Elizabeth had ample time during the ensuing sixteen hours for inquiry as
to the nature of sink-holes.
When she emerged, dressed, into the saloon--she found Yerkes looking out
of the window in a brown study. He was armed with a dusting brush and a
white apron, but it did not seem to her that he had been making much
use of them.
"Whatever is the matter, Yerkes? What is a sink-hole?"
Yerkes looked round.
"A sink-hole, my lady?" he said slowly--"A sink-hole, well, it's as you
may say--a muskeg."
"A _what?_"
"A place where you can't find no bottom, my lady. This one's a vixen,
she is! What she's cost the C.P.R.!"--he threw up his hands. "And
there's no contenting her--the more you give her the more she wants.
They give her ten trainloads of stuff a couple of months ago. No good! A
bit of moist weather and there she is at it again. Let an engine and
two carriages through last night--ten o'clock!"
"Gracious! Was anybody hurt? What--a kind of bog?--a quicksand?"
"Well," said Yerkes, resuming his dusting, and speaking with polite
obstinacy, "muskegs is what they call 'em in these parts. They'll have
to divert the line. I tell 'em so, scores of times. She was at this game
last year. Held me up twenty-one hours last fall."
When Yerkes was travelling he spoke in a representative capacity. He
_was_ the line.
"How many trains ahead of us are there? Yerkes?"
"Two as I know on--may be more."
"And behind?"
"Three or four, my lady."
"And how long are we likely to be kept?"
"Can't say. They've been at her ten hours. She don't generally let
anyone over her under a good twenty--or twenty-four."
"Yerkes!--what will Mr. Gaddesden say? And it's so damp and horrid."
Elizabeth looked at the outside prospect in dismay. The rain was
drizzling down. The passengers walking up and down the line were in
heavy overcoats with their collars turned up. To the left of the line
there was a misty glimpse of water over a foreground of charred stumps.
On the other side rose a bank of scrubby wood, broken by a patch of
clearing, which held a rude log-cabin. What was she to do with
Philip all day?
Suddenly a cow appeared on the patch of grass round the log hut. With a
sound of jubilation, Yerkes threw down his dusting brush and rushed out
of the car. Elizabeth watched him pursue the cow, and disappear round a
corner. What on earth was he about?
Philip had apparently not yet been called. He was asleep, and Yerkes had
let well alone. But he must soon awake to the situation, and the problem
of his entertainment would begin. Elizabeth took up the guide-book and
with difficulty made out that they were about a hundred miles from
Winnipeg. Somewhere near Rainy Lake apparently. What a foolishly
appropriate name!
"Hi!--hi!--"
The shout startled her. Looking out she saw a group of passengers
grinning, and Yerkes running hard for the car, holding something in his
hand, and pursued by a man in a slouch hat, who seemed to be swearing.
Yerkes dashed into the car, deposited his booty in the kitchen, and
standing in the doorway faced the enemy. A terrific babel arose.
Elizabeth appeared in the passage and demanded to know what had
happened.
"All right, my lady," said Yerkes, mopping his forehead. "I've only been
and milked his cow. No saying where I'd have got any milk this side of
Winnipeg if I hadn't."
"But, Yerkes, he doesn't seem to like it."
"Oh, that's all right, my lady."
But the settler was now on the steps of the car gesticulating and
scolding, in what Elizabeth guessed to be a Scandinavian tongue. He was
indeed a gigantic Swede, furiously angry, and Elizabeth had thoughts of
bearding him herself and restoring the milk, when some mysterious
transaction involving coin passed suddenly between the two men. The
Swede stopped short in the midst of a sentence, pocketed something, and
made off sulkily for the log hut. Yerkes, with a smile, and a wink to
the bystanders, retired triumphant on his prey.
Elizabeth, standing at the door of the kitchen, inquired if supplies
were likely to run short.
"Not in this car," said Yerkes, with emphasis. "What _they'll_ do"--a
jerk of his thumb towards the rest of the train in front--"can't say."
