WESBLOCK
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN
AUTOMATON

All rights reserved

WESBLOCK
The Autobiography
of an
Automaton
By
Harry McDonald
Walters

LONDON AND TORONTO
J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED
1914

DEDICATED
TO
MY SONS
BY BIRTH, BY ADOPTION, AND
BY RIGHTS OF AFFECTION

PREFACE

This work is in the form of a book. Outwardly a book, it is not a book in the ordinary sense. It is only an artless yarn. Wesblock is a common type, and he writes himself down as he knows himself or thinks he knows himself. His tale is not thrilling, except in so far as the understanding reader can see that he escaped being one of the great army of the unfit by a very narrow margin. Wesblock has in fact written as much for himself as for you. His story is an attempt to take stock of himself, and to discover whether life as he has experienced it is really worth while. If the book helps one poor soul to find what Wesblock found—that it is really worth while—it will have fulfilled its mission.

What he has said of persons and things only expresses his own opinions. They may not appear true to you; but they were true to him according to his light. He preaches sometimes; but not at you—at himself.

You may know more about Wesblock and his kind than he does, if so you can make a great book from this yarn by adding what you think necessary and rejecting what you know to be incorrect. Whatever impression the story of Wesblock makes upon you is the impression intended to be made.

The great failure of Wesblock’s life was brought about by many causes, the first of them far back in the beginning of things. He learned to think and know too late to be of much use to himself or his immediate family, and this he tells you in his own way. You may know some of the people to whom he refers, and you may think he is not fair in some of his characterisations. He is, however, just as fair to others as he is to himself. Finally it may be as well to warn the Preface-reader that this is a story without a plot and without a hero.

WESBLOCK

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN AUTOMATON

CHAPTER I

In a little mean street, which ends at a steep hill running down to the river through the Quebec suburbs of Montreal, stood about fifty years ago a tiny old-fashioned church built entirely of wood after the dog-house style of architecture. So lacking in imagination were the builders of this place of prayer that they went no further than the name of the street for the name of the church. The church was gloomy and cheerless within and looked as if it were partitioned off for cattle. The pews were all very high, plain and closed with doors. A narrow little winding stair led to the pulpit, a high and massive affair overhung by a huge sounding board. A large cushion of faded red rep trimmed with coarse woollen fringe and tassels decorated the reading-desk, which was flanked by two pretentious lamps of hideous design in wrought iron. The place had the odour of a damp cellar, and the air of a religion, stern and unforgiving to the sinner, and not very promising to the saved.

The little street is not to be found now, while the little church is a wreck, and its remains are smothered by places of business. But in the early sixties it was a power among the plain, severe, hard-mouthed people who worshipped there an unforgiving God of wrath.

Nearly a year before I arrived on earth a marriage took place in this church between a boy and a girl. The boy was a lean, hatchet-faced youth with sharp eager blue eyes, set in a face marked already with experience of the world. He was dressed in decidedly foppish style, with a resplendent waistcoat and a collar of the old-fashioned “choker” type. His dress coat had brass buttons and very long tails, and his tight lavender trousers, matching in shade his kid gloves, were strapped down to the verge of splitting.

The little girl who was marrying the boy was a beautiful sad-eyed thing with rosy cheeks, a sensitive mouth and freckles on her nose. Her hands and feet were small and shapely. Her monstrously ugly clothes and extravagant hoops did not mar her appearance.

It was a very solemn function, this marriage; no music, no flowers, no guests; just a handful of the immediate relatives of the bride and groom. The father of the boy would almost have passed for the elder Weller; being a large, horsey-looking man, who might be otherwise characterised as an old buffer. The old buffer’s wife was a little prim woman dressed in grey.

The father of the bride was a military-looking man, tall and slim, with curly black hair; his wife a hook-nosed woman with a face like one of the old Spanish inquisitors.

The marriage being over, the small solemn crowd of wedding-guests drove away to a small sombre house in a highly respectable street, and made merry without the least appearance of joy.

If it is true that we human creatures are much affected by things that happen in the critical months before we come into the world, then the doings of the small house in that small Montreal street ought to be of some account in this chronicle. But since this is a true record, and I have no facts to go upon, I pass on now to the ordinary beginning of a boy’s life.

CHAPTER II

I arrived in the city of Montreal long before the time of telephones, electric street cars or automobiles. It was a dark morning in the month of January of the year One—I call it the year One because that is what it was to me.

Man cannot imagine eternity—Time that always was and always will be, without beginning or end. Hence the word Time to indicate the small measure of the infinite duration of eternity that insignificant man can grasp. The year 1913 in which I write means to most of us nothing more than the year following 1912, or so many years since a certain event vital to us. We can say “a thousand years ago” but only a very few are capable of conceiving such a period, and as for “world without end,” we cannot think it. For these reasons I say I arrived in the year One:—a wee, puny, unappreciable atom of a creature, weighing considerably under three pounds. Naked, wailing, hairless, incomplete even to the finger-tips, I was considered by the old women who hover about on these occasions as a distinct failure.

So small a specimen being difficult to adapt to the usual swaddling clothes, I was simply wrapped in cotton wool and put to bed in a cardboard box near the fire, without much hope or expectation on the part of my parents that I would survive.

At the time of my birth my father and mother were a most unsophisticated couple of very tender years, my mother being seventeen and my father nineteen. It is not clear to me even now how far my insignificant start in life under their charge was destined to affect my later career. But as I look back, it seems of a part with the whole course of petty circumstances that made me into an automaton.

Before I learnt to speak and began to think, I grew very much as other children do. From a comparatively formless lump of human clay, I developed into a sturdy, well-shaped chubby urchin. At four years of age I was considered worthy of having my photograph taken, and one of my first recollections is of that remarkable incident and the Scotch cap with silver buckle which I donned for the occasion. This brings me to the childish litany of “Why?” and “How?” so often heard during these early days. By this time I had already become dimly conscious that being alive was a great mystery. The “Why” and the “How” of it gave me indeed much thought. I had questions to put on the subject every day; but received very unsatisfactory answers from my parents. Other children, moreover, did not help me much; for they did not understand me.

The fact of my being born in the middle of winter may account for my loving that season beyond all others as a small boy. Winter was so different then from what it is now. The snow was not cleared away as soon as it fell but was allowed to accumulate till spring. It lay upon the sidewalks or was shovelled into the street until it was sometimes six or seven feet high. Huge mounds of it bordered every street, with passages cut in steps through the frozen barriers, here and there, to allow of the coming and going of the townsfolk. When walking on one side of the street you could not see the people on the other side, and the sleighs were on a road as high as a man’s head above the walk. The street cars were built on runners, and passed along any convenient street that offered a clear road. They were drawn by horses, an extra pair being stationed at the foot of every hill to help the car up the grade. The floors of these vehicles were carpeted with straw, and after dark they were lighted by small smoky oil-lamps.

The streets themselves were lighted by gas-lamps, and at dusk men with ladders could be seen running from one lamp-post to another, and climbing up to kindle a dim flame which only made the darkness less black. But to return to the snow-mountains, for so they seemed to me, children would dig wonderful houses and castles out of their dirty-white heaps. For other reasons I learnt to love the snow. I discovered that by climbing on top of a broad bank of it, where I could lie on my back and look at the sky, it was possible in that attitude to think wonderful things. One day, while sprawling in bliss on top of such a bank, and chewing a hole in one of the beautiful red mits knitted by my mother, I was surprised by a gentleman of an inquiring turn of mind who had spied me and climbed up after me.

“What are you doing there, my little man?” he asked.

“I’m dreaming,” I replied.

“Dreaming, about what?” he inquired.

“About being alive,” I answered. The man laughed.

“You can’t be dreaming about being alive,” he said; “you are alive.”

“Yes,” I said, “but why?”

“Good gracious child,” he exclaimed, reaching into his trouser pocket, “here is a penny for you, go and buy candy. No one can answer that question.”

At another time, after a dream on the snow, I ran into my mother and told her I had seen God. She was shocked, and even inclined to be angry. She threatened to whip me for telling her such a lie, but could not in reason do so, for my questions were too much for her.

“How do you know I did not see God?” I asked.

“Because no one can see Him,” she answered.

“Did any one ever see Him?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“How do you know?”

“We are told so in the Bible.”

“Who put it in the Bible?”

“Good men.”

“How do you know?”

“Oh, Jack, you are too young to understand. Go away and don’t tell lies; go and play!”

But I wanted sorely to understand this great matter. Whether I really believed that I had seen God, it would be hard to say. Either I deluded myself, as many imaginative and emotional children do, or half in innocence, half in childish slyness, laid a scheme to surprise my mother. For the mystery of my being continually teased me.

The question whence I had come was not to be set aside; and I cross-examined my mother about it frequently without getting much information. The only reply I got was that God had made me, which I understood as well then as I do now.

This question of mine, “How do you know?” became a byword in the family. Father thought it very amusing, and used it very much as an actor uses a bit of gag. It is a very disconcerting question when put earnestly.

Our family, I may explain, taken in all its branches, was a very large one, and of the common sort that would be called middle class in England. My father, who was the only son of my grandmother’s third husband, was a King to all the tribes,—to the grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, the various great aunts, and the one great-uncle and the one great-grandfather—who lived during my childhood. They all bowed down to him, and he dominated them, although by calling he was only a book-keeper in a wholesale grocery firm. My mother, let me add, was the eldest daughter of a Civil servant in the Montreal Post Office.

My seventh year is a very distinct memory, as a period of my life associated in my mind with very momentous happenings. Up to the age of seven I prospered in my health although I was never what is called robust. It was very nearly my last year, for fate, not satisfied with bringing a weakling into the world before its time, now visited me with scarlet fever and all the dreadful complications known to that disease. I lay for months in bed, part of the time delirious, and was reduced to a mere skeleton. I remember the sufferings of convalescence, but have no very distinct recollection of the actual illness, beyond the delirium it brought on, which left a curious impression on my mind. During its course I seemed to be two personalities, distinct but attached, one capable of observing the other. I strove and argued continually with myself, and again the great question of where I had come from haunted and worried me. Clearly I must have come from somewhere, and must also have had existence prior to my arrival; but where had I been? Nearly my whole delirium turned upon this question. “God made you,” I would say to myself; then I would scream aloud, “How do you know, how do you know?” repeating it over and over again consciously, but unable to stop and rest. I had read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and remembered that Topsy had wisely remarked, in reply to a similar question, “I specks I growed.” But the suspicion that I had grown was not satisfactory to me; I wanted to know. And here I may pause a moment to reflect that among my memories is none of learning to read. It seems to me that I always knew how. No doubt my mother taught me while I was still very young, using the newspaper as text-book. Before I was seven I had read many books, or mother had read them to me, for she was a very good reader and loved an understanding listener.

