How
One of The Poet’s dreams came true
I
knew how this dream came true, at least in part,
for we live our dreams mostly in the spirit and
seldom realize them from a worldly standpoint.
I went with my father on his third tour to England
and Scotland. I was very young and inexperienced
in those days, so I hope I may be forgiven for
quoting the letters I wrote to my mother at the
time, for sometimes things are better told through
the medium of a fresh and impressionable mind.
It was the great dream of my father’s life to
go and live in England, and be so situated there
that he could in some way be of use to the mother
country. Consequently he was always imagining
some sort of means by which this might be accomplished.
Some times, he would go back to the church and
talk to the people from the pulpit, again he would
run for Parliament and help his country that way,
but neither seemed quite up to his ideal, which
was a joint rule of the country by church and
state. These were all dreams of a visionary world,
but in them the poet lived and never gave up his
hope. For the people whom he considered were traitors
to their country he had no use what ever.
So
you see when we sailed, my father and I, down
the St. Lawrence to the sea on that wonderful
day in June, it was with a great shining hope
in our hearts. The poet thought that the world,
especially Britain, still held people such as
the ancient heroes of old who had lived and died
for their country. To get in touch with these
was the first step, and he was well armed with
letters of introduction to people of power in
the church and state. In a great many ways he
was not disappointed in his people and though
there never seemed to be a practical solution
to his ideas, there was always the hope that the
future might provide one. Thus the poet lived
in his faith and vision.
On
the 7th. of June 1906 we sailed on the "Virginian"
of the Old Allan Line and in those days she was
considered quite a fine ship. I shall never forget
my first sight of the St. Lawrence river as we
travelled down it to the sea. The weather was
so fine that we were able to appreciate it in
all its beauty and grandeur. My father was as
happy as a boy in his enjoyment of it all under
such cosy circumstances. The ship was a most wonderful
experience to me, for I had never been on one
before. When I descended to my state-room, which
was down below deck, I had the most extraordinary
feeling of being caged in the heart of the earth,
and the rumblings of the ship’s engines were the
throbbings of her interior.
There
were two other people from Ottawa on board, The
Rev. Mr. and Mrs. MacKay. Mr. MacKay was so bright
and amusing. My poor father was dreadfully seasick,
and would not stay inside but paced the deck with
his face buried in his cap and turned up coat
collar. As the poet passed us sitting in our chairs
Mr. MacKay called out "Stay, poet, stay and
tarry here awhile" as he scribbled it on
the back of his wife’s novel that she was reading.
He made the poet answer (who really ignored him)
["]I can’t, I can’t, I must away and do another
mile.["] It was amazing how quickly my father
recovered, and made so many friends on the boat.
He had such a good colour after, and looked so
young that we were taken for brother and sister
at times.
Here
are some extracts from a letter I wrote to my
mother from the ship and others written later:—
"We
have an exceptionally nice passenger list, and
the Montreal people are charming, especially
Lady Drummond. She is extremely kind, in fact
so much so that her maid Margaret seems to think
everybody is imposing on her and walks up and
down keeping one eye on Lady Drummond’s unoccupied
deck chair. As Lady Drummond is not very well
she does not appear on deck very often, but
if anyone dare to make use of her chair, they
are immediately dethroned by the watchful Margaret
announcing, "That is Lady Drummond’s chair."
London
June
15th./06.
"Dear
Mamma:–
Liverpool appeared
gradually through a dirty fog, on a dull damp
morning about eight o’clock, and we were feeling
rather sad at parting with our friends on the
ship, but I could not help seeing as I knew
papa did too, through and beyond that fog to
a London bathed in a glory of things to be.
Some people would say we had on our rose tinted
glasses. I was quite ill on Saturday and Sunday
and papa was ill from Saturday till Tuesday,
but we had a perfectly splendid time just the
same. The Montreal people were so nice. Lady
Drummond with her sister Miss Parker and Mr.
Robertson Dean Moyse his wife and son, Mr. and
Mrs. Charles Handyside and their daughter. Lady
Drummond introduced herself and said she had
special recommendations of papa from Lord Grey.
Dean Moyse is a professor at McGill. Papa took
quite a fancy to him. He and papa walked up
and down the decks arguing and discussing things.
You would hear their voices quite distinctly
as they paced up and down. Dean Moyes is a fine
looking man, and he wore a tweed cap with ear
flaps that hung loose and fluttered in the wind
in a most amusing fashion.
Madam
Albani the singer was on board too with Mr.