"Of course we shall have to give them food!" cried Lady Merton,
delighted at the thought of getting rid of some of their superfluities.
Yerkes showed a stolid face.
"The C.P.R.'ll have to feed 'em--must. That's the regulation.
Accident--free meals. That hasn't nothing to do with me. They don't come
poaching on my ground. I say, look out! Do yer call that bacon, or
buffaler steaks?"
And Yerkes rushed upon his subordinate, Bettany, who was cutting the
breakfast bacon with undue thickness, and took the thing in hand
himself. The crushed Bettany, who was never allowed to finish anything,
disappeared hastily in order to answer the electric bell which was
ringing madly from Philip Gaddesden's berth.
"Conductor!" cried a voice from the inner platform outside the
dining-room and next the train.
"And what might you be wanting, sir?" said Bettany jauntily, opening the
door to the visitor. Bettany was a small man, with thin harrassed
features and a fragment of beard, glib of speech towards everybody
but Yerkes.
"Your conductor got some milk, I think, from that cabin."
"He did--but only enough for ourselves. Sorry we can't oblige you."
"All the same, I am going to beg some of it. May I speak to the
gentleman?"
"Mr. Gaddesden, sir, is dressing. The steward will attend to you."
And Bettany retired ceremoniously in favour of Yerkes, who hearing
voices had come out of his den.
"I have come to ask for some fresh milk for a baby in the emigrant car,"
said the stranger. "Looks sick, and the mother's been crying. They've
only got tinned milk in the restaurant and the child won't touch it."
"Sorry it's that particular, sir. But I've got only what I want."
"Yerkes!" cried Elizabeth Merton, in the background. "Of course the baby
must have it. Give it to the gentleman, please, at once."
The stranger removed his hat and stepped into the tiny dining-room where
Elizabeth was standing. He was tall and fair-skinned, with a blonde
moustache, and very blue eyes. He spoke--for an English ear--with the
slight accent which on the Canadian side of the border still proclaims
the neighbourhood of the States.
"I am sorry to trouble you, madam," he said, with deference. "But the
child seems very weakly, and the mother herself has nothing to give it.
It was the conductor of the restaurant car who sent me here."
"We shall be delighted," said Lady Merton, eagerly. "May I come with
you, if you are going to take it? Perhaps I could do something for
the mother."
The stranger hesitated a moment.
"An emigrant car full of Galicians is rather a rough sort of
place--especially at this early hour in the morning. But if you
don't mind--"
"I don't mind anything. Yerkes, is that _all_ the milk?".
"All to speak of, my lady," said Yerkes, nimbly retreating to his den.
Elizabeth shook her head as she looked at the milk. But her visitor
laughed.
"The baby won't get through that to-day. It's a regular little
scarecrow. I shouldn't think the mother'll rear it."
They stepped out on to the line. The drizzle descended on Lady Merton's
bare head and grey travelling dress.
"You ought to have an umbrella," said the Canadian, looking at her in
some embarrassment. And he ran back to the car for one. Then, while she
carried the milk carefully in both hands, he held the umbrella over her,
and they passed through the groups of passengers who were strolling
disconsolately up and down the line in spite of the wet, or exchanging
lamentations with others from two more stranded trains, one drawn up
alongside, the other behind.
Many glances were levelled at the slight Englishwoman, with the
delicately pale face, and at the man escorting her. Elizabeth meanwhile
was putting questions. How long would they be detained? Her brother with
whom she was travelling was not at all strong. Unconsciously, perhaps,
her voice took a note of complaint.
"Well, we can't any of us cross--can we?--till they come to some bottom
in the sink-hole," said the Canadian, interrupting her a trifle bluntly.
Elizabeth laughed. "We may be here then till night."
"Possibly. But you'll be the first over."
"How? There are some trains in front."
"That doesn't matter. They'll move you up. They're very vexed it should
have happened to you."
Elizabeth felt a trifle uncomfortable. Was the dear young man tilting at
the idle rich--and the corrupt Old World? She stole a glance at him, but
perceived only that in his own tanned and sunburnt way he was a
remarkably handsome well-made fellow, built on a rather larger scale
than the Canadians she had so far seen. A farmer? His manners were not
countrified. But a farmer in Canada or the States may be of all
social grades.
