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Donald looked over the motley collection of shacks as the automobile rolled down the single unpaved street. "Filthy hole," he muttered. "Hello! There's one of my late friends from the Sawdust Pile." A woman, standing in the open door of a shanty on the outskirts of the town had made a wry face and thrust out her tongue at him. He lifted his hat gravely, whereat she screamed a curse upon him.
But Canada has as yet no national importance; she is only in the colonial transition, stage, and her influence on other peoples is hardly yet appreciable So it happens, that whilst the history of a small state in Europe like Holland, Belgium, or Denmark, may win a writer a world-wide reputation, as was the case with Motley, on the other hand, the history of a colonial community is only associated in the minds of the foreign public with petty political conflicts, and not with those great movements of humanity which have affected so deeply the political and social fabric of European States.
"Open it for her!" said Sir Reginald, divining a certain amount of nervousness as the cause of her hesitation. Noel held out a hand for the key, and she gave it to him. There was a sudden hush and a little thrill of expectation in the motley crowd gathered round as he turned to fit it into the lock. The key did not fit in very easily; it seemed to meet with some obstruction.
Across the ice in the vague moonlight a motley throng, a hundred strong, was charging down upon them. Half-naked, their brown arms gleaming, they seemed the inhabitants of some South Sea isle rather than Eskimos of the Farthest North. Copper-pointed spears gleamed yellow and gold, while here and there the dark barrel of a hunting rifle was to be seen. "Go slow," warned the Major.
These passengers made a motley group: first came a stout American with two pretty daughters; then a young Frenchman and his valet; then a Sister of Charity draped in black, her close-fitting, white, starched cap and broad white collar framing her face, one hand clutching the rope rail as she stepped feebly toward the steamer, the other grasping a bandbox, her only luggage; next wriggled some college boys in twos and threes, and then the rest of the hurrying mass, followed close by a herd of emigrants crowding and stumbling like sheep, the men with pillow-case bundles over their backs, the women with babies muffled in shawls.
The settlement from whence these sketches are drawn, was formed of a motley mixture of all the different nations Blue Nose, English, Scotch, Irish, Welch, and Dutch.
This is a very lively neighbourhood. Many an hour's amusement have I had, watching the motley crowd, particularly on Sundays and holydays, when it is frequented by improvisators, singers, musicians, and mountebanks of every description. Not far from the harbour is a long street in which numerous kitchens and many provision-stalls are established.
Alas! the motley crowd from Accomac were no fit adversaries for those stern backwoodsmen. Berkeley's recruits had come over to plunder, and, finding lead and bullets instead of gold and treasure, they fled with light heels to Jamestown, leaving a dozen of their number stretched on the ground as the only proof that they had fought at all. Bacon now opened a cannonade in earnest on the town.
Somebody had rigged a curtain of thin silk for the chair, so that I, when I was set therein, had great privacy, though I knew by the sounds that I was attended by the motley crowd which usually is in following at such affairs, beside the little troop of horse which was my escort, and my brother and Parson Downs riding on either side.
Here we took our meals; which, although sufficient, were not too delicate, salt pork being the chief dish. Rough as were the men, too, they were tolerably well-behaved; but quarrels occasionally took place, as might have been expected among such a motley crowd. On the first evening of our arrival Mike's fiddle attracted universal attention, and he was, of course, asked to play a tune.
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