A Minstrel In France | Page 7

humanity, of freedom, that
they were entering. And that, too, gave me comfort later in dark times,
for it made me know that when the right time came America would
take her place beside old Britain and brave France.
New Zealand is a bonnie land. It made me think, sometimes, of the
Hielands of Scotland. A bonnie land, and braw are its people. They
made me happy there, and they made much of me.
At Christchurch they did a strange thing. They were selling off, at
auction, a Union Jack--the flag of Britain. Such a thing had never been
done before, or thought of. But here was a reason and a good one.
Money was needed for the laddies who were going--needed for all sorts
of things. To buy them small comforts, and tobacco, and such things as
the government might not be supplying them. And so they asked me to
be their auctioneer.
I played a fine trick upon them there in Christchurch. But I was not
ashamed of myself, and I think they have forgi'en me--those good
bodies at Christchurch!
Here was the way of it. I was auctioneer, you ken--but that was not
enough to keep me from bidding myself. And so I worked them up and
on--and then I bid in the flag for myself for a hundred pounds--five
hundred dollars of American money.
I had my doots about how they'd be taking it to have a stranger carry
their flag away. And so I bided a wee. I stayed that night in
Christchurch, and was to stay longer. I could wait. Above yon town of
Christchurch stretch the Merino Hills. On them graze sheep by the
thousand--and it is from those sheep that the true Merino wool comes.

And in the gutters of Christchurch there flows, all day long, a stream of
water as clear and pure as ever you might hope to see. And it should be
so, for it is from artesian wells that it is pumped.
Aweel, I bided that night and by next day they were murmuring in the
town, and their murmurs came to me. They thought it wasna richt for a
Scotsman to be carrying off their flag--though he'd bought it and paid
for it. And so at last they came to me, and wanted to be buying back the
flag. And I was agreeable.
"Aye-I'll sell it back to ye!" I told them. "But at a price, ye ken-- at a
price! Pay me twice what I paid for it and it shall be yours!"
There was a Scots bargain for you! They must have thought me mean
and grasping that day. But out they went. They worked for the money.
It was but just a month after war had been declared, and money was
still scarce and shy of peeping out and showing itself. But, bit by bit,
they got the siller. A shilling at a time they raised, by subscription. But
they got it all, and brought it to me, smiling the while.
"Here, Harry--here's your money!" they said. "Now give us back our
flag!"
Back to them I gave it--and with it the money they had brought, to be
added to the fund for the soldier boys. And so that one flag brought
three hundred pounds sterling to the soldiers. I wonder did those folk at
Christchurch think I would keep the money and make a profit on that
flag?
Had it been another time I'd have stayed in New Zealand gladly a long
time. It was a friendly place, and it gave us many a new friend. But
home was calling me. There was more than the homebound tour that
had been planned and laid out for me. I did not know how soon my boy
might be going to France. And his mother and I wanted to see him
again before he went, and to be as near him as might be.
So I was glad as well as sorry to sail away from New Zealand's friendly
shores, to the strains of pipers softly skirling:

"Will ye no come back again?"
We sailed for Sydney on the Minnehaha, a fast boat. We were glad of
her speed a day or so out, for there was smoke on the horizon that gave
some anxious hours to our officers. Some thought the German raider
Emden was under that smoke. And it would not have been surprising
had a raider turned up in our path. For just before we sailed it had been
discovered that the man in charge of the principal wireless station in
New Zealand was a German, and he had been interned. Had he sent
word to German warships of the plans and movements of British ships?
No one could prove it, so he was