By this time they had reached the emigrant car, the conductor of which
was standing on the steps. He was loth to allow Lady Merton to enter,
but Elizabeth persisted. Her companion led the way, pushing through a
smoking group of dark-faced men hanging round the entrance.
Inside, the car was thick, indeed, with smoke and the heavy exhalations
of the night. Men and women were sitting on the wooden benches; some
women were cooking in the tiny stove-room attached to the car; children,
half naked and unwashed, were playing on the floor; here and there a man
was still asleep; while one old man was painfully conning a paper of
"Homestead Regulations" which had been given him at Montreal, a lad of
eighteen helping him; and close by another lad was writing a letter, his
eyes passing dreamily from the paper to the Canadian landscape outside,
of which he was clearly not conscious. In a corner, surrounded by three
or four other women, was the mother they had come to seek. She held a
wailing baby of about a year old in her arms. At the sight of Elizabeth,
the child stopped its wailing, and lay breathing fast and feebly, its
large bright eyes fixed on the new-comer. The mother turned away
abruptly. It was not unusual for persons from the parlour-cars to ask
leave to walk through the emigrants'.
But Elizabeth's companion said a few words to her, apparently in
Russian, and Elizabeth, stooping over her, held out the milk. Then a
dark face reluctantly showed itself, and great black eyes, in deep,
lined sockets; eyes rather of a race than a person, hardly conscious,
hardly individualised, yet most poignant, expressing some feeling,
remote and inarticulate, that roused Elizabeth's. She called to the
conductor for a cup and a spoon; she made her way into the malodorous
kitchen, and got some warm water and sugar; then kneeling by the child,
she put a spoonful of the diluted and sweetened milk into the
mother's hand.
* * * * *
"Was it foolish of me to offer her that money?" said Elizabeth with
flushed cheeks as they walked back through the rain. "They looked so
terribly poor."
The Canadian smiled.
"I daresay it didn't do any harm," he said indulgently. "But they are
probably not poor at all. The Galicians generally bring in quite a fair
sum. And after a year or two they begin to be rich. They never spend a
farthing they can help. It costs money--or time--to be clean, so they
remain dirty. Perhaps we shall teach them--after a bit."
His companion looked at him with a shy but friendly curiosity.
"How did you come to know Russian?"
"When I was a child there were some Russian Poles on the next farm to
us. I used to play with the boys, and learnt a little. The conductor
called me in this morning to interpret. These people come from the
Russian side of the Carpathians."
"Then you are a Canadian yourself?--from the West?"
"I was born in Manitoba."
"I am quite in love with your country!"
Elizabeth paused beside the steps leading to their car. As she spoke,
her brown eyes lit up, and all her small features ran over, suddenly,
with life and charm.
"Yes, it's a good country," said the Canadian, rather drily. "It's going
to be a great country. Is this your first visit?"
But the conversation was interrupted by a reproachful appeal from
Yerkes.
"Breakfast, my lady, has been hotted twice."
The Canadian looked at Elizabeth curiously, lifted his hat, and went
away.
"Well, if this doesn't take the cake!" said Philip Gaddesden, throwing
himself disconsolately into an armchair. "I bet you, Elizabeth, we
shall be here forty-eight hours. And this damp goes through one."
The young man shivered, as he looked petulantly out through the open
doorway of the car to the wet woods beyond. Elizabeth surveyed him with
some anxiety. Like herself he was small, and lightly built. But his
features were much less regular than hers; the chin and nose were
childishly tilted, the eyes too prominent. His bright colour,
however--(mother and sister could well have dispensed with that touch of
vivid red on the cheeks!)--his curly hair, and his boyish ways made him
personally attractive; while in his moments of physical weakness, his
evident resentment of Nature's treatment of him, and angry determination
to get the best of her, had a touch of something that was
pathetic--that appealed.
