Book: Ridgeway

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At the period that the soldier entered the premises, there were some
half dozen persons seated in the bar; each discussing his favorite
beverage or enjoying his peculiar "weed." Among these there was one
individual, however, whose appearance was singularly striking, and
who was taking part in the general conversation with an easy
flippancy and keenness of observation that showed he was a person of
no ordinary information or experience. There was something about him,
nevertheless, that, notwithstanding all his efforts to be attractive,
was strangely repellent. His small, grey eyes, thin, blue lips and
hooked nose, gave an expression to his countenance which was far from
prepossessing; while his soft, low, purring chuckle of a laugh,
whenever he made a point in his favor through some facile observation
that interfered with the deductions of those around him, evoked the
idea, that he was some huge, human mouser that was congratulating
himself on having disposed of some unfortunate and unsuspecting
canary. He was, withal, shapely, and had an air of refinement about
him, the most decided, and, quite beyond the ordinary run of saloon
habitues. His complexion though somewhat dark and out of keeping with
the color of his eyes, was yet pure; while his teeth were remarkably
white and brilliant, and apparently as sharp as lancets. In height he
was about five feet ten inches; and in age, somewhere in the vicinity
of thirty. He was dressed in plain gray clothes; and, from all one
might gather from his external appearance, was a person in
comfortable circumstances. He was unknown not only to "mine host,"
but to every one present; having, as he informed them in the ordinary
flow of conversation, but just arrived in town, where he had business
to transact which might detain him for a few days, or possibly
longer. This information had been volunteered before the arrival of
the soldier; so that when the latter had taken his seat, he was
literally a greater stranger as to the name or intentions of the
hook-nosed gentleman than any one present--the former having been
communicated to the landlord as Philip Greaves, and the latter, as
already intimated, quite freely disclosed during the natural flow of
the conversation in which he had taken and still took part.

Perhaps there were no two beings on earth so dissimilar in every
relation, as were he and the red coat who now ensconsed himself in
one of the chairs, and accepted the invitation to take a friendly
glass with the stranger. He, humble as the rank he bore in the
service, was a young man of most prepossessing appearance and
excellent address. His figure, although slight, was beautifully
symmetrical and finely knit. In stature he was about five feet eleven
inches, and was apparently as agile as a leopard. The whole volume of
his heart was laid open in his broad, manly brow and clear dark eyes;
and his laughter rang out now and then, at the brilliant wit or
searching sarcasm of his neighbor, in such pure and joyous tones, as
to be infectious even amongst those who were paying but little
attention to what had provoked it. He could not have numbered more
than twenty-five or twenty-six summers; and it was almost painful, in
the presence of such manly beauty and so light a heart, to dwell on
the fact, that the possessor of both, was in absolute slavery, how
carelessly soever he wore his shackles. While both these individuals
differed the one from the other to the extent already mentioned, the
proprietor of the saloon, in turn, presented an appearance as
dissimilar to that of either of his customers as did that of the one
to the other. He was a man of herculean proportions, and blessed with
as commonplace features as you could find in a day's walk. Every
fibre of his frame bespoke the most gigantic strength, while his
full, round face glowed with the most refreshing health, and
presented at the same time as stolid an expression as could well be
imagined in connection with his vocation. Still, there was something
in his keen, gray eye and about his mouth, that bid you beware of
taking the book by the cover; while an odd word of the conversation
that now and then reached his ear, called up a strange expression of
intelligence which swept across his features with the speed of light,
and then left them as quiescent and apparently unintellectual as
before. This individual whom we shall name Thomas O'Brien, or Big
Tom, as his friends were wont to call him, although never regarded as
being over brilliant, there were those who averred that he not only
possessed a fund of good, common sense, but who stated further, that
he was a man of great influence not only among the soldiers in the
fort, but among many of his countrymen both in town and out of it.
Tom spoke very slowly and always in an oracular manner; nor were his
movements behind his bar of a very demonstrative character; as no
press of custom, whatever, seemed to possess the power of
accelerating his motions or inducing him to exceed the steady formula
that he appeared to have adopted in relation to serving his
customers; still he possessed the jewel of honesty and urbanity as an
offset to all this; and, like most large men, was, on the whole, of a
kind and excellent temper. When seen standing by the river or in any
elevated position, he conveyed the idea of a sort of human
lighthouse, or a chimney on fire, so fiercely red was the tremendous
shock of hair that covered his towering head. He was still a young
man, and, like the soldier, unmarried; although the heart of the
latter had gone forth and was in the safe keeping of a charming young
cousin of "mine host," who had emigrated to America some time
previously, and who now resided with her friends in the city of
Buffalo. Tom had preceded his relatives by some years, and had
sojourned, up to the period of their landing, in the United States
also; but taking a sudden notion, as it would seem, he pulled up his
stakes, and, like other adventurers, settled down, apparently
haphazard, in the town in which he now lived; and where he had
already been upwards of two years; having bought out the "Sign of the
Harp," as we shall call it, with all its appointments, from another
Son of the Sod, who had made up his mind to go West.