Archdeacon, but she only appeared the last two
days before we got to Liverpool. She asked me
to spend a Sunday with her at her London house.
We arrived in Liverpool this morning, and came
ashore at 8:30. There was a special train to
London for the passengers from the Virginian.
I was sorry to say my good-bye to Lady Drummond
and I do so hope I shall see her again. There
are times in our lives when we meet people who
draw us like rays of sunshine, in whose presence
we feel a warm and happy glow; people who understand
and sympathise, who have such a curve to their
lips, and a smile about their eyes that denotes
the possibility of a laugh so brave, true and
tender, that in it we hear a call to God for
Mercy on those who have no vision to see the
quaint humour of things and have false values
of life. Lady Drummond is like that only I am
not sure about her always seeing the humour
in things.
The Hon. Colin
Campbell and his wife from Winnipeg shared our
compartment to London, and told us of some good
lodgings to go to near the station. I shall
never forget the noise and bustle of Euston
station with its rattle of milk cans, the rumblings
and whistleings of trains, and its general commotion."
([A]fter
all these years I just have to close my eyes
and I am back there again full of excitement,
wondering what will happen at the end of our next
journey[.])
I
remember that boarding house in Upper Woburne
Place, Tavistock Square, quite well. Twenty two
years have probably made great changes there,
but it was my first impression of London and its
people. I have been in various other London lodgings
since, where one was much more luxurious and private,
and never knew necessarily who dwelt there besides
oneself, but none of them had the same distinct
English tone, or that air of genteel poverty about
them. After two days at Mrs. C’s one knew everybody,
and eventually their history. She only had a few
boarders, and they were permanent Londoners mostly,
not tourists like ourselves. We all ate at one
large table in the dining-room, and had coffee
upstairs in the drawing-room after. Mrs. C. was
a clergyman’s widow, and she and her daughter
were trying to eke out their existence by running
this London boarding house. They were rather more
like caricatures of the Dickens type, than every
day mortals. Mrs. C. was round and fat, and the
daughter was tall and thin with a pinched look
and spectacles on the end of her red nose. One
evening after dinner one of the boarders, a young
woman with a sad face, sang for us. She had a
beautiful voice, and this was a sort of farewell
party, for she was leaving the next day. We were
told afterwards that hers was one of those sad
cases, where she was the great hope of the family
who thought she would one day be a prima donna,
and had spent all their money in sending her abroad
to study. Alas, even though she had a lovely voice,
it was not sufficient for those engagements by
which she had hoped to repay her benefactors.
She had come all the way from the Southern States.
This was told to us by one of the other lodgers,
an elderly lady who had a weak looking son living
there with her. He was a clerk somewhere in the
city, and his mother was so hoping that somebody
would give him a lift, that he would never get
by his own efforts. All this was hinted at to
my father in case he knew anybody of influence
who might be persuaded to help the young man.
She was a widow who had seen better days, poor
dear.
My
father had an idea of studying the people, and
one night we walked up and down one of those streets
where there are fruit stalls, pedlars and street
artists who draw wonderful pictures on the pavement.
We stopped to talk to some of them. I remember
one Russian girl particularly telling us how she
came to be in London. The pedlars were trying
to sell roasted peanuts, shoe-laces, and every
conceivable thing under the sun to people there
under the gaslight. It was most interesting, and
must have made my father feel that he would like
to go farther afield, for the next night he announced
that he was going to Petticoat Lane, but had better
not take me. There was always a light supper of
biscuits and cheese laid on the dining-room table
for anybody who was hungry before retiring. My
father had been gone sometime, the evening post
had arrived, and I was in the dining-room eating
biscuits, when the door bell rang. I heard a man’s
voice in the hall ask for Miss Campbell, then
the maid told me that there was a man who wanted
to see me. We had only been in London a few days,
and so far had not communicated with any of our
friends, so it could be no one I knew. I was frightened
before I went into the hall, but when the man
told me he was from the police station and wanted
me to go and identify my father, who was there
I was terrified. I had been warned not to go anywhere
or have anything to do with strange men so I refused
to go, and showed him letters on the table addressed
to my father to prove his identity. By this time
the landlady was in the hall, she had heard our
voices, and the man retired expostulating. After
a time a very much shaken and unnerved poet returned
quite cured of slumming. It seemed that when he
arrived in the dreadful district and started talking
to the people and asking questions, some of the
men became suspicious and then nasty and crowded
round him. My father was frightened and started
to run and was chased,—hence the policeman and
the police station, where he was asked for his
story. |