Elizabeth brought a rug and wrapped it round him. But she did not try to
console him; she looked round for something or someone to amuse him.
On the line, just beyond the railed platform of the car, a group of men
were lounging and smoking. One of them was her acquaintance of the
morning. Elizabeth, standing on the platform waited till he turned in
her direction--caught his eye, and beckoned. He came with alacrity. She
stooped over the rail to speak to him.
"I'm afraid you'll think it very absurd"--her shy smile broke
again--"but do you think there's anyone in this train who plays bridge?"
He laughed.
"Certainly. There is a game going on at this moment in the car behind
you."
"Is it--is it anybody--we could ask to luncheon?--who'd come, I mean,"
she added, hurriedly.
"I should think they'd come--I should think they'd be glad. Your cook,
Yerkes, is famous on the line. I know two of the people playing. They
are Members of Parliament."
"Oh! then perhaps I know them too," cried Elizabeth, brightening.
He laughed again.
"The Dominion Parliament, I mean." He named two towns in Manitoba, while
Lady Merton's pink flush showed her conscious of having betrayed her
English insularity. "Shall I introduce you?"
"Please!--if you find an opportunity. It's for my brother. He's
recovering from an illness."
"And you want to cheer him up. Of course. Well, he'll want it to-day."
The young man looked round him, at the line strewn with unsightly
débris, the ugly cutting which blocked the view, and the mists
up-curling from the woods; then at the slight figure beside him. The
corners of his mouth tried not to laugh. "I am afraid you are not going
to like Canada, if it treats you like this."
"I've liked every minute of it up till now," said Elizabeth warmly. "Can
you tell me--I should like to know--who all these people are?" She waved
her hand towards the groups walking up and down.
"Well, you see," said the Canadian after a moment's hesitation,
"Canada's a big place!"
He looked round on her with a smile so broad and sudden that Elizabeth
felt a heat rising in her cheeks. Her question had no doubt been a
little naïve.
But the young man hurried on, composing his face quickly.
"Some of them, of course, are tourists like yourselves. But I do know a
few of them. That man in the clerical coat, and the round collar, is
Father Henty--a Jesuit well known in Winnipeg--a great man among the
Catholics here."
"But a disappointed one," said Lady Merton.
The Canadian looked surprised. Elizabeth, proud of her knowledge, went
on:
"Isn't it true the Catholics hoped to conquer the Northwest--and
so--with Quebec--to govern you all? And now the English and American
immigration has spoilt all their chances--poor things!"
"That's about it. Did they tell you that in Toronto?"
Elizabeth stiffened. The slight persistent tone of mockery in the young
man's voice was beginning to offend her.
"And the others?" she said, without noticing his question.
It was the Canadian's turn to redden. He changed his tone.
"--The man next him is a professor at the Manitoba University. The
gentleman in the brown suit is going to Vancouver to look after some big
lumber leases he took out last year. And that little man in the Panama
hat has been keeping us all alive. He's been prospecting for silver in
New Ontario--thinks he's going to make his fortune in a week."
"Oh, but that will do exactly for my brother!" cried Elizabeth,
delighted. "Please introduce us."
And hurrying back into the car she burst upon the discontented gentleman
within. Philip, who was just about to sally forth into the damp, against
the entreaties of his servant, and take his turn at shying stones at a
bottle on the line, was appeased by her report, and was soon seated,
talking toy speculation, with a bronzed and brawny person, who watched
the young Englishman, as they chatted, out of a pair of humorous eyes.
Philip believed himself a great financier, but was not in truth either
very shrewd or very daring, and his various coups or losses generally
left his exchequer at the end of the year pretty much what it had been
the year before. But the stranger, who seemed to have staked out claims
at one time or another, across the whole face of the continent, from
Klondyke to Nova Scotia, kept up a mining talk that held him enthralled;
and Elizabeth breathed freely.
She returned to the platform. The scene was _triste_, but the rain had
for the moment stopped. She hailed an official passing by, and asked if
there was any chance of their soon going on. The man smiled and
shook his head.