Before the soldier, whom we shall name Nicholas, or Nick Barry, had
finished his glass, Greaves entered into conversation with him in
relation to the strength of the fort, and the nationality of the
regiment that garrisoned it; observing, at the same time, that, of
course, as usual, a fair sprinkling from the Emerald Isle was to be
found among them.

"Yes," said Barry, "go where you may throughout the empire, and
whenever you meet a red coat you will be right in four cases out of
six in putting it down as belonging to an Irishman; that is, provided
its precise color and texture are like mine; but you would not be so
safe in applying the same rule wherever you chanced to encounter the
clear, bright flash of the genuine scarlet."

"And why?" returned Greaves, with an inquiring air which seemed to be
quite at sea upon the subject; although up to that moment, his
conversation was such as to lead one to infer that he could scarcely
be in the dark upon a subject so generally understood.

"Because," said Nick, "the Irish are only fit to do the fighting; and
that's always done, you know, by the rank and file."

This reply, although not over satisfactory to the interrogator,
seemed to afford infinite amusement to Big Tom, who, with a perfect
sledge hammer of a laugh, exclaimed when Barry had finished:

"Well done Nick, and the divil a betther could it be said if I said
it myself."

This unusual and lively demonstration on the part of O'Brien, seemed
to attract the notice of Greaves, who, with the utmost good humor,
observed, while glancing in the direction of the bar:

"From Ireland, too, I'll bet my head!"

"Seven miles out of it," returned Tom with a slight twinkle of his
eye, "and, of coorse, a gintleman so larned as you will be able to
tell where that is."

"Well, for the life of me," observed Greaves, "I cannot divine what
you are at, with your 'seven miles out,' but as I'm an Englishman, I
suppose that accounts for it."

"He means by what he has said," interrupted Barry, "that he is from
Connaught, which, for some reason or other, is regarded as seven
miles out of Ireland."

"For some raison or other did you say," returned Tom. "Faith and its
raison enough there is for that same; for it was to Connaught that
Cromwell and the rest of the blaggards banished or confined the Irish
hayros that gave the Sassenach such throuble in oulden times, and
that's the raison, you know, that the sayin, 'to h--l or Connaught,'
first got a futtin in the world, and that Connaught is regarded as
bein seven miles out, by the people who know the ins and outs of it."

This was delivered in a quiet, oracular manner from which there was
no appeal; so the conversation continued to flow in a kindred
channel--Barry observing that the regiments then stationed in Canada
were largely _adulterated_, as he humorously termed it, with the
Irish element, which, during such times of commotion, was considered
by England safer abroad than at home.

"How is that?" said Greaves, casting a searching glance towards the
speaker. "I should fancy that the British soldier was safe, and true
to the crown whether at home or abroad; although I am free to
confess, that the Irish, as a nation, have much to complain of."

"And how can you separate the man from the nation; and if a people
are oppressed and wronged as a whole, are they not oppressed and
wronged individually?" replied O'Brien.

"The inference is reasonable," returned the other; "but as England
seems sensible that something ought to be done for the amelioration
of the condition of Ireland no doubt the two nations will soon settle
down in the bonds of amity and love, and, in a better state of
things, forget all their bickerings and heartburnings."

