Mackenzie

“ Mr. Mackenzie was something in the city, and had not apparently hit upon a good thing, for there was not much money to spare in the house at Putney. I rather fancy that he was managing clerk to a tea-warehouse, but am not sure upon that point. Mrs. Mackenzie had been a governess, but of course she had not started life as a teacher of small children; no, she had come into the world in an upper room of a pretty country vicarage, where the olive branches grew like stonecrop, and most visitors were in the habit of reminding the vicar of certain lines in the hundred and twenty-seventh Psalm. ”

“ MacLean, surprised to hear of such gallant conduct by the Kintail men in the absence of their chief, asked Mackenzie if any of his own kinsmen were amongst them, and being informed they were not, Maclean replied, "It was a great and audacious deed to be done by fellows." "Truly, MacLean," returned Mackenzie, "they were not fellows that were there, but prime gentlemen, and such fellows as would act the enterprise better than myself and kinsmen." "You have very great reason to make the more of them," said Maclean; "he is a happy superior who has such a following." ”

“ Mackenzie recalled the night he had first approached that door and come suddenly around the corner into the pale beam of Hertha Carlson’s lantern. Now the kitchen door might be shut, and there was no window on that side.
Mackenzie stopped to listen, his senses as keen as a 290 savage’s under his strain. One who has not approached danger and uncertainty, listening and straining in the night, cannot conceive the exquisite pitch to which human nerves can be attuned. ”

“ There should be no dressing for dinner, no going out, nothing but idleness, tea, lamb chops, and gossip about the day's work. Mr Mackenzie was down at the House, and there was no occasion for any domestic energy. And thus the evening was passed. How Mrs Chaucer Munro and the loud bevy fared among them, or how old Lady Ware and her daughters, or the poor, dear, bothered duchess or Mr Manfred Smith, or the kings and heroes who had appeared in paint and armour, cannot be told. ”

“ Mackenzie returned, leaving her to form her own conclusion.
She searched his face with steady eyes, her hand on the ax-helve, in earnest effort to read his heart.
21
“No, you are not afraid,” she said. “But wait; when you hear him speak, then you will be afraid.”
“How do you know he is coming home tonight?”
She did not speak at once. Her eyes were fixed on the open door at Mackenzie’s side, her face was set in the tensity of her mental concentration as she listened. Mackenzie bent all his faculties to hear if any foot approached. There was no sound. ”

“ As a railway builder he staged the greatest pageant of industry ever known in Canada, and when the show went off the road because it was no longer able to pay its bills, took what he could salvage of the properties and left other men to wrestle with the reconstruction.
We shall never have another Mackenzie. Bigger men may arise. More unusual characters may stalk out of obscurity into places of eminence and power. But there never again can be an era like the Mackenzie epoch, because that kind of experience is suffered and enjoyed but once in a nation's lifetime. ”

“ One night after a hard day's portage Mackenzie was inspired by a brilliant idea. "They got no children," he said, in a hoarse, exceptionally audible whisper. "It worries them. Them as is Catholics goes pilgrimages, but these ain't Catholics. See?"
"I can't stand that," said Marjorie. "It touches my pride. I've stood a good deal. Mr. Mackenzie!... Mr.... Mackenzie."
The voice at the men's fire stopped and a black head turned around. "What is it, Mrs. Trafford?" asked Mackenzie. ”

“ He first asked for Miss Mackenzie, and was told that she was not staying there. Was he thereupon to leave his card and go away? He had told himself that in this pursuit of the heiress he would probably be called upon to dare much, and if he did not begin to show some daring at once, how could he respect himself, or trust to himself for future daring? So he boldly asked for Mrs Mackenzie, and was at once shown into the parlour. ”

“ In 1776 Mackenzie married Penuel, daughter of Sir Ludovick Grant of Grant. He was, in his later years, a notable figure in Edinburgh society. He was nicknamed the “man of feeling,” but he was in reality a hard-headed man of affairs with a kindly heart. ”