Her Canadian acquaintance, who was standing near, came up to the car as
he heard her question.
"I have just seen a divisional superintendent. We may get on about nine
o'clock to-night."
"And it is now eleven o'clock in the morning," sighed Lady Merton.
"Well!--I think a little exercise would be a good thing."
And she descended the steps of the car. The Canadian hesitated.
"Would you allow me to walk with you?" he said, with formality. "I
might perhaps be able to tell you a few things. I belong to
the railway."
"I shall be greatly obliged," said Elizabeth, cordially. "Do you mean
that you are an official?"
"I am an engineer--in charge of some construction work in the Rockies."
Lady Merton's face brightened.
"Indeed! I think that must be one of the most interesting things in the
world to be."
The Canadian's eyebrows lifted a little.
"I don't know that I ever thought of it like that," he said, half
smiling. "It's good work--but I've done things a good deal livelier
in my time."
"You've not always been an engineer?"
"Very few people are always 'anything' in Canada," he said, laughing.
"It's like the States. One tries a lot of things. Oh, I was trained as
an engineer--at Montreal. But directly I had finished with that I went
off to Klondyke. I made a bit of money--came back--and lost it all, in a
milling business--over there"--he pointed eastwards--"on the Lake of the
Woods. My partner cheated me. Then I went exploring to the north, and
took a Government job at the same time--paying treaty money to the
Indians. Then, five years ago, I got work for the C.P.R. But I shall
cut it before long. I've saved some money again. I shall take up land,
and go into politics."
"Politics?" repeated Elizabeth, wishing she might some day know what
politics meant in Canada. "You're not married?" she added pleasantly.
"I am not married."
"And may I ask your name?"
His name, it seemed, was George Anderson, and presently as they walked
up and down he became somewhat communicative about himself, though
always within the limits, as it seemed to her, of a natural dignity,
which developed indeed as their acquaintance progressed. He told her
tales, especially, of his Indian journeys through the wilds about the
Athabasca and Mackenzie rivers, in search of remote Indian
settlements--that the word of England to the red man might be kept; and
his graphic talk called up before her the vision of a northern
wilderness, even wilder and remoter than that she had just passed
through, where yet the earth teemed with lakes and timber and
trout-bearing streams, and where--"we shall grow corn some day," as he
presently informed her. "In twenty years they will have developed seed
that will ripen three weeks earlier than wheat does now in Manitoba.
Then we shall settle that country--right away!--to the far north." His
tone stirred and deepened. A little while before, it had seemed to her
that her tourist enthusiasm amused him. Yet by flashes, she began to
feel in him something, beside which her own raptures fell silent. Had
she, after all, hit upon a man--a practical man--who was yet conscious
of the romance of Canada?
Presently she asked him if there was no one dependent on him--no
mother?--or sisters?
"I have two brothers--in the Government service at Ottawa. I had four
sisters."
"Are they married?"
"They are dead," he said, slowly. "They and my mother were burnt to
death."
She exclaimed. Her brown eyes turned upon him--all sudden horror and
compassion.
"It was a farmhouse where we were living--and it took fire. Mother and
sisters had no time to escape. It was early morning. I was a boy of
eighteen, and was out on the farm doing my chores. When I saw smoke and
came back, the house was a burning mass, and--it was all over."
"Where was your father?"
"My father is dead."
"But he was there--at the time of the fire?"
"Yes. He was there."
He had suddenly ceased to be communicative, and she instinctively asked
no more questions, except as to the cause of the conflagration.
"Probably an explosion of coal-oil. It was sometimes used to light the
fire with in the morning."
"How very, very terrible!" she said gently, after a moment, as though
she felt it. "Did you stay on at the farm?"
"I brought up my two brothers. They were on a visit to some neighbours
at the time of the fire. We stayed on three years."
"With your father?"
"No; we three alone."
She felt vaguely puzzled; but before she could turn to another subject,
he had added--
"There was nothing else for us to do. We had no money and no
relations--nothing but the land. So we had to work it--and we managed.
