The Imperialist

and it was only the children, perhaps, who had the time and the inclination to speculate. Her occupation was clear; she presided like a venerable stooping hawk, over a stall in the co

s it were, your weapons, paying your copper coins with a neutral nervous eye, and made off to a safe distance, whence you turned to shout insultingly, if you were an untrounced young male of Elgin, "Old Mother Beggarlegs! Old Mother Beggarlegs!" And why "Beggarlegs" nobody in the world could tell you. It might have been a dateless waggery, or it might have been a corruption of some more dignified surname, but it was all she ever got. Serious, meticulous persons called her "Mrs" Beggarlegs, slightly lowering their voices and slurring it, however, it must be admitted. The name invested her with a graceless, anatomical interest, it penetrated her wizened black and derisively exposed her; her name went far indeed to make her dramatic. Lorne Murchison, when he was quite a little boy was affected by this and by the unfairness of the way it singled her out. Moved partly by the oppression of the feeling and partly by a desire for informa

person to be reckoned with on the twenty-fourth of May. I will say at once, for the reminder to persons living in England that the t

ty-fourt

ueen's B

't give us

all ru

endidly with rockets and fire-balloons and drunken Indians vociferous on their way to the lock-up. Such a day for the hotels, with teams hitched three abreast in front of their aromatic barrooms; such a day for the circus, with half the farmers of Fox County agape before the posters-with all their chic and shock they cannot produce such posters nowadays, nor are there any vacant lots to form attractive backgrounds-such a day for Mother Beggarlegs! The hotels, and the shops and stalls for eating and drinking, were the only places in which business was done; the public sentiment put universal shutters up, but the public appetite insisted upon excepting the means to carnival. An air of ceremonial festivity those fastened shutters gave; the sunny little town sat round them, important and significant, and nobody was ever known to forget that they were up, and go on a fool's errand. No doubt they had an impressiveness for the young countryfolk that strolled up and down Main Street in their honest best, turning into Snow's for ice-cream when a youth was disposed to treat. (Gallantry exacted ten-cent dishes, but for young ladies alone, or family parties, Mrs Snow would bring five-cent quantities almost without asking, and for very small boys one dish and the requisite number of spoons.) There was discrimination, there was choice, in this matter of treating. A happy excitement accompanied it, which you could read in the way C

ent opportunity, a question usually decided in the negative. The social distinctions of Elgin may not be easily appreciated by people accustomed to the rough and ready standards of a world at the other end of the Grand Trunk; but it will be clear at a glance that nobody whose occupation prescribed a clean face could be expected to travel cheek by jowl, as a privilege, with persons who were habitually seen with smutty ones, barefaced smut, streaming out at the polite afternoon hour of six, jangling an empty dinner pail. So much we may decide, and

team, as well as that of small boys, with broken straw hats, who sneaked an entrance, and were more enthusiastic than anyone. It was "a quarter" to get in, so the spectators were naturally composed of persons who could afford the quarter, and persons like the young Flannigans and Finnigans, who absolutely couldn't, but who had to be there all

apt to find the ladies of Elgin where I am compelled to introduce Mrs Murchison-in the kitchen. "You'd better get up-the girl's gone," Lorne had stuck his head into his sister's room to announce, while yet the bells were ringing and the rifles of the local volunteers were spitting out the feu de joie. "I've lit the fire an' swep' out the dining-room. You tell mother. Queen's Birthday, too-I guess Lobelia's about as mean as they're made!" And the Murchisons had descended to face the situation. Lorne had by then done his part, and gone out into the chromatic possibilities of the day; but the sense of injury he had communicated to Advena in her bed remained and expanded. Lobelia, it was felt, had scurvily manipulated the situation-her situation, it might have been put, if any Murchison had been in the temper for jesting. She had taken unju

Y," said Advena. "She objects to rag c

ag carpet-sixty balls there were in it and every one I sewed with my own fingers-was the best I had for my spare room, with a bit of ingrain in the middle.

dvena agreed, "

d her strongly featured and intelligent for fourteen. Advena was named after one grandmother; when the next girl came Mrs Murchison, to make an end of the matter, named it Abigail, after the other. She thought both names outlandish and acted under protest, but hoped that now everybody would be satisfied. Lorne came after Advena, at the period of a naive fashion of christening the young sons of Canada in the name of her Governor-General. It was a simple way of attesting a loyal spirit, but with Mrs Murchison more particular motives operated. The Marquis of Lorne was not only the deputy of the throne, he was the son-in-law of a good woman of whom Mrs M

irl at last whom she could name without regard to her own relations or anybody else's. I have skipped about a good deal, but I have only left out two, the boys who came between Abby and Stella. In their names the contemporary observer need not be too acute to discover both an avowal and to some extent an enforcement of Mr Murchison's political views; neither an Alexander Mackenzie nor an Oliver Mowat could very well grow up into anything but a sound Liberal in that part of the world without feeling himself an unendurable paradox. To christen a baby like that was, in a manner, a challenge to public attention; the faint relaxat

ing but his rights. Only the woodpile, friendly mossy logs unsplit, stood inconscient and irresponsible for any share in his black circumstances; and his tears fell among the lichens of the stump he w

y with his pipe in the flickering May shadows under the golden pippin, reading the Toronto paper, could evade his liability in the matter was unfathomable to the Murchisons; it was certainly illiberal; they

himself ostentatiously upon a plate, standing

enty-five cents, an' a English sixpence, an' a Yankee nickel. An

llow unimpeded the trend of the Dominion's leading article. Oliver eyed

d Abby indignantly. "It

e butter bill's paid

l! Say, Father, ar

in took out his pipe, as if this were

can't do it under that," Oliver added firmly. "Cracke

r father disliked giving a plump refusal. "Nonsense" was easier to say, if not to hear than "No." Oliver considered for

" he said, "CASH DO

othing from me, for I haven't got it." So saying, he went through the kitchen with a step that forbade him to be followed. His eldest son, arriving over the backyard fence in a state of heat, was just in time

e Wanderers, that's all; an' Abe Mackinnon's mother said he

but you won't get money for the lacrosse match or anything else from your father today, I can assure you. Th

oward him. "I made thirty cents this morning, delivering papers for Fisher. His boy'

le and sobbed aloud. Lorne looked gloomily about him and went out. Making once more for the back fence, he encountered Alexander in the recognized family retreat. "Oh, my goodness!

cents, an' he says he'll join up. This family's

trative. They said nothing, but they got their h

producing a bunch of keys. "If you look in the right-hand corner of the top small drawer in my bureau you'll find about twenty