Scarlet fever was a very much more dreadful disease when I was a child than it is now-a-days. Not only have methods of treatment improved greatly, but the disease itself is not so deadly, or perhaps man’s resisting powers have increased. It is a pity that diseases like everything else do not grow old and weak and lose their power to destroy.

After I had been ill for several weeks a consultation of the doctors was held, and they declared solemnly that my recovery was impossible, since with every organ diseased or weakened I could not live. In any case it hardly seemed worth while to live, for I was both deaf and dumb. However there must have been within me some great vital power of resistance that the doctors did not know about, seeing that I finally made a kind of recovery, and persisted on my precarious way.

Trained nurses were not common in those days. I probably should have died if they had been. Only the great love of a mother can give the nursing that I received. Surely many times she must have wished that death would end the horrible struggle, but still she fought for me and hoped.

I was naturally of a tender, clinging and dependent character, and my illness certainly intensified those unfortunate characteristics. As I recovered, mother taught me things. I could not hear or speak; but I could see and use my hands, and she taught me to knit and tat and crotchet. These small and much despised things, I believe, helped to save my life. If I had been forced to lie idle amidst the great silence of deafness, unable to speak, I surely would have died of mental inanition. Using my hands renewed my interest in life. Speech at last came slowly back, hearing to some extent, and for the second time in my life I learned to walk.

I can see myself now as I struggled up on my poor shaky pins. How I sweated and trembled. How proud I was! I was exultant because I could stand up. I felt as though I were some wild and blood-thirsty barbarian who had slain a powerful enemy by a great feat of strength. I stood up on my own legs, every nerve atingle, every muscle trying to do its office. I held on to chairs and tables while the moisture fairly trickled down my face, and even the backs of my hands were wet. “Ah ha!” I said to myself, “I knew I could do it.”

I made an effort to walk from one chair to another, only a couple of steps, and fell prone upon my face. It was a disaster, a great failure. I was heart-broken and burst into a violent fit of crying, refusing to be comforted. This little scene broke my mother down. I had never seen her weep when I was fighting the scarlet fever. Now we wept together.

My mother at this time was twenty-four years of age. She was very beautiful. Her hair, which she wore severely plain, was black as jet. Her cheeks were pink, and soft and velvety to the touch; on one of them she had a mole. Her eyes were dark and deep set, with dark shadows under them. Her expression was sad, sweet and full of love; her smile pleasant but wistful. She had a great heart, but not much mind of her own, being completely dominated by my father, whom she worshipped with a foolish worship.

There was a kind of tacit conspiracy between my mother and me against my father. He expected to have his own way in all things; but in a great many cases he only thought he had it.

When I recovered from the scarlet fever, our fortunes took a turn for the better. Father became a partner in the firm for whom he had worked since his thirteenth year. We moved from our middle-class environment into a new house that he had bought in a better neighbourhood. We kept a horse, too, which afforded mother and me a great deal of pleasure.

My father’s name was John H. Wesblock. He came, as I have already hinted, of a long, unillustrious line; and while his name and many of his peculiarities became mine, I have added no lustre to the commonplace stock from which we both sprang.

The personality of my father was peculiar. He was a curious mixture of good and evil. As he was an Englishman, of course he thought there was only one person in the house of any consequence, and that person the head of the family—himself. He had wonderful powers in some directions, and was very weak in others. He was very self-opinionated, and had an uncertain temper which broke out on slight provocation. I can hardly say that I remember him at that time with great affection. I feared him without respecting him. His vanity was abnormal. His dress was showy and extravagant and he loved display of a kind that did not cause him any great effort or trouble. He always looked so well dressed that he appeared altogether too new. He wore a low-cut dress waistcoat showing a vast expanse of white shirt front, a frock-coat with ample skirt, light trousers, generally lavender or pale tan, and white gaiters over exceptional shoes. His feet and hands were very small.

He was a prosperous self-made business man with great ambition, but love of luxury sapped his energy and he never arrived. Both he and mother were very religious in the old early Victorian way which I always thought did not tend to make our home happy and cheerful, in fact I have seldom seen an extremely religious home which was a happy one.

I was a sad disappointment to father. He despised my puny body, but I generally over-reached him when it came to a contest between my desires and his wishes, for I was endowed, as many physical weaklings are, with a deep and skilful cunning. Like most cunning people I was a brilliant liar. I lied in self-defence and for advantage, as many common liars do, but besides this I loved to elaborate facts, and laid many traps to gain my little ends through playing on my father’s weaknesses. If I were to classify liars I would divide them into Moral Liars, Fancy Liars, Slovenly Liars and Immoral Liars.—The Moral Liar is one who never lies for wickedness but only for utility and to gain good ends. The Fancy Liar is one with an imagination so lively that the embellishment of facts is something he cannot resist. The Slovenly Liar is one who is too lazy to observe, so lies to save trouble. The Immoral Liar is one who backs up wicked designs, scandal and libel with lies. I was none of these but was in a class by myself. I was better than some liars and worse than others.

My father had a friend he called Eddy who was a typical specimen of the fancy liar. I found him very entertaining. I calculated from the personal experiences he related that Eddy must have been about one hundred and six years old although he looked younger than father. He had played marbles with several of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and related experiences of that day—political, social, scientific and sporting—wherein he had personally figured. He had studied for the bar, the ministry and the army. He was a mechanic and a hunter; had run a marine engine and hanged greasers in Mexico and Indians in Arizona, lassoed wild horses on the Prairies and dug gold in California. An anachronism here and there did not trouble him in the slightest.

When I began to get about after my illness I found myself dull and listless; I wanted nothing but peace, and hated all physical effort. As there was no promise of my ever developing sufficient energy to make myself, the delicate and complicated operation of making me was left to tutors, parsons, teachers and the like. I was carefully and expensively educated, much against my will; for I most heartily hated every teacher I ever had, especially those who were parsons.

When I look back over those years during which I passed through many forming hands, I find that it was not so much the teachers whom I hated, but their methods. No one of them ever aroused in me the interest and love of acquiring knowledge which I long afterwards developed in myself. The same fatal failing still exists among teachers. It is but rarely that a teacher can be found who has the teaching faculty born in him and the power to present knowledge to the young in an attractive form. In fact, it appears to be the aim of most educational institutions to make learning as unattractive as possible, and in this they succeed gloriously, especially in denominational schools.

I was a delicate and dreamy boy, and was having great trouble with my ears, consequently my education was frequently interrupted by sickness, and even when comparatively well it was necessary to keep me continually interested or I would fall asleep. I was tired for nearly fifteen years, and until I was of age never enjoyed six consecutive months of even fair health. Meanwhile a small brother had arrived on the scene, who brought new life into the house. He was destined, as you shall hear, very few years.

As everything appertaining to my father had to be a credit to him, strenuous efforts were made to bring me up to the standard; but from the start I was a failure both physically and mentally. I was educated one way and another; system could not be applied to me. Schools made but little impression on me, with the exception of one particular boarding school, kept by a Church of England parson in a small village not far from Montreal. This parson, Canon Barr, was a crude, rough, wicked, ignorant, self-opinionated, hypocritical old man, more farmer than parson. His only aim seemed to be to make as much out of his boys as possible with the least trouble. He thrashed me cruelly on the slightest pretext, in fact he thrashed everybody in the school and on his farm; the boys, his sons and daughters, the servants, his horses and his dogs. I am not aware that he thrashed his wife, but as I have seen him beat a horse in the face with his fists, and kick it in the stomach with his long boots, it is highly probable that he laid violent hands on his wife. The Canon was a tall, lanky, rawboned individual with prominent nose and chin, and small eyes set very close together. He suffered from some skin disease that made his complexion scaly and blotchy. This affliction, no doubt, affected his temper, for I noticed that when the disfiguring blotches were fiery looking, he was particularly touchy. As he sat at his desk in class-room, he was always pawing his bald head with a large bony hand, probing his ear with a lead pencil or pen handle, or investigating his nose. His black waistcoat, which buttoned behind, was always decorated with spots, and his odour was that of a stableman. His voice was harsh and loud, except when speaking from the pulpit; then he subdued it to a monotonous sing-song drone involving four semitones in a chromatic scale; the kind of noise the bass string of a ’cello will make if it is plucked while the peg is turned up and let down again. I never saw him laugh heartily, but a joyless grin disclosing large yellow teeth sometimes wrinkled his displeasing face; and this generally occurred just before some one was beaten.

The Canon had a balky horse with a hairless tail which he really appeared to delight in belabouring. On one occasion his little daughter Mabel and several of the school boys were present while he thrashed this horse without mercy. The horse was harnessed to a heavily ladened stone-boat so that he could not bolt. Mabel screamed a little weak “Oh!”

“Go into the house, daughter,” said the Canon.

“But father,” she began. She got no further when slash came the whip about her poor little legs.

“Into the house,” the Canon shouted. A boy standing by with every expression of rooted horror upon his face was suddenly discovered.

“What are you gaping at, you silly little ass?” said the old man. At the same instant he struck him on the side of the head with his open hand a blow which nearly felled him. I was the stricken boy.

The rod was never spared in this school, with the result that every one lied and deceived systematically.

Sundays under the Canon were a horror. We rose at eight o’clock and went to prayers before breakfast. After breakfast we had time to dress and to go to Bible-class. Bible-class ended just in time for church, and immediately after church we dined. The Canon offered up a particularly long blessing before Sunday dinner. It always spoiled what little appetite I had. His voice at any time was not a pleasant one, but his hypocritical Sunday tone was exasperating. After dinner we sat in the schoolroom and studied the lesson and collect for the day. At three we went to Sunday School, which lasted till nearly five. From five to six we walked with a teacher—a pusillanimous wretch without a soul. We had tea at six and went to church at seven. I doubt if a more perfect programme could be elaborated for the purpose of disgusting children with religion.

The Canon’s favourite hymn was “Abide with me.” Perhaps he was aware that the more foolish parents there were who would send poor, helpless children to abide with him the more satisfying would be his income.

It is not surprising that I heartily hated Church and all it implied; with a very special hatred for “Abide with me,” in which I had been forced to lift up my voice hundreds of times before I was fifteen years old.

I was so unhappy in the house of Canon Barr that I decided I must leave or die; it did not matter which. To effect my release I pretended to have gone violently insane. It is not certain if I deceived the Canon, but I think I did. When the foolish idea first came to me, I did not realise what a strain acting the madman would be, or how I could make an end of the comedy. I just played my little part and trusted to luck.

