“Maxwelltoun braes are bonnie——”
Kit knew she was going to triumph; his part was to help by quiet harmonies. As a rule her mood was sober, but he imagined she was moved by something of the tenderness and passion the dark North hides. Then, for the most part the British emigrants were North British, and Canada wears a Scottish stamp. Alison felt her power and she let herself go.
“Like dew on the gowan lying——”
Train hands came from baggage cars and the locomotive cab. They advanced noiselessly, and the crowd was still. In the distance shovels clashed, but the musical voice dominated all, and Burns’ love song floated, undisturbed, across the Canadian lake.
Kit lowered his violin, and Alison gave the crowd a shy smile. She was not a concert singer; all the music she knew she had studied at a village school. When the cheers and shouts began she blushed and turned to Kit.
“Let’s go. I don’t think I could sing again.”
They stole away, and when Kit put his violin in the car they followed the track. A throbbing noise rolled across the woods, and presently a long black plume of smoke streaked the trees. The throb got louder and the advancing smoke leaped from the forest as if shells exploded along its track. Kit knew a locomotive hauled a heavy load up-hill and he frowned. The construction gang would soon arrive, and when the line was mended the emigrant train would start.
“I expect they’re bringing a load of ballast and when they have dumped the stuff we’ll get off,” he remarked in a careless voice.
Alison said nothing. But for Kit, and another whom she had not seen for long, she had not a friend in the new country. Loneliness was hard to bear and to know Kit was about was some comfort. At Winnipeg they must separate.
They sat down in the shade by the broken track. The train had arrived and men swarmed about the line. The cars carried gravel and a massive plow topped the piles of stones. Kit was interested. The track was not like an English track; the rails were light and not altogether even. The cross-ties were loosely ballasted and some were out of line. Yet they carried loads Old Country engineers had not tried to move.