"There was a payriod," retorted Tom, "when England could have done
somethin to appase Ireland, but that payriod is past and gone
forever! Durin the airly days of O'Connell, the repale of the Union
and the abolition of the Church Establishment would have worked
merricles. These measures would have done away with absenteeism, an
unjust and gallin taxation, and would have given Ireland the
conthrol, in some degree at laste, of her own local affairs. If the
Act of 1782 previntin England from intherfarin in any degree in those
affairs was revived, it would have given the Irish a chance to build
up their manufactures and recruit their ruined thrade and commerce.
It would have recalled the landlord to his estates, from forrin
parts, and re-inthroduced a native parliament that understood the
wants and wishes of the people, and that was intherested in carryin
them out, and givin the masses an opportunity of developin their
resources and turnin their soil to account, that is acre for acre
more fertile than that of England, to-day. It would have gathered
home from the four winds of the earth the scatthered wealth that has
followed the absentee to distant lands and made Dublin and Cork and
every city in the counthry alive with min and wimmin, that were able
to pathronise Irish manufactures, aye, and pay for them too. All this
it would have done and a thousand times more; but as I have already
said, the chance has been thrown away by England, never to be
recovered by her durin _secula seculorum_; for now the light of
American freedom has fallen upon Ireland, and, pointed out what ought
to be her thrue standin, and the insufficiency of what she once would
have been satisfied with. In the broad effulgence of its glory, the
people of Ireland now persave that so if long as they attached any
importance to the mere accident of birth, or bent the knee to
hereditary monarchy, they were but walking in the valley and shadow
of death. The great moral spectacle of American freedom built upon
the broad and imperishable basis of the voluntary and intelligent
consint of a whole people, has so upset their household gods and
desthroyed the prestige of kingcraft in their eyes, that they now
look forward to the total overthrow of monarchical institutions in
their midst, and the establishment, on their shores, of a Republic in
every particular the counterpart of that which now commands the
admiration of the world, across the lines there, and which is
gradually sappin the foundation of British rule on this side of the
lakes, as well as litherally swallowin us up unknownst to ourselves.
This is how the case stands now; so that we can aisily persave, that
England has lost the power and opportunity of conciliatin the Irish
race; bekase they have no longer a feelin or sintiment in common with
her."

These observations, which were made with a degree of ease and
eloquence regarded as totally foreign to Tom, actually electrified
his hearers, and drew a compliment from Greaves; while Barry, who
knew a good deal of him, was so astonished at his sudden and earnest
volubility, he could not resist the temptation of assuring him that
he was an honor to his country, if not to humanity at large. The
other three or four individuals present joined in the sentiment, so
that, for the time being, O'Brien was no ordinary personage in their
minds, while a quiet wink from one to the other seemed to place it
beyond a shadow of doubt, that, in their estimation, Big Tom knew
more than he ever got credit for.

When the conversation again began to flow freely, the gentleman, with
the hooked nose, turned it imperceptibly upon Fenianism, and the
rumored intention of the Organization, in the United States, to make
a descent upon Canada at no distant day. At this point, O'Brien put
in a word or two, to the effect, that he was not so sure of the
propriety of the Brotherhood invading the Province, as its
inhabitants were not in any way answerable for the wrongs which had
been inflicted by England upon Ireland. Here Barry observed, that
although he was not competent to speak on the matter, and had no
desire to endorse or countenance such an invasion, he regarded a
Fenian attack upon Canada fully as justifiable as an assault of the
same character upon England, or any other portion of her majesty's
dominions. The empire, he contended, was a unit and no part of it
could be assailed, that did not possess, in relation to Ireland, just
as inoffensive people as the Canadians were. Fenianism, he presumed,
did not pretend to make war upon individuals, but upon a government,
in any or all of its ramifications, that was alleged to be oppressive
and an enemy to civil and religious freedom; and so long as any
people chose to endorse the acts of such a government by defending
them, and adhering to the flag under which they were said to have
been committed, so long were they amenable to the party who assumed
to be aggrieved in the premises, as aiders and abettors of the
offence.

