“I remember Aunt Havelock, when I was a small boy playing at her feet, a
lady of excellent refinement, a model of the old school,” said Mr. Bang.
“She had the most gentle, and sweetest voice I ever heard. When you
consider, what she, an army officer’s wife, had to put up with, you can
conceive what the treatment of the serving classes would be. No, No,”
and Mr. Bang shook his head, “not many of the maids that went to
Virginia as wives were honest.”
We were still a long way from the nuts and raisins. I was dreading lest
Mumsie turned the conversation. What would be more natural, if she
wished to do so, than for her to ask, “Elsie, what did you do with
yourself this afternoon?” I shuddered at the thought. I must keep Mr.
Bang talking.
“You think then, Mr. Bang, that no person came to America unless he had
to?” I asked.
“Undoubtedly,” he replied. “Few leave England permanently to-day unless
necessity compels. And the chief argument against the stories of the
Fourth of July orators is that the lukewarm Briton, who comes to reside
in Canada immediately turns into a redhot Imperialist. Human nature was
the same yesterday, as it is to-day. It is against nature for any normal
body of Englishmen to do what the Yankees did, no matter what the
provocation.”
“But there were Englishmen who revolted.” I suggested.
“Puritanism was doubtless an expression of religious insanity,” he
replied with fervour, “and then what child would believe his father a
felon? The children of felons invariably believe their fathers the
victims of oppression. No doubt the Yankee children were taught of
bloody kings and dukes and earls—and of feudal oppression. Such legends
are current even to-day. The highest expression of Yankee humour is that
wherein the western bully spits tobacco juice on the patent-leather
boots of the eastern dandy. Class intolerance is still active in Yankee
land.”
“Jack’s quite right there,” put in Uncle.
“I’ve never known you to find him wrong.”
“Now Auntie,” pleaded Mr. Bang, “you know I have had special
opportunities of studying the Yanks. Besides they are re-writing their
history. One old gentleman of Boston wrote up the history of the
Loyalists of his state, and incidentally showed the majority of those
who signed the Declaration of Independence to be unspeakable scoundrels.
Their descendants, I am told, beat the poor old man up and wrecked his
home. And then _The True American Revolution_, goes into all the
harrowing details and shows that the story of the wrongs inflicted upon
the colonies was more invention to justify the atrocities committed.”
“Canada is loyal,” said Mumsie soothingly.
“Canada is loyal and Canada’s loyalty is the wonder of the age,”
commented Uncle.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why! think of what our forefathers suffered, the Loyalists!” cried Mr.
Bang.
“The revolutionaries were only one-third of the population of the
colonies,” Uncle replied. “These people banded themselves together,
transgressed every moral law against those who would not renounce their
lawful kind, tarred and feathered innocent officials, ill-treated their
wives and daughters. The houses of Loyalists were broken into and
destroyed; and while the faithful patiently waited the happy day when
law and order would be established, Whig eloquence sounded platitudes in
the British House of Commons.” Uncle was almost as serious about it as
Mr. Bang.
“I always think,” said that worthy, “that history should recognize as a
supreme token of the righteousness of British rule in the colonies, the
fact that many of the unfortunate followers of Prince Charlie in the
rebellion of Forty-five, who went to America, sided with King George.”
Turning to me, Mr. Bang continued, “Little Partner, if you read the
mournful tales of the persecutions that followed the battle of Culloden,
you will agree that Major MacDonald, the husband of the gentle Flora,
had little cause to love the House of Hanover.”
“Loyalty, Elsie,” said Uncle, “is best considered as an expression of
ancestor worship. I can make nothing else out of it.”
“The Englishman comes out to Canada and hears himself spoken of as a
‘damn fool of an Englishman,’” added Mr. Bang, “and therefore concludes
his country is not popular. Uncle’s definition of loyalty is as good as
any other.”
Mr. Bang had one other idea he could not restrain.
“If you wish for a definition of the Yankee you will find it on the old
revolutionary banner.”
“What was that,” I asked.
“A coiled rattle-snake—the snake in the grass. That’s the Yankee.
