Book: Ridgeway

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This craft, of course, engaged the attention of our hero, as
belonging, in part, to the individual who seemed to be mixed up in
some mysterious manner with the fate of his beloved. Consequently, he
stepped over to it and casting a glance of scrutiny at the interior,
saw something sparkle among a little sand, that had accumulated at the
bottom near one of the stretchers. Picking it up, he found that it was
a handsome button that had apparently dropped from the dress of some
lady. This he examined with the most intense eagerness; when the
thought struck him that it was very like some buttons that belonged to
a dress occasionally worn by Kate. Of this, however, he was not
sufficiently certain; so, thrusting it into his pocket, he turned
away, more perplexed than ever with the mystery that surrounded him.
Hurrying to the Rock with the waif as soon as he could, he submitted
it to his friends, when it was at once recognized as being similar to
a set of buttons worn by Kate, and which belonged to a dress that, it
was believed, she wore on the night of her disappearance.
Corroborative as this evidence was, it availed him but little for the
time being; although it strengthened his resolve to move with the army
of invasion; being convinced that his betrothed had, by some foul
means, been spirited across the borders, and all through the
machinations of her rejected suitor, Lauder.

And now how he cursed the procrastination that had kept him from
applying for his discharge long since, when he might have procured it
without any difficulty, and have placed her he loved beyond the power
of any villain. Again, he was no longer free to search for her in the
Province; for he was under the ban of military law there, and, unless
supported by a sufficient number of bayonets, could not stem the
torrent that should soon overwhelm him if he re-entered the
territories of the Queen and was discovered. Yet, even death were
preferable to the state of mind in which he now found himself; he
therefore at once set to work to prepare himself for the coming
contest, in the hope that when once across the borders, if even amid
the din of war, he might gain some clue to the fate of all that he now
cared to live for.

As may be supposed, the service of such men as Nicholas and his
comrades were, at a moment so critical, accepted with alacrity by the
military authorities of the Fenian organization of the city. Amongst
the various sterling patriots in power here, both he and his comrades
were instantly taken by the hand and placed in positions where their
knowledge of arms could be made most serviceable to the grand cause in
which they had resolved to embark. They were all Irish, and of that
stamp that never loses color, how fierce soever the scorching fires to
which they might be subjected. Under a special provision, and at
Barry's request, they were attached to the same company; while he,
from his evident superiority in education and address, as well as from
his thorough knowledge of drill and military tactics, was presented,
upon joining the organization, with a captain's commission. In the
hurry and bustle attending the note of preparation, he found some
slight relief from the great and overshadowing trouble that darkened
all around him; and finding how necessary it was to keep both mind and
body employed, if he was to retain either health or energy to aid him
in any of the important projects that now loomed before him, he gave
no place to useless repinings, but busily engaged with the necessities
of his new avocation, found the hours slipping by which intervened
between the period when he swore the true fealty of his soul to the
flag of his love, and that which was to see him a hostile invader upon
the shores he had so recently left.

As the men steadily poured into the city for a short period before the
invasion, and filled the streets and suburbs in groups of various
sizes, it became a matter of general conversation and surprise that,
in bodies so peculiarly situated, and under such seemingly slight
restraint, many of them being far distant from their homes, not a
single individual was to be found who suffered in the slightest degree
from even the appearance of intoxication. Look where you might, there
was nothing but the utmost sobriety and good behaviour. Although the
men were, for the most part, young, and many of them just from the
bloodiest fields of the South, there hung about them an air of serious
decorum that argued well for the mission in which they were about to
engage. In addition, notwithstanding that, in some cases, they were
badly housed and provisioned, a murmur never escaped their lips; nor
could the most bitter of their enemies point to a single act where the
law was violated by any of them, or show that even to the value of one
mouthful of bread had been appropriated to their use without being
paid for honestly, or given to them freely by those who felt for their
position. This is so well known that, even at the period at which we
write, upwards of two years after the occurrence of these scenes, not
a solitary fact has come to light reflecting in any degree upon the
honesty, sobriety and good conduct of these noble patriots, many of
whom had left home penniless, to wage war against a power that had
almost every resource at its command, and which they knew they should
meet under circumstances that could not fail to be disadvantageous to
them.