This position was so reasonable and so logical that there was but
little room for dispute upon the subject. And hence the absurdity of
certain squeamish gentlemen who, before and since the invasion of
1866, have denounced a descent upon Canada as not so justifiable as
an attack upon the more central parts of the empire, from the assumed
fact, that the Canadians are in no way chargeable with the wrongs
inflicted by the British Government upon Ireland. Such an argument to
a military man, or astute politician, would be the very height of
absurdity. The outworks are always stormed and taken before the
citadel falls; nor are those who occupy or defend them regarded with
any personal ill feeling by the assailing party, and are only enemies
in so far as they choose to espouse the cause and defend, at the
point of the sword, the acts and existence of a government held to be
corrupt and oppressive. From the difference in population and other
circumstances, there are a greater number of inoffensive persons in
England, in relation to Irish grievances, than there are in Canada;
so that, adopting the very style of argument used by those gingerly
or subsidized cavillers, there are more causes for justifying a
descent, at any time, upon the latter than upon the former country.
The truth is, the masses or people of any country are, for the most
part, inoffensive on the whole, and are merely wielded by governments
with a view to maintaining a power for good or evil, having in many
cases themselves no very clear idea of the grounds upon which the
field may have been taken; and laying down their arms at a moment's
notice, without being concerned as to the expediency or justice of a
cessation of hostilities. In truth, even amid armies thundering down
upon each other at the word of command, there are necessarily
thousands of unoffending persons who entertain not a single feeling
of animosity against their opponents individually, and who are but
simply the exponents of an idea that their rulers deem necessary to
maintain at the point of the bayonet; although they themselves may
not sympathize with it to any extent whatever. So that it is
apparent, that the invasion of Canada was never undertaken with a
view to despoiling or injuring the people _per se_ of that country;
but for the simple purpose of making a descent upon a point of the
British empire most accessible to the arms of the Republic of Ireland
on this continent, in the hope of establishing a basis that would
enable Irish Nationalists to operate successfully against a
government that had for seven hundred years subjected their country,
name and race, to every injustice and persecution known to the
history of crime. Such are the contingencies of war, that the
innocent are dragged into the vortex by the guilty, and that those
who choose to adopt a flag and are found armed in its defence, are
constructively the enemies of the invaders, and according to the
usages of all nations amenable in the field for the conduct of their
rulers. Whatever may be said to the contrary, then, by English
sympathizers or weak-kneed patriots, so long as Canada is a portion
of the British empire, so long is she a legitimate point of attack
for the enemies of that empire, and no description of special
pleading can make it otherwise. And here we would advise the people
of the New Dominion to look into this matter and weigh the
consequences of being influenced by any seeming or real hostile
attitude to the government of the United States, or the mighty hosts
which are now gathering in battle array in the cause of Irish
freedom. England is fallen! Her power and prestige are gone forever!
The star of Irish liberty has already emerged from the clouds that
have so long lain piled up along the horizon of the land of the
enslaved Celt, and no power on earth can obscure its growing Lustre,
until it blazes forth in the full meridian, splendor of Irish
nationality and independence! Let our neighbors, therefore, we say,
not be betrayed into raising a puny arm against the tremendous force
that cannot fail to be exerted ere long in this connection, or their
redemption from the British yoke and their consequent absorption by
the great American Commonwealth may be reddened with more blood than
the circumstances of the case really require.

When Barry had finished his few observations on this topic, Greaves,
in further pursuance of the subject, and with the apparent view of
gathering the tone of Canadian opinion upon it, observed, that if all
the Irish population of the Provinces were as true to the sentiment
of the independence of their country, as O'Brien and his military
friend, there might be some reason for apprehending that the intended
invasion of the Canadas by the Fenian organization of the United
States, would tend to more alarming results to England than were
anticipated by the friends of that country; remarking, in addition,
that the Irish element must be very large in her majesty's Canadian
possessions, if one might judge from the recent St. Patrick's Day
demonstration throughout them, and the various St. Patrick's
Societies to be found scattered from one end of the colony to the
other; all of which were, no doubt, more or less tinged with opinions
and aspirations similar to those held by the two individuals who had
just spoken.