“ But God's will be done; God's will be done. I think I had better go now, Mr Rubb. There will be no use in my going to her upstairs again. Tell her from me, with my love, that she shall hear from me when I have seen the lawyer. I will try to come to her, but perhaps I may not be able. Good-bye, Mr Rubb."
"Good-bye, Miss Mackenzie. I hope we shall see each other sometimes."
"Perhaps so. Do what you can to support her. She will want all that her friends can do for her." ”

“ But in the passing of that instant, as one who casts behind him all else upon the seizing of swift-racing opportunity, MacKenzie rose and leaped. Out of the boat against the reeling steel wall he sprang; he gripped the ladder's sides with both strong hands and found the step which lay unseen beneath him. Already the oarsmen were pulling off to safety; through the black plates he heard the clanging of the gong down in the engine room. He climbed up and gained the deck. ”

“ There Mackenzie and Jackson, with Hamid Gul, were awaiting them. For a few moments speechless greetings passed between the reunited friends; their hearts were full; feeling was too intense to find expression in word. When Mackenzie at last spoke, there was an unusual huskiness in his tones.
"Come now, listen, all of you. We are in a garden; there's a seven-foot wall around it. Beyond the wall is a larger enclosure. That's where the buildings are. Dick, you and I are going through Hamid's quarters and the kitchen into the pagoda. We are going to collar the Eye!" ”

“ In this I think she was right; in modern London it does not do for the lion to lie down with the lamb, or for earthenware pipkins to try sailing down the stream with the iron pots. In "Upper Bohemia," owing to the haziness of her right of entry, Mrs. Mackenzie was quite an important person; in the city, owing to various circumstances--shortness of money, most of all--Mrs. Mackenzie was nowhere.
Mrs. Mackenzie had not followed the example of her father and mother with regard to the size of her family; she had only three children, two girls and a boy--Rosalind, Wilfrid, and Nannie. ”

“ He requested him to take a seat beside him, so that he might see the country as they went across to Borva; and Lavender having done so, Ingram and Duncan got into the body of the wagonette, and the party drove off.
Passing through the clean and bright little town, Mackenzie suddenly pulled up his horses in front of a small shop, in the windows of which some cheap bits of jewelry were visible. The man came out, and Mr. Mackenzie explained with some care and precision that he wanted a silver brooch of a particular sort. ”

“ Then Mr Maguire got up, saying that he should probably do himself the pleasure of calling on Miss Mackenzie at the Cedars, and went his way.
"I wonder what he's after," said Mrs Mackenzie, as soon as the door was shut.
"Perhaps he came to tell her to bear it all with Christian resignation," said Miss Colza; "they always do come when anything's in the wind like that; they like to know everything before anybody else."
"It's my belief he's after her money," said Mrs Mackenzie.
"With such a squint as that!" said Mary Jane; "I wouldn't have him though he was made of money, and I hadn't a farthing." ”

“ For the wanderers there is no end we dare tell. Mr. Mackenzie has "a jolly conception of the adventurous men of London, with all its sly and labyrinthine romance"; but has he ever thought of following beside any of the men and women who flutter across his page—we cannot say to their homes, for they have none? ”

“ The man was Alexander Mackenzie, and the worlds he sought to conquer were those of the far north. There was said to be a mighty river whose waters no white man had ever yet seen, whose source and outlet could only be guessed at, from the vague reports of Indians, whose banks were said to be infested with bloodthirsty tribes, and whose course was broken by so many and dangerous cataracts that no traveller might hope to navigate its waters and live.
Mackenzie, chafing at the dreary monotony of the fur-trader's life, listened eagerly to all such tales. ”

“ MS. history of the Mackenzies, the oldest in existence, suggests that Mackenzie himself may have instigated the ruffians to do away with his wife. "They lived," he says, "a considerable time together childless, but men in those days (of whom be reason) preferred succession and manhood to wedlock. He caused to throw her under silence of night over the Bridge of Scatwell, but by Providence and by the course of the river she was cast ashore and escaped, went back immediately to his house, then at Achilty, and went to his bedside in a fond condition. ”

