Canada could not well have had a better champion. He spoke in the most glowing terms of his beloved land, of her wonderful scenery, her healthful climate, her free, hardy people, her glorious future. He reeled off enough information about her mines, her fisheries, her agricultural resources and her manufactures to fill an encyclopedia. He dilated upon the beauty and grandeur of Canadian scenery. He stood his audience upon the heights of Quebec and showed them the whole panorama of their wonderful country in one sentence. He swept from ocean to ocean; he swam the great lakes and sailed down innumerable rivers; he scooped out a canal to Port Nelson and shot across Hudson's Bay; he rolled across the prairies; he hewed down the forest belt; he dug gold in British Columbia; and, finally, he climbed the highest snow-capped peak of the Rocky Mountains and poured down from its dizzy heights the torrents of his eloquence; and when his bewildered hearers recovered from the delightful deluge, they found that the exponent of the Canadian Patriotic Society had skipped across the Atlantic and was thundering forth upon the wonders and beauty of Ireland!
This was a long way from Canada and the aims of the Canadian Patriotic Society, and the chairman's face lost its rapt look. John Egerton hid a smile behind the pulpit desk and that part of the audience that was of Irish extraction applauded uproariously. When, after nearly half an hour's lauding of the Emerald Isle, the orator did stop, he was so carried away by his own feelings that he wound up with a stanza, recited most thrillingly, from "Erin-go-Bragh" and sat down amid deafening applause without referring in the remotest way to his original text.
Mr. Watson was rising to announce the next piece, in a rather doubtful mood, when a voice from the back called out, with no uncertain sound as to either the sentiments or the origin of its owner, "Wot's the matter with England?"
There was a roar of laughter and a loud clapping of hands. Mr. Hayes arose again. He was too old a politician not to see that he had made a mistake in his one-sided speech. He was about to supplement it, and was beginning "Ladies and Gentlemen," when a loud voice from the centre of the church interrupted him.
Mr. Sim Basketful had sat with an expression of utter boredom during the latter portion of the member's speech, finally working himself up into a volcanic mood as it neared an end. His face was purple and his short, thick neck showed veins standing out dangerously. He might have held down his righteous indignation had it not been for the challenge from the back of the room, but the sight of that "blathering Irishman" rising in response to it was too much. Mr. Basketful was not of Mr. Hayes' political opinions and, besides that, was his rival upon tea-meeting platforms. He had convinced himself that it was due to the Presbyterian minister's interference that he, a Methodist, had been denied the honour of being the speaker of the evening. He, a class-leader in the very church where the performance was given, to be set aside for that Irish Catholic! He would show them all a thing or two before he sat down. He was standing now, looking straight ahead of him, and grasping the back of the seat before him, with true Saxon doggedness.
"Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen," he shouted, and Mr. Hayes, who had met Sim Basketful many a time in his political campaigns, sat down, somewhat disconcerted.
"Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, if there's anybody in this 'ere haudience wants to know wot's the matter with Hingland, I'm 'ere prepared to state, sir, that there ain't one bloomin' thing the matter with 'er!" (Loud cheers from his Anglo-Saxon hearers.) "And wot's more, Ladies and Gentlemen and Mr. Chairman, I think it's 'igh time we were 'earin' just a little about that country that's made us all wot we are!" (Applause, mingled with noises of an indefinite character.) "We've been 'earin' a lot o' nonsense about Hireland and Hirish scenery and Hirish soldiers, but wot I'd like to be hinformed about, Ladies and Gentlemen and Mr. Chairman, is if anybody in this 'ere haudience is under the himpression that a Canadian Patriotic Society is a Hirish society!"
The withering contempt of the last words, and the cheers they elicited, brought the first speaker indignantly to his feet. Not one word could he get in, however. Mr. Basketful was a true Briton, and with the aid of a voice which drowned all competitors he clung to his theme with magnificent tenacity. When the noise calmed sufficiently for him to be heard, the audience found that he was discoursing fiercely and doggedly upon the inimitable land of his birth.
Sandy Neil, his eyes dancing, slipped out of his place in the choir, and made his way softly down the aisle at the side of the church. "Catchach's down there," he whispered to the choir leader as he passed; "I'm goin' to stir him up;" and Wee Andra threw back his head with a laugh which blew out the lamp on the organ.
But none of these things moved the patriotic Englishman. He was launched upon his favourite theme, his native land, and was irresistible. England was the only country in the world. He stamped, he sawed the air, he used metaphors and similes and hyperboles in a vain endeavour to give some idea of her glory. He eulogized her commerce, her statesmen, her Queen. He brought up her infantry, he charged with her cavalry, he poured upon his hearers her heavy artillery. And at last, backed by the whole great English navy, he swept every other country off the face of the globe and retired to his seat behind the stove, the Wellington of one last, grand, oratorical Waterloo.