"Oh, yes," rejoined Big Tom, "there are St. Patrick Societies in
abundance, but let me inform you, that instead of bein national
associations, as they purport to be, they are the very sthrongholds
of England in this country, and, with scarce an exception, the
deadliest opponents to the very indepindence that we have benn jist
spakin about. For the most part, they are filled chock full of a pack
of miserable toadies to the governmint, which manages to gather into
them a pack of rottin, ladin Irishmin who can make speeches, dhrink
'the day and all who honor it,' sing 'God save the Queen,' and talk
English blatherskite about the glory of the impire, the army and
navy, and everythin else in the world save and except the wrongs of
poor, ould Ireland, and the way to redhress them. Why, sir, barrin a
word dhropped here and there, you'd think it was in an Orange Lodge
you were, if you happened to step in on one of those societies while
engaged in celebrating, as they call it, the anniversary of their
pathron Saint; for it's nothin you'd hear but 'Rule Britannia,' 'The
Red, White and Blue,' and kindhered sintiments, and if a chap did
happen to give 'The harp that wanst,' why, its the sweet, soft air
they'd be admirin, and the poethry of Tom Moore, rather than the low
wail for vingeance that was smothered in the heart of the song
itself. What could you expect from sich a St Patrick's Society as
that of Toronto, with a gintleman at its head with the freedom of an
English city in his breeches pocket, and a desire to emulate English
statesmen and English institutions in his heart! Look, also, at the
able and larned Irishman who stands at the head of the University of
that same methropolis of the West, and whose eloquence so mystifies
his faithlessness to Ireland as to confuse you, and almost lade you
captive, until, on cooler deliberation, you find that his response to
'the toast of the evenin,' is naither more nor less than a superb
burst of oratory, robed in green and goold, but with a heart as
purely English as that which throbbed within the breast of the
renegade Wellington or the late wily Lord Palmerston. Oh, no! the St.
Patrick Societies of America, and of every other portion of the
globe, are simply whited sepulchres, or false beacons erected or
fosthered by the English governmint to mislade the unsuspectin
portions of our race from the allagiance due to their own counthry,
by studiously inculcatin sintimints and ideas favorable to English
supremacy, which can be paraded before the world as the thrue
expression of the Irish people, in relation to the red that governs
them, and their willinness to remain as they are, part and parcel of
the impire. Sich min as the two I have jist mintioned do more to
perpetuate the thraldom of our country than the most unfrindly and
subtle statesman that exists on the other side of the Atlantic
to-day; bekase they are powerful inemies, by their example in our own
camp, and bekase there are those amongst us who are aisily led, and
who consequintly fall a victim to their influence and example."

"Sure, we all know, that the Scotch thricksther at the head of the
govermint here, could do but little if it was not for such people as
Ogle R., George. L., Darcy and 'the docther,' as he is called in
Toronto; and thus it is, that although the three Toronto gintlemen
that I now name, are, I honestly believe, deservedly respected and
esteemed in every other relation of life, they belong body and sowl
to the English sintimint of the counthry; and if the most favorable
opportunity was offered them to-morrow, would never raise a helpin
hand to place the green above the red. But, as this is dhry work, and
as I have not had sich a bout at it since I opened here, come, one
and all, and let us wet our whistles, for I see you have jist made
spy-glasses of your tumblers."




CHAPTER II.


Although delivered in a style somewhat uncouth, there was a great
deal of truth and native eloquence about these observations of
O'Brien. There is no doubt but the St. Patrick Societies of this
continent, and perhaps of the world, are characterized, in no
ordinary degree, by the spirit and design to which he alluded. In so
far as those belonging to the British empire are concerned, he was
right, almost without an exception; for it must be admitted, that
these societies are, for the most part, filled with pseudo patriots,
who discard all revolutionary theories, and are of the opinion, that
the independence of their country, if they ever cast a glance in that
direction, ought to be achieved in the most lady-like manner, and
with "white kids." Look, for instance, at some of the members of
these associations and kindred bodies in New York and in various
other parts of the Union, and analyze the spirit which finds
expression in their observance of the anniversary of Ireland's
tutelar Saint. From the moment that the cloth is removed, until the
last of the company gyrates out of the room to his carriage, we have
nothing but a war of eloquence between rival politicians who are
candidates for municipal or other lucrative honors, or a subtle bid
for Irish support through some adroit manoeuvre, by which an
adversary is, for the time being, thrown into the shade. To be sure,
Mr. Richard This or Mr. John That, may occasionally give us a taste
of his research and learning, in a re-hash from the "Annals of the
Four Masters," or from some of the leading periodicals of the day;
and we may, in addition, be treated to an _original_ poem touching
Ireland from some of the various up-hill-workers of the Muses, with
whom the great mercantile centre abounds; but as to anything
practical relative to the amelioration of the wretched condition of
the country in whose name they assemble upon such occasions, that is
simply out of the question; all parties, as a general thing,
satisfying themselves with a hacknied and stereotyped enumeration of
her wrongs, and the usual bland denunciations of her oppressors.

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