‘Such nice people at Ottawa, and such interesting people. Also the guiding ideas and influences are English, the first time I have felt it. The position of the Parliament buildings is splendid, and some day it will be a great city. The Archives represent the birth and future of Canadian history, and a Canadian patriotism—four years’ work, and already it is influencing ideas and politics, among a young people who did not know they had a history.[29]
“Toronto is less exciting, though pleasant. We lunched yesterday with Colonel George Denison, a great Loyalist and Preferentialist, much in with Chamberlain. He cut Goldwin Smith twenty years ago!—so it was piquant to go on from him to the Grange. The Grange is an English eighteenth-century house, or early nineteenth—as one might find in the suburbs of Manchester in a large English garden—the remains of 1,000 acres—with beautiful trees. An old man got up to meet me, old, but unmistakably Goldwin Smith, though the black hair is grizzled—not white—and the face emaciated. But he holds himself erect, and his mind is as clear, and his eye as living, as ever—at 85. He still harps on his favourite theme—that Canada must ultimately drop into the mouth of the United States and should do so—and poured scorn on English Tariff Reformers and English Home Rulers together. Naturally he is not very popular here!”
From Toronto Mrs. Ward made a flying trip to Buffalo and Niagara, where she was shown the glories of the Falls by General Greene—a descendant of the gallant Nathaniel Greene, hero of the S. Carolina campaign of 1781. Then, returning to Toronto, she found Sir William van Horne and the promised private car awaiting her—not to mention the “Royal Suite” at the Queen’s Hotel, offered her by the management “free, gratis, for nothing! Oh dear, how soon will the mighty fall!—after the 12th of June next” (the date of her departure for home). But, for the present, “The car is yours,” said Sir William, “the railway is yours—do exactly as you like and give your orders.”
They parted from their kind Providence on Saturday, May 23, but within forty-eight hours the railway was providing them with quite an unforeseen sensation. Six hours this side of Winnipeg (where all kinds of engagements awaited her), part of the track that ran across a marsh collapsed, with the result that Mrs. Ward’s and many other trains were held up for nearly twenty hours.
“Vermilion Station, C.P.R.,
“May 25, 1908.
‘Here we are, stranded at a tiny wayside station of the C.P.R., and have been waiting sixteen hours, while eight miles ahead they are repairing a bridge which has collapsed in a marsh owing to heavy rain. Three trains are before us and about five behind. A complete block on the great line. We arrived here at six this morning, and here it is 9.50 p.m.
‘It has been a strange day—mostly very wet, with nothing to look at but some scrubby woods and a bit of cutting. We captured a Manitoba Senator and made him come and talk to us, but it did not help us very far. Snell, our wonderful cook and factotum, being in want of milk, went out and milked a cow!—asking the irate owner, when the deed was done, how much he wanted. And various little incidents happened, but nothing very enlivening.
[Later.]. “Here we are at the spot, a danger signal behind us, and the one in front just lowered. Another stop! our engine is detached and we see it vanishing to the rear. The track won’t bear it. How are we going to get over!—Here comes the engine back, and the brakesman behind our car imagines we are to be pushed over, the engine itself not venturing.
‘10.5. Safely over! The engine pushed us to the brink, and then, as it was taken off, a voice asked for Mrs. Ward. It was the Assistant Manager of the line, Mr. Jameson, who jumped on board in order to cross with us and explain to me everything that had happened. He had been working for hours and looked tired out. But we went out to the observation-platform, he and I and Dorothy, and the trajet began—our train being attached to some light empty cars, and an engine in front that was pulling us over. I thought Mr. Jameson evidently nervous as we went slowly forward—we were the first train over!—but he showed us as well as the darkness allowed, the marshy place, the new bed made for the line (in the morning the rails were hanging in air and an engine and two cars went in!) and the black mud of the sink-hole pushed up into high banks—trees on the top of them—on either side by the pressure of the new filling put in—50,000 cubic yards of sand and gravel. On either side of the line were crowds of dark figures, Galician and Italian workmen, intently watching our progress. Altogether a dramatic and interesting scene! We were all glad, including, clearly, the assistant manager, when he said, ‘Now we are over it’—but there was no real danger, even if the train had partially sunk, for it was only a causeway over a marsh and not a real bridge.
“Well, it is absurd to have only a day for Winnipeg, but this accident makes it inevitable. The journey has been all of it wonderful, and I am more thrilled by Canada than words can describe!”