They were looking at him and listening to him, these Canadian farmers, with curious interest in his attitude, his appearance, his inflection, his whole personality as it offered itself to them--it was a thing new and strange.

Far out in the Northwest, where the emigrant trains had been unloading all the summer, Hesketh's would have been a voice from home; but here, in long-settled Ontario, men had forgotten the sound of it, with many other things.

They listened in silence, weighing with folded arms, appraising with chin in hand; they were slow, equitable men.
"If we in England," Hesketh proceeded, "required a lesson--as perhaps we did--in the importance of the colonies, we had it; need I remind you?
in the course of the late protracted campaign in South Africa.

Then did the mother country indeed prove the loyalty and devotion of her colonial sons.

Then were envious nations compelled to see the spectacle of Canadians and Australians rallying about the common flag, eager to attest their affection for it with their life-blood, and to demonstrate that they, too, were worthy to add deeds to British traditions and victories to the British cause." Still no mark of appreciation.