And here we may observe, history does not record a more daring or
chivalrous project than that entertained by the brave fellows who made
the night of Thursday the 31st of May, 1866, memorable in the annals
of this continent, as well as in those of Ireland. Although laboring
under embarrassments from the most fearful mistakes and criminal
neglect of an individual to whom the grand project of the redemption
of Ireland from the yoke of the oppressor was, in its strictly
military aspect, entrusted in this country--although badly
provisioned, uniformed and equipped--although perplexed with
mysterious, contradictory and imperfect orders, and although, at the
very moment of their destiny, left without the leader whom they were
led to expect should command them, they never lost heart for a moment;
feeling that heaven would raise up amongst them a chief not only
competent to meet the emergency of the moment, but one in whom they
should be able to place the fullest and most enthusiastic confidence.

And heaven did not disappoint their noble and confiding aspirations;
for, when all looked dark and dreary to the more uneasy of their
numbers, the gallant O'Neill, crowned with the laurels which he had so
nobly won during the war that had then just closed, and true to the
genius of his ancient name and house, stepped in upon the stage, and
grasping the drooping standard of the Irish Republic, held it aloft;
and, fired with the spirit of the "Red Hand" of yore, raised the
war-cry of his race, before which many a Saxon tyrant and slave had
trembled in the days long past.




CHAPTER XI.


When Philip Greaves received the note from Barry, to the deserter who
was secreted in the suburbs of the city, he proceeded, towards
evening, to the point where the soldier lay concealed, and to which he
had been directed with unerring accuracy. On reaching the house in
which the fugitive was said to be hidden, he found but an old woman,
who seemed neither alarmed nor surprised at his arrival. Upon
whispering a word in her ear, however, a look of intelligence stole
into her eyes, and putting on her bonnet and cloak, in the deep dusk,
she motioned him to follow her, having closed and locked to door
behind her. After leading him but a short distance, among a number of
small though clean huts, she gained one in which the family were
seated at their plain evening repast. As they entered the dwelling, he
perceived that there was one vacant seat at the table, from which some
person had evidently arisen hastily and disappeared from the apartment
In the course of a few moments, however, and on the head of the family
having been called aside by the old woman, Philip was greeted with a
hearty welcome, and instantly led into a little back room, where he
found the person whom he sought, gazing about him with a distrustful
if not an alarmed air. To this individual he showed Barry's note,
which he had previously abstracted from the envelope, requesting him,
as he perused it, to return it to him again, as he wished to destroy
it himself, lest, by accident, it should fall into other hands, and as
he desired to say to Nicholas that he was personally cognizant of the
fact of its being put out of the way. To this request the deserter
readily acceded, as he would have to any other of a reasonable
character, so delighted was he to receive the assurance that the hour
of his deliverance drew nigh. Here, then, were the particulars of the
plan of his escape settled upon. He was to remain still concealed,
until Greaves called for him with a cab, but was to hold himself ready
to quit his hiding place at a moment's notice.

These preliminaries being arranged, Philip left the house and speedily
proceeded to a neighboring hotel, where he procured a private room,
and, calling for pen, ink and paper, at once addressed himself to
writing a letter. Various were the rubbings of hands and sinister
smiles which punctuated this epistle, until at last, on its being
finished, he carefully folded it, and taking from his pocket-book a
sealed envelope, one end of which had been previously opened with
great care, and the superscription completely removed by a cunning
process, he took from another compartment of his book a small note and
introduced it into the envelope, adroitly closing the apperture with a
little mucilage, so as to completely conceal the incision that had
been made, and obliterate every evidence of the envelope's having been
tampered with. This done, he slowly, and with apparent great caution
as to the conformation of the letters, directed it, and when he found
the ink to be completely dried, enclosed the whole in the letter that
he had just written; placing it, in turn, in a larger envelope which
he hastily directed to some party, from whom he apparently cared but
little to conceal his hand-writing. This accomplished, he called for
some brandy, and after paying liberally for it and the use of the
room, directed his steps towards a stationer's shop where he purchased
a postage stamp which he attached to his letter. Here, also, he heard
the subject of the threatened invasion of the Province discussed in
all its bearings and probable results; and here, too, the bitter
murmurs of discontent regarding the criminal conduct of the individual
to whom the whole interests of the country were entrusted by the
people and the Crown, and who was said to have been already for weeks
in a condition of mind and body absolutely loathsome. Not wishing,
however, to delay the mailing of his letter, he soon found himself
wending his way to the Post-office, where, with his own hand, he
consigned the missive to the care of her Majesty the Queen, by putting
it in the apperture that opened into the letter-box from the
street--the office being already closed. On this, he retraced his
steps towards The Harp, where he so managed to thrust himself in among
the struggling suspicions of O'Brien, as to almost gain the full
confidence of that generous patriot and banish the last doubt from his
breast.