I started moderately by doing foolish things, grinning at every one one minute and being cross the next; striking and slapping all who approached me. This brought the Canon down on me with his favourite implement of torture—a nice, smooth flour barrel stave with a handle whittled at one end. He thought it was a case of ordinary rebellion. But one blow from the barrel stave was enough for me; and its effect, I fancy, startled the old brute. I flew at him like a wild cat, kicked his shins, bit him on the hand and on the calf of his leg, and tore his gown to ribbons. Of course I was no match for the Canon and his barrel stave, and received unmerciful punishment; but I played the game, throwing ink bottles, rulers, books, anything that came to hand, in the old fellow’s face, and overturning desks and chairs like a maniac. He called on the boys for assistance. I brandished a ruler and threatened dire vengeance in a loud hysterical voice against any one who dared approach me, and the boys held back. I was not subdued till the hired man came to the rescue, and bundled me into my room and locked me up. There I continued to howl aloud, and destroy every breakable thing. When I had screamed myself hoarse and was tired out I lay down on my bed and cried till I fell asleep. When I awoke it was nearly dark. There were people in the room, so I remained quiet with closed eyes to discover if any conversation would give me a cue for my next move in the drama. I was rewarded for my cunning by hearing the voice of the village doctor telling the Canon to keep me very quiet and to send for my parents. In a minute they withdrew, and presently a lamp and my supper were brought me by a very nervous maid.

The next day I was in a raging fever. My mother arrived in the evening and to her I confessed. I was forgiven, taken home, and not sent to another boarding school.

Sending children to boarding schools is an admission of incapacity made by a great many parents who are too lazy or ignorant to superintend the early years of a child’s up-bringing; or else it is done in vanity as the proper thing.

There are possibly good boarding schools where children are better than they would be at home, but I never knew one. The only good reason for sending the young to be cared for by strangers is when the home for some reason is not a fit place. No doubt a good boarding school is better than a bad home; but no boarding school is as good as a good home and wise parents. Girls brought up in fashionable schools are notoriously ignorant and useless.

One pleasant memory remains to me of the Canon’s school. It is that of a little girl with blue eyes, golden hair, red pouty lips and blunt nose. She was a day scholar from the village, where her father kept a general store. I never had much opportunity to speak to her, and she was very shy when I did; yet it was a pleasure just to look at her. When the Canon frightened her by shouting and pounding his desk with his large hard hand I was maddened to the fury point. She was a gentle little creature, truthful, believing and good-hearted; a thing so little understood by the Canon that he called her “Little Blockhead.” When I was robbed of my meals, which frequently happened as punishment for some fault, “Little Blockhead” would bring me biscuits on the sly. Whether the Canon made me forego meals wholly as a punishment for my misdeeds, or partly in delight to torture me and save victuals, I cannot say. But for whatever cause it was, I really did not mind it, and sometimes even looked forward to it so that “Little Blockhead” could feed me from her pocket.

During the miserable days at the Canon’s my little brother died suddenly without giving me a last sweet hug and kiss. He was ten years younger than me to a day, having been born on my tenth birthday. This was the first real sorrow to leave its mark upon me. I loved that brother more than anything or anybody. I had taught him his first words, mended his playthings, and been his play-horse, his cow, his dog—anything he desired me to be. When I was at home, it was to me he always came first thing in the early morning, crawling into my bed to start the day’s play, and every word of his lisping, indistinct prattle stuck in my mind.

I was brought home by an old friend of my father’s, who came for me with the message that my little brother was seriously ill. On looking into the old man’s face, I was not deceived, and knew at once that my little friend was dead. But I said nothing. I did not weep or wail. I could not.

When we were seated beside each other on the train, and I said to him, “Chuckie is dead!” he did not reply. He merely nodded his head, and I rode silently home without a word or a tear. I wished to weep, but could not. Even when I arrived home and my mother kissed me I remained dry-eyed, but my misery was very real. It hurt me so much my breath came short and painful.

Then we went through the ghastly meaningless mummery and pomp of the funeral. Even then I disliked our foolish display in burying our dead. Since that day I have buried my own dead; but it was always done silently, privately, quickly, without display, without pomp and without advertisement. To me death is a thing to be put behind you. When loved ones die, there is nothing to be done or said. It is over. First bury them, then get occupied with the affairs of the living, being careful in your conduct that you make as few mistakes as may be; so that when another goes away you may have no memories of actions or words to cause self-reproach.

I had no remorse for any unkindness to my baby brother; for I had always loved him much, even from the time when he had newly arrived; a helpless, unseeing, unthinking bit of life. I like to dwell on this, for it is at least one instance where humanly I did my whole duty. My duty to him was such a simple uncomplicated thing—just to love him and be kind. As I grew up I found duty rather a difficult and complicated thing to see and do.

Other deaths happened as they must in a large family. In quick succession several of our older relatives died. In those young days I never felt very keenly the loss of old people. It seemed so natural for the aged to die that I took it as a matter of course. I do not know that I have changed much in this respect even now, especially when people are both old and useless.

I lost my paternal grandparents, and my great-grandfather about this time. I felt a genuine sorrow about grandfather’s death because he was a dear old chap—hale, hearty, and jovial. He was suddenly, and it may seem ruthlessly, killed by having his head crushed by a runaway horse; but sudden death is not, despite the Prayer Book, the worst kind of exit. He was a most cheerful old optimist, caring nothing for the day after to-morrow, or any other day but the one he was living; and his end was in keeping with his life. He was a third husband of my grandmother, who had been a very beautiful Quakeress, and my father was their only son.

CHAPTER III

Both my grandmothers were very religious, one more ostentatiously than the other. When a young child I distinguished them by calling one the grandmother who said prayers, and the other the grandmother who made cakes. I had a strong preference for the one who made cakes. Her plain fruit cake, undefiled by messy icing of chocolate or sugar, was a production worthy of remembrance.

My great-grandfather was to me just an old man, very old and blind, who sat by the fire all day long, and spoke little, and then in a harsh cold voice, with a strong Scotch accent. He lived in a large house on a dingy, but a highly respectable street, with four old daughters and one son, who I discovered did not love him very much.

Visiting my great-grandfather’s house was like passing suddenly into old-fashioned long-passed times. My ancient great-aunts were very prim and very properly made-up ladies, looking as much alike and as smooth and shiny as four silk hats just out of bandboxes.

“Here’s Jack,” Aunt Elizabeth would say when I arrived, and I would be gently pushed towards my great-grandfather who sat in the hall in a big high-backed arm-chair, combing his long white beard with his fingers. “Weel, laddie?” the old fellow would growl, and he would reach out to feel me and pat my head with his large hand.

My great-aunts were very proud of their descent, which they claimed from the Duke of Argyle. I never was interested enough to ask how far they had descended from the noble duke. They helped out a meagre fortune by keeping a genteel dressmaking establishment patronised by a few select people. In their house I played Blind Man’s Buff, Puss in the Corner, and other dead and gone games; drank raspberry vinegar and ate plum cake.

My great-uncle was a curiosity. He did not drink, smoke nor work. He was a little wizened, dried-up fellow with a much wrinkled face the colour of a potato. He lived on his sisters, who made everything he wore but his hat and boots, and his clothes were certainly remarkable.

After his death I heard my father say to some card-playing cronies, “We planted Uncle Allan to-day.” Everybody laughed, but I thought it was hard-hearted. Nothing about my great-uncle seemed, however, to matter, or to be serious, not even his death. He inspired neither dislike nor fondness. He was just one of those who do not count—a human vegetable.

A pack of cards was a thing never seen in the houses of my great-grandfather or either of my grandmothers, but in our house they were the main source of amusement. Father could not see the harm in cards that the older branches of our family saw. My earliest memories are associated with cards. Father played nearly nightly except on Sundays. Every one who came to our house was a card-player. The neighbours with whom we associated were card players. Possibly cards are a safe amusement for a certain type of character. They are like everything else—used with discretion they are good; without discretion, and in league with drink and gambling, they are bad.

Thus it came about quite naturally that while still young I learned many games of cards. If father and I were left alone together of an evening we played cribbage. If we were three—mother, he and I—we played bezique. If we were four it was whist. If others dropped in, or were invited, we played draw-poker for a small stake. Draw-poker never got disreputable or blood-thirsty in our house, as a very low stake was the rule.

Through cards I came to distrust my father’s judgment. He played games of cards the way he felt, sometimes playing with rare skill, at other times madly and feverishly, without thought or judgment. He was a man of impulse. If I had wholly distrusted his wisdom, instead of allowing myself to be dominated by his high-handedness, his life and mine might have been very different. But I was brought up in the days when authority of whatever kind was worshipped. To-day authority must “show cause.” I see now that my father played the game of life the same as he played cards—by impulse, by intuition. I was taught to believe that what he said was sound and wise; and if I continued in this belief for many years, it is not to be wondered at. I had better card-sense than he; but it does not follow that my sense was better in other things.

CHAPTER IV

When I left the Canon’s school, my father declared that every boy ought to go to a public school. So to public school I went, where I made but little progress. Of course I was backward for my age, and, being shy, never plucked up enough courage to ask for help when I should have done so. Even the dullest boys left me behind, and the masters considered me lazy. Perhaps I was, but I do not believe it was so much that as lack of energy. One either generates energy or one does not. I was delicate and growing at a great rate, getting my full height, six feet, before I was sixteen years old. It took all the energy I had to live and grow.

What disposition to make of me, what calling to put me to, must have been a difficult problem to my parents, for I had no great inclination in any direction. I wanted to be let alone and not bothered. A book, a comfortable chair, and a fire in the winter, or a shady spot in the summer, were all I asked for. I could read books for days together, but could not study without falling asleep. At a minute’s notice I could sleep anywhere.

While at public school I made a few friends of my own age, but not many. The hard playing and the big boys who were in the majority were never drawn to me. Weaklings and cripples came to me freely. Among these friends, many of whom I kept all my life, John stands out particularly. Like myself, he had a delicate constitution to nurse, and his eyesight was so poor that he wore glasses of great thickness. He was nervous, quiet and shy. It was through him that I became interested in music. He was an inspired musician and a poet by nature. I had had lessons on the piano for some years, and liked music, but I had not been musically awakened until I met John. One of a very musical family, he played several instruments even when a young boy, and gave me my first valuable knowledge and insight into music. I had been taught by sundry ancient maiden ladies, who only aimed to make a genteel living, not to make musicians. John had been taught by his family with whom music was a religion. When I was considered worthy to play accompaniments in the mystic circle of his family I was very proud. I gave a great deal of time to music both with John and alone. Many afternoons he, his two brothers, and I, would play quartettes for hours. Generally these afternoons passed like a charm. Sometimes they were broken by discussions of time, style and interpretation, when some one of us would lose patience, but they were very mild disagreements. John and I became as brothers. His was a restful house, full of quiet peaceful people, where father, mother, brothers and sisters all united with a common interest in music and books. Their house was nearly a country house, being situated in a sparsely populated suburb; and the week-ends I often spent there gave me my happiest days.

