A Minstrel In France | Page 4

far cry from Dunoon and the Clyde and the frost upon the heather on the day I had set out.
We were to land at Sydney. I was a wee bit impatient after we had made our landfall, while the old Sonoma poked her way along. But she would not be hurried by my impatience. And at last we came to the Sydney Heads--the famous Harbor Heads. If you have never seen it I do not know how better to tell you of it than to say that it makes me think of the entrance to a great cave that has no roof. In we went-- and were within that great, nearly landlocked harbor.
And what goings on there were! The harbor was full of craft, both great and sma'. And each had all her bunting flying. Oh, they were braw in the sunlight, with the gay colors and the bits of flags, all fluttering and waving in the breeze!
And what a din there was, with the shrieking of the whistle and the foghorns and the sirens and the clamor of bells. It took my breath away, and I wondered what was afoot. And on the shore I could see that thousands of people waited, all crowded together by the water side. There were flags flying, too, from all the buildings.
"It must be that the King is coming in on a visit--and I never to have heard of it!" I thought.
And then they made me understand that it was all for me!
If there were tears in my eyes when they made me believe that, will you blame me? There was that great harbor, all alive with the welcome they made for me. And on the shore, they told me, a hundred thousand were waiting to greet me and bid me:
"Welcome, Harry!"
The tramways had stopped running until they had done with their welcome to inc. And all over the city, as we drove to our hotel, they roared their welcome, and there were flags along the way.
That was the proudest day I ha d ever known. But one thing made me wistful and wishful. I wanted my boy to be there with us. I wished he had seen how they had greeted his Dad. Nothing pleased him more than an honor that came to me. And here was an honor indeed--a reception the like of which I had never seen.
CHAPTER II
It was on the twenty-ninth day of March, in that year of 1914 that dawned in peace and happiness and set in blood and death and bitter sorrow, that we landed in Sydney. Soon I went to work. Everywhere my audiences showed me that that great and wonderful reception that had been given to me on the day we landed had been only an earnest of what was to come. They greeted me everywhere with cheers and tears, and everywhere we made new friends, and sometimes found old ones of whom we had not heard for years.
And I was thinking all the time, now, of my boy. He was on his way. He was on the Pacific. He was coming to me, across the ocean, and I could smile as I thought of how this thing and that would strike him, and of the smile that would light up his face now and the look of joy that would come into his eyes at the sudden sighting of some beautiful spot. Oh, aye--those were happy days When each one brought my boy nearer to me.
One day, I mind, the newspapers were full of the tale of a crime ill an odd spot in Europe that none of us had ever heard of before. You mind the place? Serajevo! Aye--we all mind it now! But then we read, and wondered how that outlandish name might be pronounced. A foreigner was murdered--what if he was a prince, the Archduke of Austria? Need we lash ourselves about him?
And so we read, and were sorry, a little, for the puir lady who sat beside the Archduke and was killed with him. And then we forgot it. All Australia did. There was no more in the newspapers. And my son John was coming--coming. Each day he was so many hundred miles nearer to me. And at last he came. We were in Melbourne then, it was near to the end of July.
We had much to talk about--son, and his mother and I. It was long months since we had seen him, and we had seen and done so much. The time flew by. Maybe we did not read the papers so carefully as we might have done. They tell me, they have told me, since then, that in Europe and even in America, there was some warning after Austria moved on Serbia. But I believe that down there