"Well," said Tom, when he found a fitting opportunity, "how did you
find the poor fellow?"

"Willing enough to leave the Province," whispered Philip, "if he could
only manage to get away; but I think that will be easily arranged now,
as the storm about his desertion has blown over.".

"On the night after that of to-morrow, then," returned Tom, "they will
make the attimpt; and as I can get a man to help them who knows every
turn and crank of the river, I have hopes of their success; besides it
will be Nick's night for guard, and there's somethin in that, you
know; as they can get out at the point where he stands, without much
throuble to themselves or anyone else. However," he observed farther,
"I hope no one will let the cat out of the bag, as it would be a cryin
sin to have the poor fellows 'nabbed' at the very moment when they
fancied themselves about to brathe the purest air that ever floated
benathe the canopy of heaven."

"There's no fear of that," replied Greaves, "for you and I only know
of their intentions; although I feel that you are not exactly at home
with me yet, for all your friendly conduct and information; but
recollect, that I'll perform my part of the contract, and it is for
you and them to do the rest."

This speech made Tom feel a little awkward; and he was about to make a
suitable reply, when he was happily relieved by some parties who
dropped in, to command the attention he so willingly accorded at the
moment.

That Greaves puzzled and perplexed him there could be no doubt; but at
no period could that individual elicit from him any information, if he
possessed such, in relation to Fenianism. He, of course, knew that
Philip learned from Barry that there were many soldiers in the Fort
who sympathised warmly with Ireland; but this was as far as he was
informed in the matter. It was obvious, however, that for some reason
or other, he was anxious to fathom the depths of the actual
Organization, if such existed in or about the city; but in every
attempt he was foiled; for, notwithstanding his most subtle attacks,
he was met at each turn by a spirit of reticence which baffled all his
ingenuity and led him to the conclusion that, after all, there were
perhaps but slight grounds for believing that the Brotherhood had any
very extensive footing in the colony.

Tom sometimes reasoned, that his solicitude on this head was prompted
by patriotic motives; and then, again, the idea used to creep in upon
him that he sought this information for sinister purposes; and thus
the worthy host, trembling in the balance between the two impressions,
kicked the beam on the side of prudence, and if he knew anything of
the movements and intentions of the Organization, kept it to himself;
although the letter in the possession of Greaves might, were he less
cautious, have drawn from him some serious information; for Tom
O'Brien was, at that moment, the Centre of a Fenian Circle, with three
hundred armed men at his command, ready to join the invaders the
instant they entered the Province and planted their standard near him
upon British soil. This being the case, he was well aware of the
intentions of the Brotherhood in the United States; and thus it was,
that when he found Barry could not procure his discharge before the
invaders were upon them, he instantly endorsed the project of his
desertion; well knowing that, should he fail to escape before the hour
of the movement arrived, he should be called to take the field against
his countrymen and against Ireland; and, perhaps, under circumstances
that might preclude the possibility of his acting otherwise than as
their enemy. Nor did he relax in his watchfulness and caution when
Greaves even brought the deserter to The Harp in redemption of his
word, or, more remarkable still, when he learned, on the morning
succeeding the night of their escape from the Fort, that seven
soldiers of the Regiment had bid their commanding officer an
unexpected and unceremonious adieu; and notwithstanding that the
garrison was all but alive with sentries and guards patroling every
avenue which led from it, made good their escape to the American
shore, where they were now beyond the reach of the Canadian or
Imperial authorities.