While I was the most unsophisticated of youths when first sent to public school, John was world-wise for his age, knowing many things that were closed to me. His family took their religion like business—as a part of life only. My family took religion like a disease—as a matter of life and death—as the whole of life. Perhaps we were not as strenuous in our devotions as the Canon, but sufficiently so to make Sunday uncomfortable for a boy. Consequently I highly appreciated Sundays at John’s home, where Church once was considered full Sunday duty, the balance of the day being given over to music, books, walks or whatever one felt like doing.

Up to this time girls had not received any attention from me. I despised them, and was ill at ease in their company, while John was fond of their sex, and perfectly at home among them. From him I learned much relative to these mysterious creatures, whose influence is so far-reaching. That I did not consider girls worth while was probably to be accounted for by my lack of the usual health and strength of boys of my age. After chumming with John for a year or more girls began to interest me. But girls never liked me as a boy; nor, for that matter, have women liked me as a man. I see now one of the reasons for this. I thought there were only two kinds of girls—the entirely good and the entirely bad. If, in my opinion, a girl was an angel, I worshipped her so foolishly that I made her ill. If I thought one was bad, I took the worst for granted, thus overshooting the mark, and getting myself very seriously disliked. Consequently some girls thought I was an ass, while others thought I was an abandoned and vicious young man. In fact I was neither. Like most shy people I used badness as a bluff, and the more nervous I was about an advance, the more brazenly I went forward.

No girl or woman likes to be understood as entirely good or entirely bad, which is quite natural; for none are altogether one way or the other, but, like all humanity, are of every shade and every colour, both good and bad.

My mistake about girls happened to be a safe mistake to make, thereby I never got a girl into trouble, and no girl ever got me into trouble. This, of course, does not include the case of my wife and me, who, God knows, have given each other no end of trouble. But in that experience was one involving good, useful, necessary trouble, whereby we really learned things, as you shall hear later.

I have noticed that when two young people get each other into trouble, they are seldom to blame. The blame attaches to the parents who kept them blind, and allowed them to get the all-important knowledge of sex by chance. The enlightment of the young on this vital subject is still a matter little understood.

During my public school days I organised a drum and fife band. My mother thought it was beautiful. As she was Scotch, and liked the bagpipes, this is perhaps not remarkable. The neighbours hardly had as much admiration for my genius, although many of them had subscribed to the fund which armed my men with their instruments of torture. The boy who played the bass drum was the proudest chap in ten blocks, and could swing the sticks splendidly. The rehearsals of this band took place in our basement dining-room, and the din we made was no ordinary noise.

With my musicians I started a dramatic venture. I wished to be an actor. Another subscription list was passed amongst neighbours and friends who were always very kind and forgiving to me. I must have had a way with me that appealed to the grown-ups. I was tall and thin with a big head and big hands. My eyes were small and deep set, my face pale but for a red spot on either cheek. Possibly I appealed to people because I looked as if I did not have long to live. Two faithful aiders and abettors in my scheme for a boys’ theatre were Jews—Joey and Philly. They accompanied me and my subscription list, and their fathers were my first backers. I have always liked Jews; they are such a gentle people. “Little Blockhead” at the Canon’s school was a Jewess; at least, her father was a Jew.

Boards, nails, and other things having been bought, we erected a stage in a large unused coach-house. Sundry plays were examined, and a very amusing sketch called “Bumps” was finally chosen and put into rehearsal. Very wisely, or because of the impossibility of getting girls, we chose a playlet with an entirely male cast.

The great wooden doors of the coach-house were splendidly posted with the legend:

Wesblock’s Theatre.

This sign was a real work of art. In the coach-house we found a barrel of bright-coloured labels for beer that never was made, because the company which intended to make beer, for some business reason, never got much further than labels. We laboriously pasted these labels on the coach-house doors, to form the large letters, which informed the few who passed down the lane that “Wesblock’s Theatre” was within.

My theatrical company embraced the “high brows” of the neighbourhood. Of course we were laughed at, and scoffed at, and sometimes one of us was walloped by some envious and strong boy, but many of the lacrosse playing crowd would have given their eyes to be of us.

These things happened in the East End—the French end of Montreal—and fights between French school boys and English school boys were of nearly daily occurrence; but we gentlemen of the stage never took part in these brawls, unless we were forced to, or were specially called upon as reserves in a crisis by the boys of our neighbourhood. The English were the better fighters at close quarters, but at long range, with stones, the French had the best of us, being expert throwers.

A small but sympathetic crowd witnessed my first theatrical venture. The coach-house was decorated with flags and for a coach-house looked very fine. Of course it still smelled like a coach-house, except in so far as that smell was diluted by the odour of coal-oil lamps, which lighted the place. The programme was short. It consisted of the one-act play “Bumps,” a flute solo by a talented sot, a clog dance by a stable-boy, and a comic song warbled by myself to banjo accompaniment. Our listeners said what a friendly audience always says. We spent the proceeds of our show in giving a complimentary supper to a young actor whom we admired and who was playing at the Theatre Royal.

CHAPTER V

Before I had the fever described in the earlier pages, while still a mere baby, I was sent to a ladies’ school among little girls. There was only one other boy in the school besides myself, and for him I formed an attachment. He was a French child, a delicate little chap with large dreamy eyes and a huge nose, which looked as if it did not belong to him. He enjoyed the possession of a very beautiful and euphonious name—Paul de la Croix. Paul and I knew each other as children only during a few months but we liked each other and played together. We were the only boys who enjoyed the very special privilege of attending the ladies’ seminary. We nearly always spent our lunch hours among the big girls, who were very fond of us, because we were small enough to mother and protect.

My illness separated me from my little French friend and I did not see him again until we were nearly men. I met him once more when I was eighteen and was studying under a tutor for my matriculation at M’Gill University. My father had decided that I should be a civil engineer. The reasons for this decision are not very plain to me. Certainly I had very little inclination towards engineering, but as I showed little talent in any particular direction, and many spasmodic tendencies in all directions, his decision was perhaps as wise as any. Possibly he was influenced by the thought that the life of a civil engineer would give me an outdoor existence.

I worked with my tutor daily, learning things which I have long since forgotten, with the exception of Euclid. Euclid always had a particular charm for me, not so much for the value of the information I received but for its keen and irresistible reasoning, so clear, plain and irrefragable.

The mere fact that the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal, and if the sides are produced the angles on the other side of the base will be equal, is nothing to me, but the being able to prove the fact is a great pleasure.

I am a born unbeliever, and facts are not facts to me because they are recorded as facts by some one else, or everybody else for that matter. Like the unbelieving Thomas I want to examine the evidence. So Euclid appealed to me.

I had, and still have, a great sympathy with many of the Bible characters who have been held up to opprobrium like Thomas, Baalam, Ananias and the Pharisee who thanked the Lord he was different from other people. If there is anything for which a man ought to be thankful it is that he is different from other people. The story of Ananias I always found a very thin tale for a greedy money-grabbing church to tell; it is so transparent.

I liked my tutor very much. He was a very human young man and handled me with great wisdom. In the winter we skated daily. It was during the winter of the year Eighteen that I met once more the friend of my childhood, Paul de la Croix. It was at the skating rink, and I knew him at once by his nose, which was a more pronounced, protuberant horn than ever. He had the looks of a hawk and the character of a goose. I was anything but a manly youth, but Paul was actually effeminate. I saw him often now for several years, after which he dropped out of my life entirely. He left an indelible mark upon my character, both musically and otherwise. It was through him, in fact, that I met the woman who became my wife, and for this and other things he has my gratitude.

Paul was before all a musician. He sang beautifully, easily and naturally in a great baritone voice, playing his own accompaniments with ease, a certain dash, and unerring taste. Such talents as his are rare and are generally given, I have observed, to effeminate creatures like Paul. He loved the women, loved particular ones in a particular way for a short time; but generally he loved them all. He was a wholesale lover and his affairs were numerous, sometimes interesting and exciting, and always amusing as told by himself to me, his confidant. I enjoyed his confidences not so much for themselves as for the music they led up to. When he was loved by a married woman much older than himself he always sang particularly well and gave me oceans of pleasure listening to his prattle and his songs. I would spend night after night with him, and allow him to babble till he was tired.

“Oh, my dear Jack,” he would say, “it was tragic, I assure you. ‘I could weep. When will I see you again?’ she asked me. I did not reply; but went to the piano and sang this.”

Then suiting the action to the word he would go to the piano and sing Tosti’s “Good-bye” so beautifully that I would nearly weep, although much inclined to laugh at his mannerisms and his vanity. Many of his love affairs ended as I have described in a song, after which he would walk sadly away to flutter about some other flame.

The Toreador song from Carmen always reminds me of Paul. I have heard it often, but never I think with such soul-stirring vim and gusto behind it as when he sang it.

In the year Nineteen of my era I matriculated in a kind of way; I passed, and that is all.

In the same year the religious incubus was lifted from my home. This had been coming for some time, and at last our house was free. It was no sudden happening, like the conversion some people seem to experience; but came about quite logically. Some people take religion like a disease, and it runs a similar course. They get sick, sicker, sickest; and then die or recover. With religion they get religious, more religious, most religious or fanatic, and then they go mad or suddenly become free-thinkers. People whose emotions are well-balanced and thoroughly under the control of intellect never go mad over a religious idea.

About three years prior to the year Nineteen my father had undertaken, in a burst of religious zeal, to teach a Bible-class in a church which is to-day a theatre of varieties. He was very successful in this. His teaching was both attractive and convincing and readily drew young men and women. For years he had an average attendance at this class of from fifty to sixty young people. He became so enthusiastic in this enterprise that it became his one hobby, and the only social life our family knew was bounded on the North, South, East and West by the Bible-class. As the Bible-class was made up of plumbers, gasfitters, counter-jumpers and the like, this did not elevate our social standing as social standing is gauged by the world. Father devoted all his leisure time to reading and study for the discourses he delivered to his young Band of Hope. As a rule he was not a man to do things very thoroughly; but this work possessed a great fascination for him, and he pursued it tirelessly and faithfully, with perfect confidence in himself.

