Lady of the Ice (9 page)

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 with a wild, wailing 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 wail 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 had 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 not 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 some thing 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 resetted 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 iviry 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 exprissed 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 intimideeted. 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 absthraction, 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. Conse-quintly, 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. Ye'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.”