The Imperialist (35 page)

Allowance will be made for the intemperance of his figure. He believed himself, you see, at the bar for the life of a nation.

“… Let us not hesitate to announce ourselves for the Empire, to throw all we are and all we have into the balance for that great decision. The seers of political economy tell us that if the stars continue to be propitious, it is certain that a day will come which will usher in a union of the Anglo-Saxon nations of the world. As between England and the United States the predominant partner in that firm will be the one that brings Canada. So that the imperial movement of the hour may mean even more than the future of the mother land, may reach even further than the boundaries of Greater Britain….”

Again he paused, and his eye ranged over their listening faces. He had them all with him, his words were vivid in their minds; the truth of them stood about him like an atmosphere. Even Bingham looked at him without reproach. But he had done.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice dropping, with a hint of tiredness, to another level, “I have the honour to stand for your suffrages as candidate in the Liberal interest for the riding of South Fox in the Dominion House of Commons the day after to-morrow. I solicit your support, and I hereby pledge myself to justify it by every means in my power. But it would be idle to disguise from you that while I attach all importance to the immediate interests in charge of the Liberal party, and if elected shall use my best efforts to further them, the great task before that party, in my opinion, the overshadowing
task to which, I shall hope, in my place and degree to stand committed from the beginning, is the one which I have endeavoured to bring before your consideration this evening.”

They gave him a great appreciation, and Mr. Cruickshank, following, spoke in complimentary terms of the eloquent appeal made by the “young and vigorous protagonist” of the imperial cause, but proceeded to a number of quite other and apparently more important grounds why he should be elected. The Hon. Mr. Tellier’s speech – the Minister was always kept to the last – was a defence of the recent dramatic development of the Government’s railway policy, and a reminder of the generous treatment Elgin was receiving in the Estimates for the following year – thirty thousand dollars for a new Drill Hall, and fifteen thousand for improvements to the post-office. It was a telling speech, with the chink of hard cash in every sentence, a kind of audit by a chartered accountant of the Liberal books of South Fox, showing good sound reason why the Liberal candidate should be returned on Thursday, if only to keep the balance right. The audience listened with practical satisfaction. “That’s Tellier all over,” they said to one another….

The effect in committee of what, in spite of the Hon. Mr. Tellier’s participation, I must continue to call the speech of the evening, may be gathered from a brief colloquy between Mr. Bingham and Mr. Williams, in the act of separating at the door of the opera-house.

“I don’t know what it was worth to preference trade,” said Bingham, “but it wasn’t worth a hill o’ beans to his own election.”

“He had as soft a snap,” returned Horace Williams, on the brink of tears – “as soft a snap as anybody ever had in this town. And he’s monkeyed it all away. All away.”

Both the local papers published the speech in full the following day. “If there’s anything in Manchester or Birmingham that Mr. Lorne Murchison would like,” commented the
Mercury
editorially, “we understand he has only to call for it.”

T
he Milburns’ door-bell rang very early the morning of the election. The family and Alfred Hesketh were just sitting down to breakfast. Mr. Hesketh was again the guest of the house. He had taken a run out to Vancouver with Mr. Milburn’s partner, who had gone to settle a point or two in connection with the establishment of a branch there. The points had been settled, and Hesketh, having learned more than ever, had returned to Elgin.

The maid came back into the room with a conscious air, and said something in a low voice to Dora, who flushed and frowned a little, and asked to be excused. As she left the room a glance of intelligence passed between her and her mother. While Miss Milburn was generally thought to be “most like” her father both in appearance and disposition, there were points upon which she could count on an excellent understanding with her other parent.

“Oh, Lorne,” she said, having carefully closed the drawing-room door, “what in the world have you come here for? To-day of all days! Did anybody see you?”

The young man, standing tall and broad-shouldered before the mantelpiece, had yet a look of expecting reproach.

“I don’t know,” he said humbly.

“I don’t think father would like it,” Dora told him, “if he knew you were here. Why, we’re having an early breakfast on purpose to let him get out and work for Winter. I never saw him so excited over an election. To think of your coming to-day!”