As he read he widened in view, and as he widened, his interest in the search for truth increased; but truth seemed to elude him. In his final struggle he floundered about in a bog of statement and authority that bewildered him. His fall from grace came suddenly when he began the study of religions in general and other than Christianity. He was a quick, alert, understanding reader, and he had enormous energy. He consumed in a comparatively short time a veritable library of literature on every religion known, both ancient and modern. He delved into everything—philosophy, metaphysics and natural science. I only sketch a process which took several years to complete, years of the hardest work my father ever did.

As his views widened, his discourses to his flock were, of course, coloured by the change of idea. I do not believe that he realised the road he was travelling until the parson and the pillars of the church called upon him for an explanation of certain of his teachings. He explained, but his elucidation of his position on matters that were considered vital was not found satisfactory to the narrow-minded jury which sat upon him. A few weeks later he was driven from the church, branded with the brand of the infidel—an epithet which all churches have delighted to use towards those who dare to be faithful to themselves.

Father’s class followed him in a body, and for some months he lectured every Sunday afternoon at our home. Through this incident some of his young men were made uncomfortable in their families, others even in their business. For this reason father discontinued spreading what he considered to be the true light.

Whether his faith was founded on fact or fiction, he was true to what his reason dictated; but he felt that he could not allow himself to be an injury in any way to young people who had life’s fight to make in a world that was ready to persecute those who did not toe a line laid down by some church.

I have always noticed that it has ever been the system of organised religion to persecute in mean and small ways all those who disagree with it. All the willingness to go even farther and use the faggot, the stake and the rack still remains in our midst, among a very large class who are enthusiastic and ignorant, but full of faith in some fetish. They only lack the power. I have yet to learn that any man branded as an unbeliever has ever in the smallest way persecuted anybody. Nearly all religions foster fear in man’s heart, and fear always fights, which explains the bloody history of Christian peoples.

CHAPTER VI

My life was now a double struggle; a struggle for health and a struggle for knowledge. I was always miserable and very often ill. The joy of being alive was a thing I never knew for many years. Naturally my progress in education was not great. Probably, on the whole, I put as much energy into my work as most boys; for I was not strong enough to take part in the athletic college life, and had no inclination toward the pleasures of the fast crowd.

My days passed in fits of tremendous energy lasting a very little while, followed by long periods of listlessness, when everything was an effort. I worked nearly to the limit of my strength, and fully expected to pass my first year examinations. I was still quite confident after having written my examination papers. The beautiful spring days between the last examination day and convocation, when the reading out of the results was given, I passed complacently wandering on country roads, afoot or on horseback. I was still satisfied that I had passed when I sat in the big hall among relations, friends and college companions. This egregious confidence made the blow all the harder. I was plucked; ignominiously plucked. I had failed in three subjects. It was too much; I could not bear it, and could not bear either to look any of my friends in the face. I felt disgraced; and ran away accordingly.

I decided to be a tramp, a free vagabond, wandering “hither and thither,” living as best I might. Perhaps my health would benefit by the outdoor life? If not, I would die far away somewhere in a strange land, alone and unwept, and it would perhaps be better so, for I had unfortunate elements in me which could lead to no real good.

It was early in spring, but warm; and the roads were not bad. I walked till sundown. The direction did not matter; but I liked the river, so followed it. I could not have wandered very far in the few hours between three o’clock and seven; but by that time I was tired, so stepped into a little country hotel which I found near by. I ate a little and went to bed. Although I was very unhappy, I fell asleep almost immediately. In brooding over my own affairs, I quite lost sight of the anxiety my absence might cause my parents. Self-centred people never feel for others.

After breakfast in the morning I paid my little bill. It took nearly every cent I had. So much the better; tramps never had money; they begged and stole, and I was a tramp.

Again I followed the river, sometimes on the road, and sometimes on the shore. I really got along very well. Farm houses were plentiful and people were kind. All I had to do was to present myself, and I was fed, both by French and English. The people I met were mostly French.

After roaming thus for two days and a half, my feet became very sore, particularly my right foot, which had accumulated a beautiful blister on the side of my heel as large as a half-dollar. I had no idea my feet were so tender and that a mere blister on the heel could make itself so keenly felt. I began to be suspicious that one needed training to be a tramp.

It was the morning of the fourth day of vagrancy. I had slept in a barn on the outskirts of a small village. I rose and limped to the village, and sitting down in a tiny railroad station, took off my right boot, and nursed my poor foot in my lap. While I sat thus a kind-faced young chap came in and noticing me looked me over very deliberately. I must have looked very miserable and woe-begone. After a short scrutiny he went away, but returned in a few minutes and sat down near me. He smoked his pipe in silence for a while.

Then he said, “Sore foot?”

I nodded my head. He smoked two minutes, then turned again to me with, “Hungry?”

I was shocked. Had I really come to look hungry and like a creature in want already? Evidently I had. I admitted that I could eat. The kindly-looking young man was the station agent I learned later. He lived in the station with a young wife and one child. When he learned that I was hungry he went to that half of the building which was his home, and in a little while his child brought me nice bread and butter and a small jug of milk. This offering deeply touched me. The delicate thoughtfulness of the station agent is something I shall never forget. After I had eaten he appeared again and sat down smoking silently. He was a man of understanding, but not talkative.

“Been out on a spree?” he asked.

“Well,” I replied, “I suppose you could call it one kind of a spree.”

“Going home?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered.

“Come from Montreal, I suppose,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied.

Whereupon he left me once more to return nearly immediately and hand me a small object. It was a first-class ticket to Montreal.

“Go on home now,” he said. “Train will be along in twenty-five minutes.” He would have left me again without waiting for my thanks, but I stopped him and insisted on his listening to my very simple experience and accepting my card. He was mightily amused at a tramp having a visiting-card. He certainly was an understanding young man, only a few years older than I was, but he knew the world, and understood many things that were to cost me much in the learning.

The price of my railroad ticket was eighty-five cents. I had been a tramp for nearly four days, and had only walked a distance equal to eighty-five cents in railroad travel, and thereby had acquired a foot not fit to bear my weight without excruciating pain. I concluded that I was not cut out for a tramp. I was cured, and had forgotten the pain of being plucked. My friend, the station agent, knew me quite well before my train came.

When I arrived home, lame, tired and dirty, I was surprised to discover that the anxious one had been my father. He had had detectives searching for me in every place where I was not.

“I knew you were not far off and would come back soon,” said my mother.

“John, I’m afraid you are a damned fool,” said my father, and he kissed me affectionately.

I understood later the full significance of this adventure—I had tried to run away from myself—the only fellow from whom you cannot run. No word was said of my having been plucked.

The summer passed as summers will to those at an age when they do not realise how short a man’s time really is. I read a good deal and studied in a half-hearted way; rode, fished, and spent some weeks in the woods. The fall soon came and I went back to M’Gill to take my first year for the second time.

I believe that second “first year” was of more real value to me than any other. I think I was the only chap who took the first year twice, except one, Bury, who was a chronic freshman. He had already been a freshman for several years and never was anything else. But he is to-day general passenger agent of one of the largest railroads in the world, while I am an automaton.

Taking a survey of all the college men I know, and have known, I cannot be sure that the addition of a college education makes much difference in the end. The man who succeeds with a college degree would have succeeded without it. It is personality that counts. Character rules the world, be it educated at college or in the gutter.

I passed into my second year in the following spring, and then in turn from sophomore to third year without distinction, without disgrace or notable incident. I learned to smoke and began to shave, and believed myself to be a thoroughly sophisticated youth.

I loved many girls during my college years; how many it is impossible to state. I always loved a girl for some special feature; because she had red hair, or for her eyes, or her nose, or her mouth. I loved one because she limped a little and I was sorry for her, and liked the brave way she pretended to be unaware of her deformity. I loved a woman much older than myself, for several days, just because she smelled so good. In imagination I can still smell that sachet powder. I never loved a woman altogether, faults and all, just because she appealed to me in every sense, but always for some special feature or peculiarity. I was fickle, for of course one must soon weary of loving a woman because of a single detail.

My first love, after “Little Blockhead,” was red haired. I met her at a masquerade during my second freshman year. She was masked, but I saw her hair; that was enough; I was gone. I was presented to her. When she unmasked, she discovered a very ordinary countenance, and she had a distinct cast in one eye. These things made no difference to me; I worshipped her hair, and loved her devotedly for at least six weeks.

In the winter of my sophomore year I was trapped for all time—caught to my undoing in one way, and to my making in a hundred ways.

Paul de la Croix talked beautifully of love in two languages—French and English. He was a past-master in the æsthetic realisation and description of love, although I do not believe he ever really loved any one but himself. He was very artistic, and uncommon looking, for which reasons the women loved him, and his family adored him. Music was his chosen career; an easy career for the pampered son of a wealthy, common, luxury-loving father. All his love affairs were confided to me. Most of them were interesting enough, but not striking, except the last one I was ever called upon to listen to.

For about the hundred and first time he was loved: this time, he declared, by the most wonderful creature, the belle of the city’s haut ton; the beautiful, witty and accomplished daughter of Montreal’s most celebrated physician. I had seen the doctor often, but had never met the daughter. I was not one of her set. I had no taste in the direction of teas, dances, box-parties, or other social functions. Society in my youth drew the line a little more strictly than it is drawn now. Fathers like Doctor Joseph, and mothers like Mrs. Joseph, wanted to know something about every one with whom their sons and daughters associated. Professional gentlemen of the law and medicine held themselves a peg above mere business men, or brokers in a small way. In a world now gone crazy with commerce, medicine, law, even the Church, have become so commercialised that they have come down a bit socially, and “all-important” Business has moved up the social scale, and now rubs shoulders with those of the most exclusive circles. The man of business, who regards money as his sole aim, is much more one-sided and undeveloped than he whose end is knowledge of a science or art, for every science and every art is more or less connected with everything. Consequently, the business man cannot be veneered with the veneer of society, but he can be very decently varnished. There is a huge difference between veneer and varnish.

I had never been within the charmed orbit of Miss Muriel Joseph’s soaring. Paul was different. He had large means, he was a singer, a dancer, a ladies’ man with an irreproachable veneer bought for him by a poorly varnished father. He was loved by Muriel Joseph; and he raved to me about her hair, her cheek, her hand, the mole upon her lip, her skin, which was pale and clear, and eyes which were large, full, liquid and inquiring like those of a deer.

I listened and listened to weeks of this stuff. He did it very well. I was told the things she said and had described to me the way she said them till Paul had me half in love with her before I had seen her. Paul was eloquent and I was impressionable; but I did not disclose to him what was in my mind. In fact, I was not very clear as to what was in my mind at the time. All these things I retailed to John, who did not like Paul, and had seldom met him. It was arranged that I should meet Paul’s love.

“Ah, but she will be delighted to meet my chum,” said Paul; “I have talked to her so often of you. If you will call with me there on Sunday, you will be invited to her birthday dance.”

