Branksome Hall - Slogan Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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THE BEANKSOME SLOGAN. 11 that Scott and Burns must indeed have lived, and though, perhaps, the Ladye was but a creature of Scott ' s imagination, still Brank- some Hall is there, a very tangible reality. I couldn ' t help feeling glad that I was connected, if not with it, at least with its namesake here, and I echoed the response given to the school toast at our luncheon last year, Here ' s to Branksome Hall ; not so famous as Scott ' s Branksome, but it ' s not our fault if it isn ' t. Jean C. MacTavish. THE LADY OF THE LAMBS She walks — the lady of my delight — A shepherdess of sheep. Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white ; She guards them from the steep. She feeds them on the fragrant height, And folds them in for sleep. She roams maternal hills and bright, Dark valleys safe and deep. Her dreams are innocent at night; The chastest stars may peep. She walks — the lady of my delight — A shepherdess of sheep. She holds her little thoughts in sight, Though gay they run and leap. She is so circumspect and right; She has her soul to keep. She walks — the lady of my delight — A shepherdess of sheep. ' x4.LICE MeYNELL. My three little nephews, aged respectively six, four and three years, like all other little children, waken early in the morning, and some- times while away the time by telling stories. One morning Archie, the four-year-old, began : Once upon a time dere were three chickens. What were their names ? interrupted the eldest. Chicken Bloth ' proposed the Baby. . Plailie Chicken, suggested Archie, and Plailie Pire, added the Baby. So those three names were unani- mously approved — Chicken Broth, Prairie Chicken and Prairie Fire. It is not hard to guess in what part of Canada these children live.

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10 THE BEANKSOME SLOGAISr. stayed here some time for luncheon, but resumed onr trip in the after- noon, and, when at last we drew np in front of the hall, I could hardly realize that this quaint old building was actually the Brank- some which we had studied about at school. However, I stood up and declaimed dramatically ( ?) : The feast was over in Branksome Hall, the Lad3 e had gone to her secret bower. The others wondered a little at my enthusiasm over this particular ancient pile, when the whole of their country is so thickly besprinkled with just as old and, ' apparently, just as interesting castles as this one. They decided tJiat I must surely be a very keen admirer of The Lay of the Last Minstrel — and so indeed I am, but they didn ' t know (how could they, being Scotch, and unlearned in the manners and customs of this country) that Branksome Hall had been made famous, not only by the poems, but by its flourishing namesake in Canada. I gazed at the old building, and tried to imagine the Ladye gliding up the winding stair to the tower she guarded by word and by spell — the irreverent thought struck me that she must have been fearfully cold when she got up there, for these towers are remarkably draughty places. But perhaps she kept herself warm by word and by spell too. Who knows? The hall is built well back from the road. It is set high, and can be seen above the row of elms which fringe the estate by the side of the road. Four grey walls and four grey towers, over- look a space of flowers, and the silent wall embowers — probably some ordinary, everyday Scotch lord and his family! — whereas it used to embower the Ladye with her knights and squires and pages ! Such an anti-climax ! But travelling is full of such anti-climaxes. To visit an old feudal tower, famed perchance in story, and find, instead of clanking armor and clashing swords, a vegetable garden in the moat ! Or to go to a castle where the King of Scotland lived for cen- turies, and find in the banqueting hall some horrid soldiers cleaning their boots — that is death to romance. Many things may be romantic, but cabbages and modern soldiers certainly are not. For this reason it is a bit disappointing to visit these places, which books have made familiar to us, and find them not at all what our vivid imagination has pictured, but then it gives one a much more real interest in one ' s reading to have seen these places. The Lay of the Last Minstrel ' ' can never seem the same to me since I have seen Branksome and Newark Tower; and The Lady of the Lake has quite a new charm since passing Ellen ' s Isle and the spot where Fitz- james and Eoderick Dhu fought their famous duel. As a school- girl is said to have remarked, after visiting the graves in Westminster Abbey, They seem quite real to me now, for they must have lived or they couldn ' t have died. So at Abbotsford and at Ayr one feels

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12 THE BEAOTvSOME SLOGAN. ONE NIGHT The car took me to the door, and I climbed a flight of steps so high that it was a matter of surprise to find no angels descending. No! angels never ascended those steps nor were admitted into that wholly delightful but common New York house. Surely the house was twelve feet wide and twelve times as high. My first idea was stairs. ' Stairs from dining-room to office, stairs from office to sitting-room, stairs from sitting-room to bedroom. Not wide, palatial stairs. All, no! What would be the use of wide stairs ? Space means money. There- fore they are one foot wide. Woe to him who exceedeth that horizon- tal measurement. The night of my arrival was less disturbed than seemed natural, but all night long there was the thundering of the elevated and surface cars, and in the intervals horrible, blood-curdling shrieks of an infant in agony. I lay petrified, while there rose in my mind stories of cruelty to children in this huge city. I had a vision of a poor, aban- doned baby, lying in the cold on an opposite doorstep, and determined to heroically rescue it. I rose and lifted the blind. Babies faded from my mind. There, on top of a high wooden fence, silhouetted against the brightly-lit back door of a saloon, were numberless black spirits, with hooped backs and glaring eyes, stalking purposefully up and down, and sending forth the most heartrending shrieks to disturb the slumbers of the just as well as unjust. Quietly I crawled into bed, and was lured to slumber by the strains of Take me out to the Ball Game, played by the German band in the afore-mentioned saloon. I finally sank into oblivion, misquoting : Oh ! soft embalmer of the still midnight Shielding with careful fingers and benign Our gloom-pleased eyes, embowered from the light, Enshaded in forgetfulness divine. AUSTRALIA Australia is so extensive that many of us, who live in the more settled parts, know very little about it as a whole. Living in Victoria, where settlement is fairly close, and where there is a good system of railways, one is inclined to forget the vast stretch of country in other States, which is scarcely opened up. Indeed, in parts the Aborigines live almost undisturbed. Of course, there are sections where the rain- fall is so scarce as to make the land unfit for occupation, but there is much good country lying undisturbed, which will eventually be settled and turned to account when the surplus population of other continents finds its way there.