But after three years we'd saved a little money, and we wanted to get a
bit more education. So we sold the land and moved up to Montreal."
"How old were the brothers when you took on the farm?"
"Thirteen--and fifteen."
"Wonderful!" she exclaimed. "You must be proud."
He laughed out.
"Why, that kind of thing's done every day in this country! You can't
idle in Canada."
They had turned back towards the train. In the doorway of the car sat
Philip Gaddesden lounging and smoking, enveloped in a fur coat, his
knees covered with a magnificent fur rug. A whisky and soda had just
been placed at his right hand. Elizabeth thought--"He said that because
he had seen Philip." But when she looked at him, she withdrew her
supposition. His eyes were not on the car, and he was evidently thinking
of something else.
"I hope your brother will take no harm," he said to her, as they
approached the car. "Can I be of any service to you in Winnipeg?"
"Oh, thank you. We have some introductions--"
"Of course. But if I can--let me know."
An official came along the line, with a packet in his hand. At sight of
Elizabeth he stopped and raised his hat.
"Am I speaking to Lady Merton? I have some letters here, that have been
waiting for you at Winnipeg, and they've sent them out to you."
He placed the packet in her hand. The Canadian moved away, but not
before Elizabeth had seen again the veiled amusement in his eyes. It
seemed to him comic, no doubt, that the idlers of the world should be so
royally treated. But after all--she drew herself up--her father had
been no idler.
She hastened to her brother; and they fell upon their letters.
"Oh, Philip!"--she said presently, looking up--"Philip! Arthur Delaine
meets us at Winnipeg."
"Does he? _Does he_?" repeated the young man, laughing. "I say, Lisa!--"
Elizabeth took no notice of her brother's teasing tone. Nor did her
voice, as she proceeded to read him the letter she held in her hand,
throw any light upon her own feelings with regard to it.
The weary day passed. The emigrants were consoled by free meals; and the
delicate baby throve on the Swede's ravished milk. For the rest, the
people in the various trains made rapid acquaintance with each other;
bridge went merrily in more than one car, and the general inconvenience
was borne with much philosophy, even by Gaddesden. At last, when
darkness had long fallen, the train to which the private car was
attached moved slowly forward amid cheers of the bystanders.
Elizabeth and her brother were on the observation platform, with the
Canadian, whom with some difficulty they had persuaded to share
their dinner.
"I told you"--said Anderson--"that you would be passed over first." He
pointed to two other trains in front that had been shunted to make
room for them.
Elizabeth turned to him a little proudly.
"But I should like to say--it's not for our own sakes--not in the
least!--it is for my father, that they are so polite to us."
"I know--of course I know!" was the quick response. "I have been talking
to some of our staff," he went on, smiling. "They would do anything for
you. Perhaps you don't understand. You are the guests of the railway.
And I too belong to the railway. I am a very humble person, but--"
"You also would do anything for us?" asked Elizabeth, with her soft
laugh. "How kind you all are!"
She looked charming as she said it--her face and head lit up by the line
of flaring lights through which they were slowly passing. The line was
crowded with dark-faced navvies, watching the passage of the train as it
crept forward.
One of the officials in command leapt up on the platform of the car, and
introduced himself. He was worn out with the day's labour, but
triumphant. "It's all right now--but, my word! the stuff we've
thrown in!--"
He and Anderson began some rapid technical talk. Slowly, they passed
over the quicksand which in the morning had engulfed half a train; amid
the flare of torches, and the murmur of strange speech, from the
Galician and Italian labourers, who rested on their picks and stared and
laughed, as they went safely by.
"How I love adventures!" cried Elizabeth, clasping her hands.
"Even little ones?" said the Canadian, smiling. But this time she was
not conscious of any note of irony in his manner, rather of a kind
protectingness--more pronounced, perhaps, than it would have been in an
Englishman, at the same stage of acquaintance. But Elizabeth liked it;
she liked, too, the fine bare head that the torchlight revealed; and the
general impression of varied life that the man's personality produced
upon her. Her sympathies, her imagination were all trembling towards the
Canadians, no less than towards their country.