I was somewhat disconcerted, for I could not dance, and I abominated ceremonious calls. Now I regretted the opportunities I had thrown away, when driven weekly to the dancing-class of the dandy Italian signor who polished the young of that time. At the dancing-class I had balked and sulked, and never learned a step. It followed that I was awkward and clumsy on a waxed floor; felt out of place in pumps; and hated taking a girl in my arms before every one. How I wished now that I could dance! I was tall, slim and graceful enough while walking, riding, skating or driving. But dancing was beyond me, although John, who was a beautiful dancer, had often urged me to learn the art. Numberless evenings I had played on the piano alone, or as accompanist for flute or violin, for others to dance, and I had enjoyed it so far without any ambition to take part in it. Lovely young things had tormented me to let them teach me; it was all of no use. Behind all the mixed feelings it excited, I really believe there lurked a strong desire to dance and be frivolous; but some want, mental or physical, withheld me.

Anyhow, here I was to meet a woman whom I was prepared to love before seeing her. I was to meet her and be invited to her dance, and I could not dance, and would be forced to admit it as if I had been brought up on a farm. It was galling.

CHAPTER VII

Paul and I made our call one fine Sunday afternoon. The Josephs were French people, who were not entirely Anglicised, and they received every Sunday.

My first impression of Muriel was a disappointment. She was a striking, unusual type, most attractive in her way; but at first she failed to realise the mental picture I had drawn of her; and did not strike me as I had expected she would. After too keen an anticipation of pleasure, the actual realisation is often a disappointment. Muriel, as I remember her the first time we met, was a most uncommon looking girl. Although small, she would have been remarked anywhere for the wonder of her eyes and colour. They were large, round, wide-open, prominent; and of a brownness and brilliance most rare. These wonderful eyes were set wide apart, and when she looked at you a leading question was put to your very soul. Evil-minded persons were always disconcerted by a look from Muriel, a thief or a liar, I am sure, never looked her in the eye. To say that her colour was a pale, transparent white is only an attempt to describe what was a curious and amazingly beautiful phenomenon. Her skin was the whitest thing I ever saw; it was like semi-transparent light; new-fallen, downy snow; and when she smiled a deep dimple appeared in one cheek and produced a dark shadow. Nobility sat upon her brow and a most human kindness was promised by her lips. Her hair was a dark, red-brown, showing many shades. Her manner was frank and easy, but behind it a keen observer could detect a sort of disdain for things in general, including humanity. When I say I was disappointed in her, it is hardly an adequate expression of my feelings—hopelessness—more truly expresses it than disappointment. She had a ready wit, and could make one perfectly at ease or glad to escape from her presence.

“Well, Jack, what do you think of her?” asked Paul, as we walked home after our call.

“So, so,” I replied. “She is nice, she is bright, she is uncommon, but——”

“Ah, but, of course, but,” exclaimed Paul. “You cannot know in a look; you cannot feel all the charm of a unique personality in a few minutes spent in a drawing-room full of people. And then she is young—only sixteen.”

“She looks twenty,” I said.

“Of course she does to a simpleton like you, who does not understand girls who have been about. She is the loved and spoiled child of a great man, who knows everything except how to bring up his numerous family. She has been abroad, she is out in society, and intends to stay out. She does what she likes, a woman of the world, and refuses to go back to a convent where, some may think, she should be.”

“These things make a difference, I suppose,” I said. “But look at her father. The doctor is an old man. She must be over twenty.”

“I have no patience with you,” said Paul. “She looks twenty because she is wonderful. You are blind. You cannot see. It is because her father is an old man that she is so spoiled and so wonderful. Doctor Joseph is twenty years older than his wife and consequently Muriel is precocious.”

“Doctor Joseph is about a thousand years older than his wife in brains,” I said, laughing. “I do not fancy Mrs. Joseph. She is a hard woman.”

Thus we discussed people who looked upon us as the silly goslings that we certainly were—fluffy, callow birds, not half-fledged.

The eve of the dance arrived at last. I thought it never would come, and half-hoped it would not, or that I had not been invited. I wished to get it over. I hated to go, yet could not stay away.

I wore my first evening clothes that night. I had only worn them a very few times before and knew exactly how green and gawky I was. I feared that my shyness and simplicity would make her smile, which did not increase my confidence in myself.

I went to the dance in a high fever and when she greeted me I blushed. She looked at me with kind eyes—eyes that understood. How I love people who understand and can let you know without words. The understanding eye is one thing, the knowing eye is another. Muriel had the former, with no gleam of the latter.

We call the mounting of a jewel a setting, and the word “setting” seems to me the only fitting word to use regarding Muriel’s dress, it so completed her. She was set in a severely plain but beautiful gown of bluish or purplish gauzy brocaded stuff which appeared to me more like an artistic drapery than a mere woman’s dress. I know the tint intensified her pallor. I noticed this time, too, that a delicate pink flush flitted beneath her skin when she became animated. This colour was not a blush and could hardly be called colour; it was the shadow of a shade of pink which came and went like magic. She was entirely without ornament of any kind except a small diamond star she wore in her hair, which was done plainly, a large artistic knot resting low down upon the nape of her neck.

I knew, after the dance, that everything Paul had said of Muriel was true. It was even far short of the truth. There were many, many things which he had not said of her, that I could have told him, for, of course, I saw everything—everything that was there, along with many attributes that were not there. I was in love with a woman, not this time with the detail of a woman, but with every dear part of her. I believe she saw it at once. I was a new experience to her. Her men friends and admirers had all been of the sophisticated world. I had the charm of freshness for her. I was frank, I blushed easily and frequently, I could not dance—really I was a most rare and uncommon boy.

My admiration must have been very apparent. Paul saw it and did not resent it. He thought it was only admiration. He could not imagine such audacity in me as love for the incomparable Muriel. Even if he could have imagined it, he would have laughed the idea to scorn; for did not Muriel know him, admire him, love him? Did he not dance with grace and sing to command admiration?

“Jack Wesblock? Bah! A mere gawk!” he would have said, without hesitation.

I did not confide to Paul the actual condition of my mind in regard to Muriel, in fact I was hardly ingenuous. I could not be, as I was sure he would not have understood. I confided in John, who took me seriously, and we sat several sessions late into the night on the subject.

I made my party call at the Joseph house, alone, one Sunday. I was very nervous going alone, but could not bear to go with Paul. I was received as dozens of others, made my share of polite remarks, drank tea and retired in good order, after being asked to call again by Muriel. This invitation was not seconded by Mrs. Joseph, who had a way of looking down on a tall man which was very remarkable in a short woman.

Things happened during this, my last year at college, in such quick succession that it is nearly impossible to set them down in any kind of order. It passed as no year has passed before or since. I met Muriel frequently at the Skating Rink. She did not skate, but the rink was the regular winter rendezvous of hundreds of young people, skaters and non-skaters, who met and chatted, and flirted and had tea. Skating was a secondary thing with many, and it became so with me.

I became a regular visitor at the Joseph house, and formed a friendship with the Doctor, who liked young people. My talent for mimicry and comic songs amused the old man, and I became perfectly at home with him. He enjoyed yarns with a point, and I industriously worked to provide him with well-told whimsical and amusing tales. Also I wanted to know things, and had always many questions to put to him, which he always seemed happy to answer. Thereby I acquired many useful bits of knowledge in various directions.

My cultivation of the Doctor was not premeditated cunning, for in fact I was strongly drawn to him. Many evenings I spent most of the time with him, not with Muriel. I preferred that to being forced to take my share of her amongst a crowd of young chaps, and Paul always at her side.

Mrs. Joseph disliked me at sight, and her hawk-like eye watched me. She knew I was in love with Muriel long before any one else was aware of it. She thought my cultivation of the Doctor was cunning, and knew I was dangerous.

The few opportunities that came to me of seeing Muriel alone, I made the most of in my own way, and she knew my mind long before I blurted out the truth, which happened one moonlit night, when we were returning from a tobogganing party. She was not coy or coquettish, but frankly admitted that her love was mine.

“But what of Paul?” I asked her.

“Paul?” she exclaimed laughing. “Why Paul, any more than one of the others?”

“Because he loves you, and you have loved him,” I answered. “Did you not tell him so?”

“Love Paul!” said Muriel. “It is too ridiculous. I never loved him. Not a word of love has ever passed between us.”

I was so hurt I could not speak. Either Paul had woefully lied, or Muriel was deceiving me or trying to. I hated to entertain either thought. I was silent.

“What is the matter, Jack?” asked Muriel. “One of the things I have admired in you is that you were not small. I knew you loved me long ago, and I loved you, and particularly admired you because you left me so free with other men. Surely I have not been mistaken? You are not jealous of Paul?”

“If you love me, Muriel, it is enough; I am satisfied; but Paul is my friend, and he has told me things that are evidently not so.”

“Oh, Jack,” exclaimed Muriel, “about me? What has he said? Tell me.”

“That you loved him. That you slept with his picture under your pillow. That you wrote him letters daily, although you saw him so frequently, and that for months you have bullied him and made him toe the line of your wishes.”

Muriel was at first very much inclined to be angry, but changed her mind and decided to be amused.

“Paul must have been telling you his dreams,” she said, and laughed. “There is not one word of truth in these things you tell me. Paul and I have only been chums. I like him and enjoy his music, but love there has never been between us, believe me!”

“I do believe you,” I said, “I am glad to believe you, but can you explain why Paul should lie so tremendously?”

“You do not understand Paul,” said Muriel. “He is just a poetic and shallow thing. I do not believe he ever made love to a girl in his life. He has told me of many of his conquests, which I see now could never have happened. You must allow me the pleasure of telling him how matters are between you and me.”

So Paul was disposed of. He never forgave me, and said I had cruelly and treacherously robbed him of his love. As it pleased him to think so, I never enlightened him. During this year I grew in many directions. I was a man engaged to be married. My growth, in what is known as common sense, was slow. The great thing was that Muriel loved me and I loved her. That seemed to me to be everything; nothing else mattered.

My studies were neglected and a wild year passed in dances, theatre parties, musical orgies, drives, skating and every kind of pleasure which makes time of so little value to the young.

Muriel was a pleasing combination of wisdom and foolishness. She had a tremendous influence upon me, which she might have used wisely. What we both knew together would not have covered any great area to any considerable depth. We were young, spoiled, thoughtless, shallow. She appeared far more sophisticated than I did, which was produced by her absolute confidence in herself, an element sadly wanting in me.

And now I took to herding with the wild boys at college, and thereby fell considerably in my own estimation. I did not drink, but I became familiar with those ladies of the demi-monde who lived for and by students of a type. I was shocked in my better self, but lacked control.