That’s the animal the statesmen of Britain toady to, and yet we love
England still.” And Mr. Bang smiled, and actually his smile was not
cynical.
“What about taxation without representation?” asked Mumsie.
“Largely advanced subsequent to Independence,” explained Mr. Bang.
“England fought France and took Canada to prevent the raiding of New
England’s frontiers. This cost England seven hundred million dollars.
The colonies were rolling in prosperity, but when asked to meet a
portion of the cost, according to their agreement, they evaded the
issue. They guessed England would be an easier mark than France, and
they guessed rightly. But this was only because the Lord in his
inscrutable scheme created the Whig.”
“Is the Whig such a very dreadful person?” asked Mumsie.
“The Whigs instigated indirectly the Yankee Revolution. That brought on
the French Revolution, for the war of the American Revolution cost
France more than it did the Yankees, and the oppressive taxation to pay
for France’s participation in it incidentally brought about her Reign of
Terror. This in turn evoked Napoleon and his twenty-five years of war.
Surely that is a sufficiently heavy score?”
“You might add the War of 1812,” suggested Uncle.
“Undoubtedly; when the Yanks thought they saw Napoleon winning, the
master of Europe, they attacked Canada, believing their success assured
and that they could so curry favour with the despot, Napoleon in Elba.
They signed a treaty of peace in which no mention was made of the
ostensible cause of the war, namely, the right to search on the high
seas. Yet they teach in their schools that they fought the War of
Independence for the principle of ‘No taxation without representation,’
and they call the War of 1812 their second war of independence.”
“A Whig must indeed be a very dreadful person,” I remarked in glee. I
have stumbled on a way to keep myself from being asked questions, and
the opportunity to denounce anything—anything, and everything, and
everybody—seems to bring joy to Mr. Bang. After all one does good when
one gives pleasure. “What was a Whig?” I asked.
“One whose instincts were good and understanding bad,” replied Uncle.
“A political Jesuit,” suggested Mr. Bang.
“The ancestor of the Scottish Grit, in Canada, and the Liberal in
England,” Mumsie explained.
Of course, I did not understand quite all this, but it did not affect my
enjoyment. Such talk is very stimulating.
“The Whig or what he has developed into,” said Mr. Bang, “is a dangerous
being. Gladstone forsook Gordon and laid the seeds of trouble in the
Transvaal; and as the Whig party caused the American Revolution, so are
Whiggish principles leading to the impending war in Europe.”
“Why?” enquired Mumsie quite seriously.
“Because the Germans think they can bamboozle England as the Yankees
did, and because, were the Tories in power in England, they would bring
commercial ruin to their European rival.”
“But,” said Mumsie, “Germany may be guiltless of bad intentions.”
“Auntie,” almost thundered Mr. Bang, “once in Alaska, I had a German as
mining partner. We slept under the same blanket for months. I learned to
read the German mind. The frugal German is not putting countless
millions into armament without believing he will get a return. I have
also travelled in Germany.”
“This is then why you think regeneration of our society is at hand?”
asked Mumsie, doubtless referring to Mr. Bang’s suggestion of many
nights previous. Oh, how long ago it seems!
“Yes, that’s it. A great war will come when England will have to strain
every muscle. Then let us hope our women folk turn from those who trifle
with them, and spend their money on them, to those who defend them.”
Dinner ended with no bones broken. In fact, we were all in very good
humour. I made the excuse of a headache and slipped away to my room.
Soon my joy left me, my head became filled with difficult thoughts.
Laughter, I believe, is not a measure of the joy within me, not always.
I believe I now laughed in an attempt to induce joy, not as an
expression of it.
I have decided to tell Mumsie that I have an engagement for to-morrow
afternoon to go shopping and take tea with some fictitious person. This
I believe to be the safest device. Should I say Ethel Bassett for
instance, Mumsie might find out I fibbed, which would look bad. I can
say I met Hannah Smart at Mrs. Lien’s ball. I know there is no real
Hanna Smart. What a sneak I feel—and am.
[2] It may interest old country people to learn that servants coming to
Canada generally expect to take their meals with the family, or enjoy
other social advancements.