Devonshire.
There was great enthusiasm displayed upon the arrival of Lord and Lady Dufferin in Winnipeg in the summer of 1877. Theirs was a triumphal tour. The Governor General, while ostensibly travelling through Canada to learn of its possible development, came principally to visit the Icelanders, for whose migration to Canada he was largely if not solely responsible. After having seen Winnipeg and driven the first spike in the Pembina Branch railway of the C.P.R. at St. Boniface, he with his retinue started out on a pilgrimage to the Icelandic settlement. No newspaper correspondents were allowed to accompany the party on account of lack of accommodation. And so the poor Toronto Globe correspondent sat twiddling his thumbs in Winnipeg while the expedition went north. Lord Dufferin’s private secretary was Billy Campbell, who also filled the same position with the Marquis of Lorne and the Marquis of Lansdowne, but was now correspondent for the Winnipeg Free Press on the Icelandic tour. Billy and I were old chums. Lord Dufferin’s visit to Gimli, the Icelandic settlement, was duly reported in the Free Press. Billy would send in the copy, and we would send out the proofs to a designated spot, where the Governor General would revise and return to the F.P. office. They looked like the map of Asia after he had corrected them. His Excellency had given the Icelanders perfect fits, and he was a master mechanic in the uttering of the English or any other language, but it makes an awful lot of difference between telling people disagreeable things and reading those same disagreeable things in cold print. So the Icelanders and the English readers of the Free Press had different views of His Excellency’s opinion of his proteges.
On His Excellency’s departure for the east he was tendered an afternoon banquet in Winnipeg, at which he made that famous speech where the Canadian West was spoken of as the land of illimitable possibilities. Lieut.-Governor Morris also made a speech and the other speaker was to have been Chief-Justice Wood, but the time of the boat’s departure—they were going up Red River to Moorhead—came too early for the latter’s oration, much to his chagrin, as he and the Lieut-Governor hated each other like Christians. This did not altogether spoil the Chief’s oration, for he utilized the greater part of it, with the necessary alterations, in his charge to the grand jury at the next assize. And it made good reading.
Lord Dufferin was an orator. He memorized his speeches, and always supplied the copy to the press. You know His Excellency could imprecate in seventeen different languages, and he usually did so when occasion required. One day in reporting one of Lord Dufferin’s speeches in which he made a happy allusion to Canada and her American cousins, Billy forgot to insert the words, “loud laughter”—and the omission gave a seriousness to the speech that His Excellency did not intend. There was blood on the moon next day.
The Duke and Duchess of Connaught with Princess Patricia (top), the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and Daughters the Ladies Cavendish (centre).
Lord Minto at his Lodge, Kootenay (bottom).
The Highland Laddie.
In 1881 the Marquis of Lorne first went west. The C.P.R. was not completed, but he travelled through Canada all the same. The contractors for Section B., of whom the late John J. Macdonald was the head, undertook to carry him from Eagle Lake to Rat Portage, a distance of about 75 miles, but, as a long detour had to be made to take advantage of the water stretches, the distance travelled was nearly double that mileage. Elaborate preparations were made, camps established at regular intervals, and everything that could be done for the comfort of viceroyalty was done. Live sheep, which scared the Indians who had seen none before, were taken to apparently inaccessible places, Indian boatmen in uniform manned large birch-bark canoes—to ride in which gives one the idea of the poetry of motion—experienced chefs supplied excellent menus, and everything combined to make this a most enjoyable outing. The newspaper representatives which included myself met His Excellency at the western end of Burnt Portage through whose weary, dusty miles he and his staff had walked—and when the tug which brought us to an island where we had camped approached its shores, a piper in kilts struck up “Highland Laddie” to the amazement and delight of His Excellency. At each successive camp there was a new surprise for him, but none so complete as the one at Dryberry Lake, where we camped one Saturday night. The next morning, a bath in the lake was followed by a reviver in the large marquee. As we were about to crook our elbows, the noted Dr. Jock McGregor, the Marquis’ bosom friend and chaplain at Glasgow, who accompanied him on the trip, unexpectedly appeared on the scene. One has to know the Doctor to imagine what followed. He was one of the wittiest and most eloquent as well as the kindest of men I ever met. And he startled us all by loudly calling the Marquis by name and denouncing him for desecrating the Holy Sabbath by putting that into his mouth which would steal away his brains. He dressed the whole crowd of us down for our unseemly and desecrating act, and we all looked shamefaced and about as uncomfortable as could be expected. And when we all felt pretty sheepish and mean, he concluded:
“Out upon you all, you unregenerate sinners, out upon you. But”—after a long pause during which we were all looking for a hole to crawl into, he added: “being a little bit thirsty, I’ll take a wee drappie mysel’.”