He made a step toward her. “I came because it is to-day,” he said. “Only for a minute, dear. It’s a great day for me, you know – whether we win or lose. I wanted you to be in it. I wanted you to wish me good luck.”

“But you know I always do,” she objected.

“Yes, I know. But a fellow likes to hear it, Dora – on the day, you know. And I’ve seen so little of you lately.”

She looked at him measuringly. “You’re looking awfully thin,” she exclaimed, with sudden compunction. “I wish you had never gone into this horrid campaign. I wish they had nominated somebody else.”

Lorne smiled half bitterly. “I shouldn’t wonder if a few other people wished the same thing,” he said. “But I’m afraid they’ll have to make the best of it now.”

Dora had not sanctioned his visit by sitting down; and as he came nearer to her she drew a step away, moving by instinct from the capture of the lover. But he had made little of that, and almost as he spoke was at her side. She had to yield her hands to him.

“Well, you’ll win it for them if anybody could,” she assured him.

“Say ‘win it for us,’ dear.”

She shook her head. “I’m not a Liberal – yet,” she said, laughing.

“It’s only a question of time.”

“I’ll never be converted to Grit politics.”

“No, but you’ll be converted to me,” he told her, and drew her nearer. “I’m going now, Dora. I dare say I shouldn’t have come. Every minute counts to-day. Good-bye.”

She could not withhold her face from his asking lips, and he had bent to take his privilege when a step in the hall threatened and divided them.

“It’s only Mr. Hesketh going upstairs,” said Dora, with relief. “I thought it was father. Oh, Lorne – fly!”

“Hesketh!” Young Murchison’s face clouded. “Is he working for Winter, too?”

“Lorne! What a thing to ask when you know he believes in your ideas. But he’s a Conservative at home, you see, so he says he’s in an awkward position, and he has been taking perfectly neutral ground lately. He hasn’t a vote, anyway.”

“No,” said Lorne. “He’s of no consequence.”

The familiar easy step in the house of his beloved, the house he was being entreated to leave with all speed, struck upon his heart and his nerves. She, with her dull surface to the more delicate vibrations of things, failed to perceive this, or perhaps she would have thought it worth while to find some word to bring back his peace. She disliked seeing people unhappy. When she was five years old and her kitten broke its leg, she had given it to a servant to drown.

He took his hat, making no further attempt to caress her, and opened the door. “I hope you
will win
, Lorne,” she said, half resentfully, and he, with forced cheerfulness, replied, “Oh, we’ll have a shot at it.” Then with a little silent nod at her, which, notwithstanding her provocations, conveyed his love and trust, he went out into the struggle of the day.

In spite of Squire Ormiston’s confident prediction, it was known that the fight would be hottest, among the townships,
in Moneida Reservation. Elgin itself, of course, would lead the van for excitement, would be the real theatre for the arts of practical politics; but things would be pretty warm in Moneida, too. It was for that reason that Bingham and the rest strongly advised Lorne not to spend too much of the day in the town, but to get out to Moneida early, and drive around with Ormiston – stick to him like a fly to poison-paper.

“You leave Elgin to your friends,” said Bingham. “Just show your face here and there wearing a smile of triumph, to encourage the crowd; but don’t worry about the details – we’ll attend to them.”

“We can’t have him upsettin’ his own election by any interference with the boys,” said Bingham to Horace Williams. “He’s got too long a nose for all kinds of things to be comfortable in town to-day. He’ll do a great deal less harm trotting round the Reserve braced up against old Ormiston.”

So Elgin was left to the capable hands of the boys, for the furtherance of the Liberal interest and the sacred cause of imperialism. Mr. Farquharson, whose experience was longer and whose nose presumably shorter than the candidate’s, never abandoned the Town Ward. Bingham skirmished between the polling-booths and the committee-room. Horace Williams was out all day – Rawlins edited the paper. The returns wouldn’t be ready in time for anything but an extra anyhow, and the “Stand to Arms, South Fox,” leader had been written two days ago. The rest was millinery, or might be for all anybody would read it. The other side had a better idea of the value of their candidate than to send him into the country. Walter Winter remained where he was most effective and most at home. He had a neat little livery outfit, and he seemed to spend the whole day in it accompanied by intimate personal friends who had never spoken to him, much less driven with him, before.
Two or three strangers arrived the previous night at the leading hotels. Their business was various, but they had one point in common: they were very solicitous about their personal luggage. I should be sorry to assign their politics, and none of them seemed to know much about the merits of the candidates, so they are not perhaps very pertinent, except for the curiosity shown by the public at the spectacle of gentlemen carrying their own bags when there were porters to do it.