These days were full of failings to live up to my own standard. I fell and repented, and fell again. Periods came regularly upon me when I had to cut loose, and go back to first principles. The painted siren called me and I went. It seems nearly like a sacrilege to mention these things while telling of my love for the woman who became my wife, but it is not. My love for Muriel was at once the cause of my falling and the reason of my being able to go through a difficult period without much harm. My love was one thing, the call of my body coming late into health and strength was another thing quite apart, and I treated them as such. I was not really brutal or a roué, but was cutting my wisdom teeth a little later than most boys.

We foolishly and unwisely despise the demi-mondaine, and hypocritically pretend that she is altogether vile, shutting our eyes to the plain truth that she is much more a part of our system than the nun. Or we refuse to admit her existence altogether. We make her, and we are responsible for her. She is a necessary part of things sexual. The churches are responsible for the hypocritical attitude towards this unfortunate type. Religions always go to extremes. Time was when the prostitute was a sacred person, consecrated to the gods. Now we go to the other extreme and make her an outcast, and consecrate her to the devil.

Jess was a celebrity among college students of my time. She was young, beautiful and witty. She was well-educated and talented, and a woman of a high type in some respects. If the word can be used towards a woman of her profession, she was even modest. I admired Jess while I loved Muriel. I was much ashamed of this affair at the time, but see it with very different eyes now. I was of a very pliant character, and my life, like most lives, followed the path of least resistance. It was easier to make Jess part of my life than to resist her.

How Jess came to be what she was need be no part of this tale. Hers was a free life. Although still a young woman, her experience of the world had been wide, and had made her very wise. She was four years older than I, and she looked upon me nearly as a naughty child, and was sorry for me. While our intimacy may not perhaps be considered nice, it was an eminently useful one to me. She was a tower of strength to me, saved me from much harm, and enlightened me on many vital things of which I was wholly ignorant. She was one of the curious anomalies of human society in this country, a refined and cultured demi-mondaine.

Considering the debit and credit between good and evil, of my few months’ experience with Jess, I see the balance was on the side of good.

I do not pretend that such things are defensible or ever have been, but say what you will and do what you may, young men will give way to animal spirits till the millenium. Woman in some respects presents an exceedingly serious problem in connection with college life. The matter cannot be met with “thou shalt not” or the ordinary moral punishments. All that can be safely done is to warn the young in a fatherly and kindly manner of the real dangers of the way; after that, the issue rests with the individual. Some come through the fires refined and sublimated, better fitted for larger usefulness in every way, others are scorched and warped; the weak are utterly destroyed. As for myself, I came to no particular harm. This was due, no doubt, to my natural disposition.

A professional man of strong opinions and with the courage of his convictions married Jess, and very nearly succeeded in forcing her on his social set, but she died nine months after her marriage day while the fight was still going on. Had she lived she would probably have been stoned. To me she is a very pleasant memory; a very unfortunate woman with a great character.

It seems to me that a great deal of our boasted virtue is nothing but very dangerous ignorance. Many marriages turn out very unhappily for no cause but the want of necessary knowledge of the affairs of sex. If men entered the state of marriage in the condition of blind ignorance in which most women enter, there would be a far greater percentage of unhappy marriages than there are.

I was cast for one of the end men in a large amateur minstrel show this winter. Muriel was greatly pleased, and was sure my comic songs would make a great hit. I bought a beautiful tambourine and thumped it diligently in the cellar daily. But alas! After three rehearsals I was asked to resign my chair to a fellow who had the nerve I lacked. I was quite confident that I could do it, and have done it many times since, but at the time I still blushed like a girl, although I was nearly twenty, and a chap who blushes is hardly fit for an end man in a minstrel show.

It took years of struggle before I conquered the characteristic something in my mental make-up which caused me to lack confidence in myself, and made me shy, shrinking and fearful.

If you take the doings of this very eventful year into consideration you will not think it surprising that at the Christmas examinations I was handicapped with three supplementaries, or that in the following spring I was plucked once more. This time I expected it, and was not cast down. I realised that getting an education in the college way was not for me. Father and mother were, of course, somewhat discouraged, but they had seen it coming.

CHAPTER VIII

Father had become the owner, through one of his numerous business deals, of what would be considered to-day a one-horse saw mill. It was situated about ninety miles from Montreal, near a little village of one thousand souls. I had been there for short visits on several occasions, and liked the roughness and freedom of the place. The manager of this mill (one Mason) and I liked each other. I amused him and he interested me. He was a huge man with a face smothered in black whiskers. He looked like a hairy Mephisto, but had the tender nature of a dove.

After my second fiasco at M’Gill, my father said to me:

“Well, Jack, what do you propose to do now?”

He said other things also which it is not necessary to detail, except that they were to the point, more than to my credit or his.

“Send me to the mill,” I replied, “and let me learn the business. I like the place and will do well there if I get a chance. I will marry soon and settle down.”

He was too wise to discuss a thing like my marriage, which seemed so far in the future.

“Humph!” said he, “we will see about it.”

Seeing about it was never a very lengthy process with him. Generally when he said that, his mind was already made up.

Letters passed between him and Mason, and in a few days the matter was arranged. I was to assist Mason and learn what I could from him, at the rate of five dollars per week during good behaviour. These things were, of course, made known to Muriel, who loved to mother and advise me.

If Mrs. Joseph had shown the wisdom of my father and taken for granted that the affair between her daughter and one Wesblock was a boy and girl love of no consequence, I might not have been married yet. But she disliked me particularly. She saw no future for her daughter with me. In her anxiety to oppose me she just overshot the mark, as so many over-anxious mothers do. She gave our affair an importance it never would have had unopposed and unobtrusively watched.

My start in life, as my going to the saw-mill was considered to be, was highly satisfactory to every one concerned. To Muriel and me, the prospect of our being able presently to live in a nice little house in the woods, to live there together till we became rich, when we would come back to Montreal and show our relatives and friends what we had become—seemed like a beautiful dream. It turned out almost exactly that way, with several minor differences to be presently set forth. To Mrs. Joseph my taking off to the wilderness, ninety miles from the city, was a distinct relief. The Doctor wished me well with smiles. He had not much faith in me, but liked me well enough to hope. Father and mother were also hopeful, with misgivings.

The parting from Muriel came as partings will. How much she suffered I do not know, but it made me ill—seriously ill—I could neither sleep nor eat, and for days after my arrival at the mill I was in a half-dazed condition. Muriel wrote splendid letters daily, and I lived on these until I came to myself and started what I considered the simple task of learning the lumber business.

It had been stipulated by my father that I should remain at my post six months, entirely under the hand of Mason, without trips to Montreal oftener than once in thirty days. I was lodged and fed like all the mill hands, and once every two weeks received my pay envelope.

Mason was kind to me and allowed me great liberty, but I had to work, and work hard, at every kind of labour, from keeping tally to loading slabs. I was a joke to the little community; but I did not know it. For weeks I was abed at eight o’clock, sometimes before sundown, I was so tired out.

The first thirty days being completed, I made my first week-end visit to Montreal. An hour’s drive to the railroad station and three hours on a slow mixed train left little of my short holiday, but I was to know worse things than that. Calling at the home of my beloved, I found that my arrival was expected and strangely prepared for. Miss Joseph, I was told, was out of town!

While not entirely taken aback, I was hurt and humiliated, and felt very foolish under the knowing gaze of the maid who opened the door to me. If I was not altogether unprepared for this cold reception, it was because Mrs. Joseph had, on every available occasion, made it unmistakably plain to me that I was not to her taste. Muriel’s letters also had been quite frank relative to her mother’s estimate of me mentally, physically, socially and financially. I had been referred to, by Mrs. Joseph, as “that person Wesblock.” This could hardly be considered very dreadful in itself, but when accompanied by a tilting of the chin, with an expression about the nose suggestive of an objectionable odour, with Mrs. Joseph’s thin, hard lips closed in a straight determined line, it meant volumes. Muriel was incapable of duplicating this expression of her mother. Her lips were full, red and generous, like those of her dear father.

It must be admitted that Mrs. Joseph was quite right in her attempt to protect her child from a man whom she considered undesirable. I only objected to her high-handed methods.

Muriel had a cousin named Lizette, an orphan, who had been brought up by Doctor Joseph. She was the same age as Muriel, but different to her in every respect, being thin, sharp and vixenish. As this girl honoured me with a dislike, quite as sincere as that of Mrs. Joseph, she was glad to do service in meanly spying and reporting her own version of whatever she could discover. Had Mrs. Joseph taken the pains to argue kindly with me, she could have forced me to admit after ten minutes discussion that there was no great promise in me. For I believe I was a reasonable youth, had no great faith in myself, and no desire to injure Muriel by ill-considered and rash haste. But her very rude and plain opposition to me added just that zest to my love affair which made it great in my eyes, and myself a romantic hero. I have often wondered what element in my make-up gave me success with the one woman who proved worth while to me.

I left the door of the Joseph house dejected and thoughtful. I strongly suspected Lizette of peeping at me from a window above, but I did not look back. Naturally I was angry, and very much disappointed, and as I walked home with hanging, thoughtful head, I matured my schemes to outwit Mrs. Joseph and her lieutenant Lizette.

I thought of Mrs. Joseph as a wicked old girl. She was wicked and old to me, although she was only forty at the time. I think of her to-day as an old girl, but see her with very different eyes and call her Grandma. To outwit her was really not a very difficult proposition. Bribes to servants soon re-established my line of communication, without fear of letters being intercepted, or returned unopened by the watchful mother or the wily Lizette. The coachman, for a modest sum, arranged that Muriel and I might drive together, when I came to Montreal again. Friends of Muriel’s were kind too and connived at our seeing each other. It is a very cold-hearted person who will not assist young lovers to meet. I confided the condition of my love affair to my mother, who smilingly gave me her sympathy, for she did not take me very seriously.

I returned at once to the mill, and from there wrote letters daily to my dear, sending them in a roundabout and mysterious way.

My days there were most simple; hard work from seven in the morning till six in the evening; letter-writing, a little reading, a little music, and bed. I had naturally useful hands, and learned the pleasure and utility of being able to do things with them. I took naturally to woodwork, and spent nearly all my Sundays in the carpenter shop, where I cut and bruised my hands, and butchered wood into clumsy, ill-fitting and rickety benches, stools and boxes, which amused our mechanic greatly. But with perseverance, patience and time my skill improved, so that before I left the mill I had become something of an artist in wood, and could really do a very nice and creditable job in joining and fitting. Thereby I much improved my standing and influence with the mill hands. In after days I took much satisfaction out of a well-equipped workshop. Examples of my skill exist in every house into which our family is divided. To make some useful thing for your own house, with your own hands, to fashion some present for friend or relative, or to save ingeniously some decrepit piece of furniture and renew its life of usefulness, is indeed a splendid pleasure, good for body and soul. To turn out a nice, clean, well-fitting joint, which satisfies the eye, while you think and dream and plan, amidst the smell of sawdust, shavings and clean things, is more than mere bodily and mental satisfaction. There is something spiritual in it.