No sooner had Philip ascertained that the party had made good their
escape, than he himself prepared to bid good-bye to The Harp. O'Brien
was not at all surprised at this sudden resolution, as Greaves had
professed to be daily transacting business; which he asserted might be
brought to a close at any moment. And so he had been transacting
business; for he might have been seen occasionally entering, by
stealth, a certain dwelling in the outskirts of the city where
Fenianism and all Irish Nationalists had their deadliest enemy; but,
as already intimated, this enemy had been rendered powerless by the
wine cup for some time past, so that if there had been any matter of
importance to transact between them, it would have been useless to
have even approached it. Still Philip called and called, but to no
purpose; so finding that he had pressing matters in another direction
to claim his immediate attention, he left the mystified functionary in
disgust, casting a glance at the numerous unopened dispatches on his
table, and congratulating Canada on the possession of such a
creditable and efficient, leading officer.

Shaking hands with Tom, then, after having honestly liquidated his
bill, our mysterious friend soon found himself on board a train bound
direct for Toronto, where he arrived in due course, amid hosts of
rumors, and military movements which were being accomplished in that
reckless and inefficient haste, that went to prove a screw loose
somewhere. Here he found himself on the evening of the 29th, and being
obliged to remain in the city all the next day, he started the
following morning for the West, when he learned, while journeying
onwards, that the Fenian forces were massed at Buffalo and along the
American frontier, and that a descent upon Fort Erie was sure to take
place within a very few hours. Although he had intended to reach his
destination before night, he was delayed at the various stations, by
rumors which tended to make it important for the train not to proceed
in haste, it having been alleged, more than once, that the Fenian army
was already in the Province, and burning and destroying all before it,
In turn, however, each of these rumors was contradicted; and so the
cars proceeded until another was encountered. In this way the morning
of the first of June overtook him before he had yet reached the point
for which he was bound. Now, however, he ascertained that the Province
was, without any manner of doubt, invaded by the army of the Irish
Republic, and that even then the "Sunburst" was flying over the
village of Fort Erie.

This intelligence seemed to confound him, and to have exceeded
anything that he could have anticipated. He hod fancied that,
notwithstanding all the rumors he had heard within the last few
months, there was no real intention on the part of the Irish
Nationalists of the United States to actually invade the Province; and
believed the reports of their having congregated upon the American
frontier as either unfounded or tremendously exaggerated. Now,
nevertheless, they were within a very few miles of him, and might be
upon him and the neighborhood he was approaching, at any moment.

There was something in this latter conviction that appeared to move
him greatly as he stepped off the train at Port Colborne, where he
found the inhabitants in a state of the direst alarm. Being a
stranger, and unable or unwilling to account very clearly for his
sudden presence here, and at a juncture when suspicion was so rife and
every new comer subjected to the closest scrutiny, he was put under
surveillance and not permitted to leave the village, as he was about
to do, until he had explained his business to the authorities. Chafing
with disappointment and anger, he was taken into custody and confined
in one of the rooms of his hotel, until a magistrate could be found to
look into his case. Here, notwithstanding his protestations and
willingness to prove that he was a loyal British subject and one of
importance too, he was detained nearly the whole day; tormented by the
uncomfortable misgiving that perhaps, after all his generalship,
Nicholas Barry might again be in the Province and at a point, too,
where he should be able to frustrate all the plans he had laid so
deeply and executed for so far with the utmost secrecy and success. At
last, however, a magistrate was found and a private investigation of
his case granted. The examination was brief; for scarcely had that
functionary been closeted five minutes with him, before he was set at
liberty and again stepped forth a free man.

