The sport is carried on in this wise: the youths take their tarboggin or sleigh—a flat piece of board four feet long, with or without runners, will do; through a hole at one end is attached a piece of cord. The boys watch their opportunity, and when a vehicle passes, noiselessly on the snow they run out, slip the cord over the iron or any projection of the carriage behind, and, holding the end fast, throw themselves down on their sleigh, which is dragged along by the vehicle; and if cabby should arise in his wrath, in an instant the end of the cord is let go, and the young navigator, starting to his feet, runs off with his instrument of torture in search of a new victim. It adds much to this entertainment for one boy to catch hold of the leg or the sleigh of another boy, so that a string of four or five youths may be seen in full enjoyment of the recreation. Bless them! If I had not seen them following this sport, I should have fairly doubted if there were any boys in the United States.
If there was not all the cordiality which could be desired between the natives and the military, no fault could be found with the full measure of hospitality dealt out to their own countrymen by the officers of the garrison. Removed from the stiffness of home stations, the genial, kindly character of our young soldiers expatiates, in despite of middling cookery and colonial wines, and keeps open house for friends on foreign service. When sleighing for the day is over, and the skating party has come to an end, it is hard indeed for poor Jones to think of anything more than his dinner; but if he made the most of his opportunities, he might write a book in the solitude of his barrack, as those famous prisoners have done whose brains have conceived and brought forth such brilliant works in the darkness of the Tower.
The snows are well-nigh as binding and environing for a third of the year in bad seasons, and no doubt something would come of it all, but that the officer has his duties to attend to, and cannot escape from Private 1000’s stoppages, grievances, or failings. Now, it is no easy matter indeed for British officers to be very great friends in the same regiment. Of course you will find Pylades and Orestes there, but you may be sure if you do they are men who have no clashing interests, no contest of purses, no conflicting views about leave or steps. It is to me quite wonderful, all things considered, how bravely the natural kindliness of our officers contends against a system which, with all its advantages, creates a source of rivalry and jealousy not known in other services.
In a promotion-by-seniority service there can of course be no feeling against a man on the part of his juniors because he happens to be older; but no one can well brook the greater fortune which depends on the command of money,—though he may be willing to seize on it, if he can, by the same means,—in the case of his own juniors. I do not speak without some small knowledge when I say that there is a much larger amount of camaraderie in our service than ought to be found in it, but that there is much less than exists in some other armies. The French officer is jealous of the man promoted by merit, for the declaration of that superiority is a tacit censure on himself, and he is also prone to take umbrage at the good fortune of the immortels of the État major; but he has little ground for antipathy to any of his own set, as regards social position or military rank in the corps.
Our strong love of field-sports also tends to create small difficulties when at home, from which spring other causes of estrangement. One man, for instance, wants to get to the spring-meeting when another is burning for the spring-fishing—shooting-leaves and hunting-leaves clash together, though in no army in the world is there such a liberal system of furlough as in our own. These causes do not operate in Canada, where there is now, in fact, but little sport of any kind within easy distances. Moose shooting in snow is slow work, and for other game the sportsman must wander far and wide. But when the table is set, and the full tide of conversation flows, what a cheery group of warriors, young and old, may be seen in Canadian quarters! They have had sleighing parties and skating adventures, and altogether have got over the day somehow, and are prepared to look pleasantly on the world, albeit the snow is two feet deep over it.
As to the position afforded by the buildings in these particular old barracks in Toronto, no more uncomfortable place could well be imagined in face of an enemy. The defences are so ludicrous, that a Chinese engineer would despise them. Certainly, we have no right to laugh at Americans, or to hold their works in petto, if we take one glance at the fortifications of Toronto; and yet, as will be seen, it is a place of the very greatest importance.
My stay here would have been longer, perhaps, but that I was informed of a very kindly intention on the part of the people which I did not desire to have carried out, at all events under the existing circumstances—being in hopes that a future opportunity would occur of proving that I was not indifferent to the good feeling and very flattering sentiments of the gentlemen who had commenced the movement towards myself; and so, in the sure hope that I would be back in Toronto ere I left America, I bade my good friends good-bye, never, as it proves, in all likelihood, to see them again, and, in the midst of a snow-fall, resumed my journey with my companions towards Quebec.
After undergoing a year of obloquy, ill-looks, slander, and popular disfavour in a great country, it was very pleasant to meet with such marks of good-will and kindness from one’s countrymen and fellow-subjects on the same continent; and it was quite as gratifying to know that such feelings were entertained by them, as it would have been to receive the outward token of their existence, which alone would have contented my friends.
The evening on which I left Toronto was intensely cold. Never for a moment had the snow and frost relented, and a wind of piercing keenness swept up the frozen dust in thick clouds, which penetrated every chink. The railway officials did their best for us, and the stove in the carriage was poked up to excessive energy; but the heat of these calorifiers is worse than cold itself.
Our way lay through a snow-field bordered by snow-hills, or by the stiff cones of snow-covered firs. Our fellow-passengers were big men in fur-coats and thick boots, who were given to silence and sleep. Slowly the train creaked through the soft barrier which so gently yet stiffly, opposed the tramp of the iron horse. The landscape was simply nothing to see. It looked as if one were going for ever through a vast array of newly-washed sheets spread over the whole country. Darkness fell suddenly out of the skies on the whiteness, but still could not darken it. The whiteness shone through the depths of night, and flashed out in streaks of dazzling light, as the flare of the engine-fires and of the lamps shot out over the surface. And so it came to pass that at last we went to sleep, gathering up rug and greatcoat and wrapper into vast mounds, from which issued many a spiritus asper and susurrous sounds for the livelong night.