Syl laughed nervously. "Oh Maggie, you are such a tease! I never seen such a monkey of a girl as you. Look here what I got you." He handed her a little white candy tablet on which was printed a sentimental inscription. "I bought three pounds of them congregational lozengers at Basketful's to-day jist for you."
Maggie glared at the unoffending piece of confectionery, but did not deign to touch it. "My, but you must have thought I could eat like a horse!" she remarked scathingly. "You can give them to Julia Duffy," and she flounced out of the seat to another at some distance, leaving Syl to endure an evening of tormenting doubt as to whether he might see her home.
Mr. Watson came bustling over nervously to confer with the choir leader. "The crowd's nearly all here, do you think we'd better start, Andrew?"
"Jist as you like," was the reply. Wee Andra was of too huge proportions to be moved by any excitement. "There's Mr. Thomas Hayes, M. P., no less, comin' in at the door now!" he added, stretching his neck to get a view of the other end of the church and sending a rather unstable cedar tree and a deluge of flags crashing upon the organ. "Gosh, I've pulled down the whole shootin' match!"
Mr. Hayes was the Member of Parliament for Glenoro's constituency, as well as the Burke of the Flats, Oro's Irish settlement. He was the only orator honoured with an invitation to address the meeting. Mr. Watson hurried down the aisle to welcome the distinguished visitor, amid a hail-storm of conversation lozenges. When he had been brought to the platform and duly honoured everything was in readiness.
Glenoro custom demanded that all such affairs should be opened with prayer, but in his capacity of chairman, Mr. Watson did not see fit to call upon either clergyman to perform that ceremony; the programme was long enough, he reflected, and the praying could be dispensed with easier than anything else. The audience settled into expectant silence as Mr. Egerton arose and in a few well-chosen words explained the double mission of the Patriotic Society, and the aim of its entertainment. His audience listened attentively, and, judging from the applause that followed, seemed to be quite in sympathy with the movement. It is true that some of the babies, not yet old enough to realise their glorious heritage, occasionally interrupted his remarks, and one disloyal youth shied a "congregational lozenger" across the room; but the speaker did not appear at all disturbed.
The programme which followed was one calculated to arouse the most sluggish soul present. The choir sang quite thrillingly "The Maple Leaf Forever"; the mouth organ and concertina band played "Upon the Heights of Queenston" four times through without stopping to take breath; while the boys at the back of the church kept time vigorously with their feet. During the performance Sim Basketful made several ineffectual excursions to that abandoned region to demand order, but was met by a fusillade of confectionery. Wee Andra roared out "The Battle of the Baltic" at the top of his prodigious lungs, and was thunderously encored. The fact that in his exit he once more knocked over the evergreen tree with its burden of flags detracted not one whit from either his or Nelson's glory. Then Annie Fraser played "The Battle of Waterloo" on the organ with an execution quite worthy of the carnage of that event. The only drawback to it was that Sandy Neil, who had been detailed to announce each different part of the action, and apprise the audience of the fact that certain sounds meant "cannonade," while others symbolised the "cries of the wounded," as usual allowed his spirit of mischief to carry him away. He sang out the names of the different movements in the long-drawn-out tone associated with "calling-off" at a dance, much to the horror of the staider portion of the audience. Mrs. Fraser told 'Liza Cotton afterwards that it just gave her a turn with her heart to see her Annie sitting right up there in the midst of such iniquity.
Crooked Sandy McDonald, who was as straight as a pine stem, but who lived under the misfortune of his ancestor's distinguishing appellation, and who, next to Syl Todd, was the best elocutionist in the neighbourhood, recited "The Charge of the Light Brigade"; and though he said "Half a leak" owing to the inconvenience of a Highland accent, he rendered the selection with such vim that his efforts brought down the house, and a deluge of lozenges.
Such a warlike programme had never before been heard in the township of Oro. The very air seemed to smell of gunpowder. The schoolmaster was electrified. He sprang to his feet almost before the Light Brigade had ceased charging, and announced in a voice high and tremulous with emotion that the auspicious moment had come, for they were now to be favoured with the great feature of the evening, a patriotic address by Mr. Thomas Hayes, Member of Parliament!
Mr. Hayes arose with the ease and deliberation of an old election campaigner. He was a tall, lean man, with bright penetrating eyes, and a delightful suspicion of an Irish brogue, a man with hands horny from the plough and a brain that belongs only to the rulers of men. He represented a political party that had its stronghold in Glenoro and its impregnable fortress in the Oa; so he took his place upon the platform amid uproarious stamping and cheering.