So utterly helpless were the people of the section of the country in
which he now was, that they must have fallen before any considerable
force of the invaders, had such entered the Province. The greatest
distrust obtained among themselves; there being a strong body of Irish
and Irish sympathisers in their midst, who scarcely cared to hide
their sentiments. And although there was an element in the little town
that was truly loyal to the Crown, yet it is still a matter of doubt
as to its having been in the ascendant, in so far as numbers were
concerned. True, that if the census of the place had been taken at the
moment, and the tendencies of every man registered according to a
public statement, extracted from his own lips, England should have
carried the day by an overwhelming majority, as, on the same basis,
she should at this present hour throughout the whole of the New
Dominion. But had one glimpse of a victorious Irish army been caught
in the distance, the case would have been widely different, indeed;
and those who were constrained, through the force of circumstances, to
fall into line with the paid, official squad who ruled the roast for
the time being, would soon hoist their true colors and step out
beneath the folds of that glorious banner of green and gold before
which, with all her boasting armaments, the tyrant power of England
now trembles to its very base. And so it will be throughout the Colony
at large, whenever the Irish Nationalists, or any other people
inimical to England, enter it with a view to tearing down the skull
and cross-bones of St. George, and ultimately replacing it with the
proud and invincible banner of the United States of America. Not a
single doubt obtains in well informed quarters on this head; so that
the tyrant England cannot fail to be swept ultimately from this
continent, never to lift her dishonored head upon its free, historic
shores again.

And what wonder that the thinking portion of the people of Canada--men
who have its material prosperity and its happiness at heart--should
long for a union with this Republic, with which their interests are so
intimately identified, and upon which they are almost solely dependant
for a market and that good will that is not only necessary to their
peace, but to their very existence? Shut out from the ocean, that
great highway of nations, for six months of the year, they are, almost
daily, at the mercy of the United States for any description of
commercial intercourse, or exchange of thought, in relation to the
material condition of the continent or their own probable future.
Lying a frozen strip against the North pole, with all their available
lands settled, if we are to credit the assertions made by their own
statesmen, were this great Republic to close its doors against them,
they should be obviously cut off, in a measure, from all civilization,
and dwarfed both mentally and physically into the most contemptible
dimensions. As it is, they are depending upon America for every
refining and practical influence that warms their partial life, or
gives any value whatever to their social status. American literature,
tastes, habits, inventions and even foibles color all their internal
intercourse; although the fact does not seem apparent to those who are
interested in perpetuating British rule amongst them, and is denied by
others from motives of envy or vanity. Add to this the circumstance
that their government is the most wretched that could possibly be
found among a people professing to be free. Scarce a single department
of it but is stained with fraud of the vilest description to the very
lips, and neither more nor less than an instrument of public plunder
in the hands of corrupt officials. Even while we write, and for years
back, a charge lies in the department of the Minister of Finance,
against the present Premier of the Dominion, accusing that
unscrupulous individual of conspiring with a whisky dealer, _while he
himself was First Minister of the Crown_, to defraud the revenue--a
charge made by the present Assistant Commissioner of Customs and
Excise, whom this same Premier has been obliged to retain in office to
the present hour, with a view to saving himself from disclosures
calculated to drive him from office in disgrace. So dreadful have been
the circumstances of this case, that when an offer was made
subsequently, through the public press, to produce bank, official and
mercantile evidence that the government functionary who preferred this
frightful accusation was dishonest and incompetent, and that he had
purloined public documents and destroyed them with a view to
concealing his crimes, still this Premier dared not summon him to
trial, although, times without number, he gave assurances, as did the
then Inspector General, that the culprit should be brought before the
proper tribunal, and justice done in the premises. But why need we
complain, when Canada takes the matter so coolly; for will it be
believed, that these two worthies--both the accused and the
accuser--both disfigured by the most damning accusations, are still in
the pay of the Canadian people, and have been so ever since the
circumstances of their official character were laid through the daily
press before the world. Not a single move has yet been made in the
direction of justice, nor an inquiry instituted as to the truth or
falsehood of these frightful charges. The Premier still carries the
filthy load upon his shoulders, while his subordinate, of the stolen
bank receipts and false report, laughs in his sleeve at the rod that
he holds over his naked shoulders.

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