In thirty long days I was again entitled to go to Montreal. This time I did not go to the Joseph house. I was thoroughly posted and so was Muriel. I found her at the home of a kindly aunt, and we saw much of each other during two whole days. Great days they were, as I remember well, when we dreamed dreams of the great and happy future before us, when we would be different from everybody else, more happy, more generous, more broad-minded and forgiving. Then back to the mill again; this time boiling over with energy and enthusiasm, to do, to work and progress in health and knowledge of things in general, and for an immediate end, to forward the lumber business first and foremost.

Before I could go to Montreal again the Josephs had left for their summer residence at Riviere du Loup, where they summered yearly. Starting immediately after the schools closed, the Joseph “army,” as it was called, moved to the seaside. Eleven children, maids, butler, horses, carriages, generally one or two hangers-on, and Mrs. Joseph, constituted the “army.” Muriel never liked this exodus very much. She said it was like travelling with a circus, moving an orphan asylum or a warlike tribe. Circus it certainly was as far as the younger children could make it, for a wilder or more obstreperous lot of imps of mischief never existed, and a more placid demeanour than that of Mrs. Joseph, in the midst of her unruly brood, was never exhibited by woman under similar circumstances. Occasionally she might arouse herself to the exertion of pinching a particularly annoying cherub, but that would be all, and she would proceed to read, peaceful and unruffled. Many a time I was put out of countenance when one of these juvenile fiends escaped from a keeper and invaded my privacy; for their candour was appalling.

“Hello, Blockhead!” one of the big boys would greet me. “Still hanging around Muriel? She makes us sick.”

I am naturally fond of children, but they need not have the manners of a playful bear.

I went to Riviere du Loup for a short holiday towards the end of the summer, with Mason’s consent, but without the knowledge of my father. My reception by Muriel was all that I dreamed it would be; but that of Mrs. Joseph was frosty and forbidding. She had, however, to make the best of my presence, and did so with a bad grace. In the freedom of country life, without the backing of the Doctor’s countenance, Muriel and I had her rather at a disadvantage. We were young and selfish, and neither generous nor thoughtful for her feelings. Morning, noon and night we were together, which, of course, caused talk among busybodies. That any one would dare even to whisper about the conduct of her daughter was gall and wormwood to Mrs. Joseph. Lizette was careful to keep her informed of all the disagreeable and mean remarks made about Wesblock, and was not too particular how she repeated such things. Consequently, a more or less painful scene took place between Muriel and her mother at nearly every meal and with great regularity every night.

“Where have you been, miss, till this hour of night, nearly twelve o’clock?” Mrs. Joseph would ask when Muriel appeared at about half-past ten at night.

“Why, mother, it’s only half-past ten,” Muriel would reply.

“Don’t dare to discuss the matter of time, Muriel. Answer my question. Where have you been? I need hardly ask with whom.”

“I’ve only been in the orchard with Mr. Wesblock.”

“Oh! only in the orchard till after midnight with a perfect stranger.”

“Now, don’t be foolish, mother.”

“Foolish! You dare to call your mother a fool. I’ll write to your father and have you sent to the convent at once.”

“Now listen, mother——”

“I’ll not listen; go to bed at once, I am made absolutely miserable by your behaviour.”

As the orchard was about the extent of a pocket handkerchief and comprised four trees; and the bench we sat upon was against the side of the house and immediately under Mrs. Joseph’s window, Muriel and I could not see the dreadfulness of our behaviour, and these scenes annoyed us and made us feel like children who had been treated with injustice.

One day we decided to put an end to the uncomfortable condition of things by running away and getting married.

How we expected to escape, I certainly cannot explain, for we took an express train in broad day at about three o’clock in the afternoon. A score of people must have seen us depart, but we counted somewhat, I think, on the very audacity of the performance and believed all that was necessary was to get away on the train. It was a childish escapade, conceived in ignorance of everything in the world except the infatuation for each other which made it necessary for us to be together at all costs. Our elders drove us to it by ill-advised chatter, badgering and baiting. All we desired was a little trust, some kindness and liberty; failing these, we decided to make our own life.

CHAPTER IX

My brilliant scheme, born of want of foresight and knowledge of the world, was to go to Boston, where I had some friends, and start life humbly as a music teacher. Muriel was quite ready to face the future with me, which was much to the credit of her courage and to my credit as a lover. We were quite unaware of how watchful mother Joseph and her ready tool, Lizette, had been, and that Doctor Joseph had been telegraphed to before we started. Being ignorant of these things, we set off with but scanty preparation in the way of personal effects, and but little money.

We travelled second class, which we thought was very cunning, when of course it was mere stupidity; for we were far more noticeable in a second class coach than we ever should have been in first class. It really did not matter much, as it happened, because a detective was on our trail very soon after our train was out of sight of Riviere du Loup.

We were happy and confident for a matter of perhaps four hours, when a male person came and sat immediately opposite us. He was an ordinary-looking individual, with a face like a mask; but it was quite evident that we were objects of interest to him. After a short time he opened conversation with me by asking me if I was Mr. Wesblock. I replied that my name was Wesblock, and knew at once what was coming.

“Well, I presume,” said this stranger, “that the lady with you is Miss Joseph. I am Detective Pfhal. I just happened fortunately to be on this line. I have a telegram in my pocket from Doctor Joseph instructing me to conduct the lady home, which I will do, if you have no objections.” And he smiled at the idea of any objection I might make.

To say that I was exceedingly uncomfortable is hardly to express my sensations; but I kept my head and said:

“In the first place, Mr. Pfhal, I presume I may examine your credentials. If they prove correct I will ask you to retire a few minutes while I discuss the situation with Miss Joseph, whom I will ask to decide what our action will be. We cannot hinder you from following us, but you cannot take us anywhere we are unwilling to go.”

The sense of Muriel’s being at my side gave me the courage to make this speech. Mr. Pfhal smiled again, exhibited a silver badge, which he wore on his suspenders, and produced Doctor Joseph’s telegram, after which he retired to the end of the car, keeping all the while his mask-like face towards us.

Muriel and I turned and looked at each other, and smiled as well as we could. We came down from the clouds and discussed things as they were, and made such plans for the future as our forethought told us would be necessary. We concluded that there was nothing to do but to go to our respective homes and pretend to be good for a while. We swore the oaths of lovers to each other, and presently Mr. Pfhal came and sat down opposite to us once more; we informed him of our decision which he declared to be the only possible one, for the present, at any rate.

At the next station Pfhal carried my love away. I kissed her good-bye and continued my journey alone. It is useless to attempt to explain my feelings. I was simply dazed, like a man passing slowly out of the condition of anæsthesia. I could not think in a straight line in any one direction. I knew I had made an awful mistake; that I would be laughed at by many, blamed by some; that I had now angered Muriel’s father and had put Muriel in a very bad light. I even fancied that she might turn from me herself and hate me for having made her look so foolish; but she was of a character not easily moved from a purpose. Mrs. Joseph, I knew, would make things very unpleasant as far as was in her power, and I hated to think of the grinning, cynical face of Lizette.

I decided to go to my mother, the only one who thoroughly understood me. She was at Kennebunk, on the coast of Maine, for the summer. It is a long, tiresome trip from Riviere du Loup to Kennebunk. It was particularly so for me. I neither ate nor slept, and could only think and worry and wonder. When I arrived at Kennebunk I was a mental and physical wreck. I was dirty, unkempt, tired, worried, angry, humiliated, and in a manner heart-broken as well.

My mother was never much surprised at any action of mine; so when I appeared before her, although she supposed me to be at the mill, her astonishment was not great. She saw by my looks that something important had happened. She took me to her room, and there I tearfully unfolded the tale of my latest exploit. She listened to me silently and unquestioningly, and when I had finished, kissed me as if I had been still a young repentant child.

“Never mind, son,” she said; “don’t fret and fume. Things will come out all right. Now lie down and have a good sleep. You are fagged out. The whole business will look very much better to you when you are rested and have eaten a good meal.”

I felt better after dividing my troubles with mother, went to bed and slept soundly for eleven hours. I remained one day with mother and returned to the mill, where I remained for two months and kept busy, which is a great cure for everything. I had daily letters from Muriel, who was full of hope for our future, and continued to believe in me.

Mrs. Joseph made Muriel’s life very unhappy during these days; but, of course, accomplished nothing in her attempt to force a break with me. She was that kind of woman, known as a “nagger,” who never achieves anything but aggravation.

After making a mess of an elopement, I could hardly expect much sympathy from my father; his letters were all very cold, business-like, short, sharp, and to the point. I believe he was more annoyed at my failure than he would have been if I had successfully carried Muriel off. To him I wrote long and carefully thought-out explanations of my hopes and desires, which, together with my successful efforts to be a useful person at the mill, softened him to a great extent. Things were thus beginning to come to a peaceful level, when one day I received from my father a peremptory command to be in Montreal, at a certain hour of a certain day.

The unusual tone of his letter was disquieting and set me wondering what could be in store for me. I strongly suspected that the fact of the daily correspondence between Muriel and me had been discovered and that Mrs. Joseph was behind some move to give me trouble. My suspicion proved correct. When I arrived at the house, it was early evening and the drawing-room was lighted up. I found mother, father, and Doctor Joseph awaiting me. As I walked in I observed that all three looked anything but good-natured.

Even mother looked very much put out. Doctor Joseph was a very plain-spoken man, and I judged that he had been making remarks which were more to the point than exactly pleasing. I never heard what had occurred before my entrance on the scene, and never had enough curiosity to ask what it was.

“Well, sir,” said the Doctor, addressing me, and taking me in from top to toe, with a very unfriendly eye; “a nice young reprobate you are. What have you to say for yourself?”

I sat down without replying.

“I want you to discontinue annoying my daughter,” he continued.

He was a large, masterful man. I was young, and he put me very ill at ease. I stammered and blushed and remained dumb.

“Well, well!” he said, stamping his heavy cane on the floor impatiently, “what have you to say? Do you intend to stop annoying us?”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked tremblingly.

“I want you to write to my daughter, now, before us three, that all this silly love business is ended. Write what you like, give what reasons you please, but make it plain to her that all is over between you and her,” and he laughed a mirthless, cynical laugh.