“ The Incharrow Mackenzies were great people who saw much company, and it was, she thought, quite out of the question that she should go to their house. At no time of her career would she have been, as she conceived, fit to live with such grand persons; but at the present moment, when she grudged herself even a new pair of gloves out of the money remaining to her, while she was still looking forward to a future life passed as a nurse in a hospital, she felt that there would be an absolute unfitness in such a visit. ”

“ This was the last chance to stop until she passed through the neck of the funnel—between Fort Point and Lime Point. The gray fog was still motionless up there on the slopes. He uttered an order; the Empress started on.
She passed Mile Rock far over to her right. More than two miles ahead of her, at the edge of the point which has been named for it, the grim old black fort, with its rows of loopholes, stood out clearly. Across the narrow channel from it, the Lime Point Light house gleamed white upon its rocky headland.
Under MacKenzie's feet the decks were astir with men and women. ”

“ The words had scarcely left his lips when the great door at the end of the aisle resounded under a loud and violent knocking.
"It means war, I doubt," Mackenzie answered. "Go and join Mr. Beresford, Bob. I'll bring the others with some of those arms you discovered. We must keep the Chinkies out at all costs."
He raced back to the inner room. Forrester had already left the head-dress, and seized an ancient pike.
"No, no, Dick!" cried Mackenzie. "Stick to your job, man. I'm no good at puzzles myself. We will need that Eye! Hamid, you and your chopper, away to the kitchen door. ”

“ Those on shore observing the row, came out in their small boats and seeing Mackenzie, who was a dexterous swimmer, manfully making for Sconsar, on the opposite shore, in Skye, they pelted him with stones, smashed in his brains and drowned him. The few of his men who kept sober, seeing their leader thus perish, resolved to sell their lives dearly; and fighting like heroes, they killed the young laird of Raasay, along with MacGillechallum Mor, author of all the mischief, and his two sons. ”

“ In 1875 Mackenzie paid a visit to Great Britain, and was received at Windsor by Queen Victoria; he was offered a knighthood, but declined it. After his defeat he suffered from failing health, gradually resulting in almost total paralysis, but though in 1880 he resigned the leadership of the opposition, he retained a seat in parliament till his death at Toronto on the 17th of April 1892. While perhaps too cautious to be the ideal leader of a young and vigorous community, his grasp of detail, indefatigable industry, and unbending integrity won him the respect even of his political opponents. ”

“ When the Empress thrust her steep, black prow over the earth's bulge, the circle had widened about the pilot boat until its drab circumference inclosed the headlands to the northeast and racing crests far beyond the silent, red-hulled lightship. The bar's entire shape was projected upon the waters in a vivid horseshoe-shaped smear of white, to which the towering billows raced, whispering. As they reached it, blanching in the instant, they leaped, roaring, amid a myriad snarling predecessors. From the lurching deck MacKenzie sniffed the keen, primeval tang of seaweed uptorn from the depths ”

“ An agitation in favour of popular government in Canada was then in progress. Mackenzie soon interested himself in politics and joined the popular side. He removed to Toronto, and in May 1824 established an opposition paper, the 'Colonial Advocate.' On 8 June 1826 a tory mob broke into his office and destroyed the printing apparatus. For this outrage Mackenzie obtained 625l. damages. He rapidly made himself prominent as a liberal politician, and in 1828 was elected to the legislative assembly of Upper Canada for the county of York. ”

“ There was no light of exultation in it as his great hand closed slowly upon Mackenzie’s throat, no change from its stony harshness save for the dark gash and the flood of blood that ran down his jaw and neck. ”

“ The vitality of the man is gone from him, and he, in his prostrate condition, debarred by all the features of his condition from spontaneous exertion, feels himself to be more a woman than the woman herself. She, if she be such a one as our Miss Mackenzie, arranges her bottles with precision; knows exactly how to place her chair, her lamp, and her teapot; settles her cap usefully on her head, and prepares for the night's work certainly with satisfaction. And such are the best women of the world,—among which number I think that Miss Mackenzie has a right to be counted. ”