The Colonel, drawing his bridle, joined in the march and the glimpse of Canada was lost under overhanging vistas of trees. “Do you know, Morton,” he said, “it seems strange to me that our armies should meet resistance from the Canadians. We speak the same language; we are of the same stock. Why should they fight to the death against uniting with us as equal partners in a free government?”
“You forget, Colonel, that speech and origin are not the strongest elements in national sentiment. You meet a woman with a big man supporting her and bearing himself as if he were proud of her, and you wonder at it, and say the man could find plenty whose faces are pleasanter to look upon and which indicate more intelligence. The man will admit all that, but he tells you the woman is his mother, and to him she is better and more beautiful than all the women in the world beside. In the same way, the British government may be inferior in some points to your new Republic, may have made mistakes in the past, and might be better in some regards, but then she is the mother of the Canadians, and they will not desert her for bouncing Miss Columbia.”
“That won’t do, Morton; you forget that the British government was once, as you term it, our mother also.”
“I did not forget that, and I hope I will not offend you, Colonel, by saying that for that very cause the Canadians dislike Americans. You turned upon your mother, you strove to compass her humiliation; the very base of your patriotic feeling is hatred of her.”
“That is putting it strong, Morton.”
“I think not; the preamble of your declaration of independence is a tirade of gratuitous charges against Great Britain.”
“Then you think Canada will never unite with the Republic?”
“I certainly think so, and those who live to see it, will find two great English-speaking communities on this continent, with this radical difference between them, that one reviles and seeks to injure the mother-land from which they sprung and the other succors and honors her.”
A commotion in front stopped the conversation and two scouts were seen dragging an old man between them towards the Colonel.
“What’s this?” he asked sharply.