’s on his head or his
heels. Come and listen.”
“Mrs. Macartney may not like it.”
“Yes, she will; the more the merrier. Come along.”
Vivienne laughed and followed him near the Irish lady, who was
preposterously and outrageously fat. A living tide was slowly rolling
over her, obliterating all landmarks of a comely person. Her ankles were
effaced; her waist was gone. Her wrists had disappeared, and her neck
had sunk into her shoulders. Cheeks and chin were a wide crimson
expanse, yet her lazy, handsome blue eyes looked steadily out, in no
wise affrighted by the oncoming sea of flesh.
“Mamma always does this,” said Patrick gleefully. “She doesn’t know any
more about geography than a tabby cat, and she won’t learn till she gets
to a place. Look at the little man writhing before her. She has called
his dear land Nova Zembla six times. Listen to him.”
“Madam,” the Nova Scotian was saying, “this is Nova Scotia. Nova Zembla
is situated in the Arctic regions. It is a land of icebergs and polar
bears. I scarcely think it has any inhabitants.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Mrs. Macartney, shaking her portly person with
a good-natured laugh. “The names are so much alike that they confuse me.
I only know that one is a cold place and the other a warm one, that one
is in North America and the other in South.”
“Madam,” he said desperately, and shifting his feet about on a coil of
rope on which he had taken refuge, “Nova Zembla is in the north of
Europe. We are in North America.”
“Are we?” she said amiably; “then we haven’t come to Canada yet?”
“Oh yes, madam, we have. Nova Scotia is in Canada, in the lower
southeastern part—nearest England you know. It is the last in the line
of provinces that stretch from the Pacific to the Atlantic.”
At the mention of the Pacific, Mrs. Macartney’s lumbering fancy
attempted to take flight to the coral groves of Oceanica. “I did not
know that Canada bordered on the Pacific,” she returned dubiously. “How
near is it?”
“Just three thousand six hundred and sixty-two miles away, madam. The
continent lies between us.”
“Oh indeed,” with relief; “and Canada you say extends all the way
across.”
“Yes, madam.”
“And it is made up of different provinces?”
“Yes, madam; they have been confederated.”
“And this one is called Nova Scotia?”
“Yes, madam.”
“And how large may it be?” cajolingly; “half as large as one of our
Irish provinces?”
“Madam,” trembling with indignation, “Nova Scotia, with the island at
its northeastern extremity, has only about ten thousand square miles of
area less than all Ireland with every province in it.”
“Bless me!” she exclaimed in unmitigated surprise. Then after a long
pause, and with less assurance, “The island, I suppose, is
Newfoundland?”
“No, madam,” dejectedly. “Newfoundland is away to the northeast of us—a
two days’ voyage from here.”
Mrs. Macartney, a trifle abashed, decided to abandon the somewhat
dangerous ground of Canada’s geographical position, and confine herself
to general remarks. She started out gallantly on a new career. “This a
fine place to live in, I suppose—plenty of sport. You have hunting and
fishing all the year round, don’t you?”
Somewhat mollified he assented unqualifiedly to this. Following the law
of association, she dragged from some recess in her mind another less
pleasing feature of the hunting world in Canada, which she had somewhere
and at some time heard mentioned. “Do the Indians cause you very much
trouble?” she asked sympathetically.
“No, madam; our aborigines are a very peaceful set.”
“How long may it be since your last massacre?”
“I don’t quite catch your meaning, madam.”
“Don’t you have risings and rebellions? I had some cousins living in
Halifax when I was a girl—army people they were, and they told me that
they used to shoot Indians from their bedroom windows.”
At this point the little man gave tokens of a general collapse.
“Perhaps they said bears—I really believe they did,” Mrs. Macartney
added hastily, by way of restoring his suspended animation; “in fact I
am sure they did, and,” confusedly, “I think they said the bears came in
from the forests after dark, and went about the streets to pick up the
scraps thrown from the houses, and it was quite a common thing to see a
night-capped head at a window with a gun in its hand——” she stopped
delightedly, for the little man was not only himself again, but was
laughing spasmodically.
“Madam,” he gasped at length, “our native Indians fought vigorously when
this province was a battleground between England and France. Since the
founding of this city they have gradually calmed down, till now they are
meeker than sheep. We have only a few thousands of them, and they are
scattered all over the province, living in camps in the woods, or in
small settlements. They never do anybody any harm.”
“It does my heart good to hear that,” said Mrs. Macartney, with a jovial
laugh. “Truth to tell, my scalp has been feeling a trifle loose on my
head since we came in sight of this country. And if the Indians don’t
worry you now,” insinuatingly, “I daresay you are able to make quite a
civilized town of Halifax.”
He stifled a laugh. “We try to, madam.”
This answer was too indefinite to suit Mrs. Macartney. A suspicion was
gaining ground in her mind that Halifax was not the military camp and
collection of log houses that she had thought it to be.
“How many people are there in the town?” she inquired guilelessly.
“About forty thousand, madam.”
“In Halifax?” she asked hesitatingly, “or in the whole province?”
“In Halifax, madam. There are over four hundred and forty thousand in
the province.”
Mrs. Macartney was considerably staggered. “And do you have shops and
hotels and churches?”
“All three, madam.”
“I had an idea that Canadians sent to England for all the necessaries of
life.”
“Just turn around, madam,” said the Nova Scotian.
Mrs. Macartney had opened her mouth to make another remark, but the
words died away on her lips.
Stretching along the western shore a busy, prosperous town presented
itself to her gaze. Like all other towns it must be somewhat grimy and
dirty in the light of day. At night, with the moon hanging over it and
myriad lights flashing from the tiers of buildings rising one above
another on the slope of a long hill, it was like a fairy city.
All along the shore were rows of wooden wharves running out into the
harbor where there were moored ocean steamers, coasting vessels, fishing
boats, ferry steamers, tugboats, and tiny skiffs, some of which darted
gayly in and out among the wharves. Some of the ships were brightly
lighted, and people could be seen moving about on them.
“Surely, surely,” said Mrs. Macartney, turning to her companion in
unfeigned amazement, “I have been misinformed about Canada. One of its
provinces is larger than Ireland, and its chief town, if you shut your
eyes, would make you think that you were looking at Dublin itself. Sure,
I feel like the Queen of Sheba,” and with a comical twinkle in her eye,
she turned around to see who had laid a hand on her arm.
Her son Patrick stood before her. “And I feel like King Solomon,” he
exclaimed; “so many unruly ladies to take care of. Miss Delavigne won’t
come below to look after her traps. Mamma, will you come and point out
yours to me?”
“Indeed, no, my son,” said the lady amiably; “you weren’t here just now
when I wanted you, and I had to apply to this gentleman,” with a bow to
the Nova Scotian. “I’m going to see further sights,” and she waddled
toward a better place of observation.