"Willis!" exclaimed Lister, and joined in Kemp's laugh.
"After all, the money he's going to get is theirs," said Kemp. "In this country we're a curious lot. We let grafters and wire-pullers run us, and, when we start a big job, get away with much of the capital we want for machines; but somehow we make good. We shoulder a load we needn't carry and hit the pace up hot. If we got clean control, I reckon we'd never stop. However, there's not much use in philosophizing when you've lost your job, and the East-bound train goes out in a few minutes. You'd better pack your grip."
[CHAPTER IX]
[BARBARA PLAYS A PART]
Lister returned to the railroad camp and stayed until the company sent a man to fill his post. In the meantime, he wrote to some of his father's relations, whom he had not seen, and their reply was kind. They stated that while he was in England he must make their house his home. When his successor arrived he started for Montreal, and one afternoon sat under a tree in the square by the cathedral.
The afternoon was calm. A thunderstorm that wet the streets had gone, and an enervating damp heat brooded over the city. After the fresh winds that sweep the woods and plains, Lister felt the languid air made him slack and dull. His steamer did not sail until daybreak, and since he had gone up the mountain and seen the cathedral and Notre Dame, he did not know what to do. The bench he occupied was in the shade, and he smoked and looked about.
Cabs rolled up the street to the big hotel across the square, and behind the trees the huge block of the C.P.R. station cut the sky. One heard whistles, the rumble of heavy wheels, and the tolling of locomotive bells. Pigeons flew down from the cathedral dome and searched the damp gravel.
A group of foreign emigrants picnicked in the shade. Their clothes were old and greasy; they carried big shapeless bundles and looked tired and worn. Lister could not guess their nationality, but imagined they had known poverty and oppression in Eastern Europe. It was obvious they had recently disembarked from a crowded steerage and waited for an emigrant train. They were going West, to the land of promise, and Lister wished them luck. He and they were birds of passage and, with all old landmarks left behind, rested for a few hours on their journey.
He studied the group. The men looked dull and beaten; the women had no beauty and had grown coarse with toil. Their faces were pinched and their shoulders bent. Only the children, in spite of rags and dirt, struck a hopeful note. Yet the forlorn strangers had pluck; they had made a great adventure and might get their reward. Lister had seen others in the West, who had made good, breaking soil they owned and walking with the confident step of self-respecting men. On the plains, stubborn labor was rewarded, but one needed pluck to leave all one knew and break custom's familiar but heavy yoke.
By and by Lister remembered he wanted to take his relations a few typically Canadian presents. He had seen nothing that satisfied him at Winnipeg, and had better look about the shops at Montreal. Anyhow, it would amuse him for an hour or two. He got up, went along the path for a few yards, and then stopped.