It was a day long remembered and long quoted. The weather was spring-like, sun after a week’s thaw; it was pleasant to be abroad in the relaxed air and the drying streets, that here and there sent up threads of steam after the winter house-cleaning of their wooden sidewalks. Voting was a privilege never unappreciated in Elgin; and today the weather brought out every soul to the polls; the ladies of his family waiting, in many instances, on the verandah, with shawls over their heads, to hear the report of how the fight was going. Abby saw Dr. Harry back in his consulting-room, and Dr. Henry safely off to vote, and then took the two children and went over to her father’s house because she simply could not endure the suspense anywhere else. The adventurous Stella picketed herself at a corner near the empty grocery which served as a polling-booth for Subdivision Eleven, one of the most doubtful, but was forced to retire at the sight of the first carryall full of men from the Milburn Boiler Company flaunting a banner inscribed “We are Solid for W.W.” Met in the hall by her sister, she protested that she hadn’t cried till she got inside the gate, anyhow. Abby lectured her soundly on her want of proper pride: she was much too big a girl to be “seen around” on a day when her brother was “running,” if it were only for school trustee. The other ladies of the family, having acquired proper pride, kept in the back of the house so as not to be tempted
to look out of the front windows. Mrs. Murchison assumed a stoical demeanour and made a pudding; though there was no reason to help Eliza, who was sufficiently lacking in proper pride to ask the milkman whether Mr. Lorne wasn’t sure to be elected down there now. The milkman said he guessed the best man ’ud get in, but in a manner which roused general suspicion as to which he had himself favoured.

“We’ll finish the month,” said Mrs. Murchison, “and then not another quart do we take from
him
– a gentleman that’s so uncertain when he’s asked a simple question.”

The butcher came, and brought a jovial report without being asked for it; said he was the first man to hand in a paper at his place, but they were piling up there in great shape for Mr. Murchison when he left.

“If he gets in, he gets in,” said Mrs. Murchison. “And if he doesn’t it won’t be because of not deserving to. Those were real nice cutlets yesterday, Mr. Price, and you had better send us a sirloin for to-morrow, about six pounds; but it doesn’t matter to an ounce. And you can save us sweetbreads for Sunday; I like yours better than Luff’s.”

John Murchison, Alec, and Oliver came shortly up to dinner, bringing stirring tales from the field. There was the personator in Subdivision Six of a dead man – a dead Grit – wanted by the bloodhounds of the other side and tracked to the Reform committee-room, where he was ostensibly and publicly taking refuge.

“Why did he go there?” asked Stella, breathlessly.

“Why, to make it look like a put-up job of ours, of course,” said her brother. “And it was a put-up job, a good old Tory fake. But they didn’t calculate on Bingham and Bingham’s memory. Bingham happened to be in the committee-room, and he recognized this fellow for a regular political tough from
up Muskoka way, where they get six for a bottle of Canadian and ten if it’s Scotch. ‘Why, good morning,’ says Bingham, ‘thought you were in jail,’ and just then he catches sight of a couple of trailers of Winter’s from the window. Well, Bingham isn’t just lightning smart, but then he isn’t
slow
, you know. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘you can’t stop here,’ and in another second he was throwing the fellow out. Threw him out pretty hard, too, I guess; right down the stairs, and Bingham on top. Met Winter’s men at the door. ‘The next time you want information from the headquarters of this association, gentlemen,’ Bingham said, ‘send somebody respectable.’ Bingham thought the man was just any kind of low spy at first, but when they claimed him for personation, Bingham just laughed. ‘Don’t be so hard on your friends,’ he said. I don’t think we’ll hear much more about that little racket.”