Book: Ridgeway

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And here we give an illustration of St. Patrick Societies under their
most patriotic aspect; for the power of speech which characterizes,
this great Commonwealth, and our total immunity from English
persecution, enable the spirit which actuates these societies,
beneath the skull and cross bones of St. George, to be a little more
patriotic here, in its language at least, than it dares to be in any
portion of the dominions of England. Still, its positive antagonism
to Irish independence, under the British flag, is scarcely more
reprehensible than its negative influence in the same direction under
the Stars and Stripes; so that Ireland, suffering at their hands
alike, might with every degree of justice place them in the same
category.

After all, it is the masses that free a nation, and thank God for it.
A leader may in vain look for a host to follow him, but a host never
in vain for a leader, and hence the defection of a few prominent men
from the great, Irish national idea which now so moves this
continent, and commands the attention of the world, amounts to but
little save sorrow at the stigma it casts upon our race. The rank and
file of our people are true to the spirit that fired the O'Neill's
and the Geraldines of old; and this being the case, the freedom of
Ireland is secured beyond any possible contingency--England is
brought to bay at home and abroad. The mighty embodiments of Irish
power and patriotism, yclept Fenianism, stalks forth through the
empire with an uplifted glaive in its hand, and no one can say how
soon or where the swift stroke of destruction shall fall. Its
presence fills with gloomy alarm every nook and corner of the land,
and paralyzes all the energies of the oppressor. Through its
overwhelming influence, the most cherished institutions of the
usurper are being overthrown, and the crown and mace all but
converted into baubles. It has destroyed the power and prestige of a
hereditary aristocracy, and thrown, in a measure, the whole
government of the land into the hands of Commoners. The privileged
classes, no longer oracular, recede before it, and a great democratic
idea occupies the ground upon which they stood--in short, illuminated
and impelled by the glorious spirit and impulses which moved the
immortal founders of this grand Republic of the West, it has gone
forth to avenge and to conquer, and to build up upon the shores of
the Old World such a grateful monument to the genius of American
freedom, as shall, from its lofty summit, pour its radiance over the
darkest valleys of Central Europe, until the frozen grasp of
despotism yields to its magic touch and the chains shall fall from
the bleeding limbs of millions, who on emerging from the valley and
shadow of death into the pure sunlight of liberty, shall sing paeans
in honor of the great American people who first taught humanity to
the nations of the earth.

When all present had done justice to O'Brien's proffered "treat," and
when Greaves seemed to be moved to a friendly view of Irish
nationality, in a gap in some desultory conversation that happened to
occur casually, this latter worthy asked whether he could be
accommodated with a room at "The Harp," while he remained in town, as
he was a stranger in a great measure, and having accidentally, as he
said, made the acquaintance of one he believed to be an agreeable
landlord. Tom replied in the affirmative; for, in connection with the
saloon business, he kept a few boarders and had, besides, ample
accommodation for more than one occasional guest. Soon then, Greaves,
who was to send the following morning to the railroad station for his
luggage, picked up a small traveling bag by his side, asked to be
shown to his room, as he professed to be somewhat tired, and bidding
the company "good night," while shaking hands with Barry, disappeared
with Tom down the long passage which led to his sleeping apartment on
the floor above.

When O'Brien returned to the bar, half a dozen more of his usual
customers had dropped in to exchange a kindly word with him, and
taste his newest "on tap." Before reaching the counter, however, and
just as he was passing Barry, he whispered something in the ear of
the latter, which seemed to arrest his attention, and to which he
appeared to answer with a significant nod and peculiar expression of
countenance. Barry being off duty, and having received permission to
remain in town all night, paid no regard to the nine o'clock drums
and fifes audible from the garrison; and although quite an abstemious
young fellow, he made himself sufficiently social with the new
comers, most of whom were acquaintances. The remainder of the evening
was passed in the usual bar-room style; although the conversation for
the most part, turned upon the wrongs of Ireland and the mode of
redressing them. Now that Greaves had retired, there appeared to be
less restraint upon the few who had been a witness of the
observations he had made upon the subject, for they one and all
seemed to flow into the common channel of sympathy, so largely
occupied by O'Brien in this connection. In addition, one of them
ventured to remark, that although Greaves pretended to be an
Englishman, he was evidently no such thing; for on more than one
occasion, he gave utterance to expressions that were not only purely
Irish, but tinged with a genuine Irish accent and native peculiarity,
that no mere accident could account for, and which was, without
doubt, the genuine thing itself peeping out at the elbows of a
foreign dress. This idea seemed to find favor with O'Brien, although
Barry was not impressed with its correctness, from the fact, no
doubt, of his constant intercommunication with the English and Irish
element that was so jumbled up in his company.

As it became later, the party began to drop off, until about twelve
o'clock, up went the shutters and round went the heavy key in the
bar-room door--all having disappeared at the latter period, save
Barry and one of his most intimate friends who seemed loath to leave,
and inclined to take another glass. No sooner then, were the doors
and windows securely fastened, and the gas extinguished, than both
these parties accompanied by Tom with a bed-room lamp in his hand,
proceeded to a small and comfortable apartment which was sacred to
the foot of every individual who was not a tried friend of O'Brien.
Here all three seated themselves beside a comfortable coal fire that
burned brightly in the grate: when Tom, on extinguishing the lamp,
after having lit the jet of gas that hung in the centre of the room,
exclaimed:--

"Nick, my name's not Tom O'Brien, or we have got the divil up-stairs!--but
what he's up to it's hard to say: although I thought it was jist as
well to let him take up his quarthers here, seem that I'll be able to
keep an eye on him--now that the times are becomin sarious."

"Certainly," replied Barry, "his appearance is far from prepossessing,
but you know, Tom, it's not always safe to judge a man by this criterion."

"That's thrue," returned the other, "but didn't you hear the fella how
he wanted to sift you about the Irish sintiment of the garrison, as
well as lade us out upon the feelins of the Irish in gineral throughout
the Province?"

"I did, of course," answered Nick, "but really thought that the
gentleman, being a stranger, was simply asking for information's sake
only, and had no ulterior object in view."

"I agree with you, O'Brien," interrupted the third party, who was
named Burk, and who had been in the saloon during the period Greaves
was present, "there can be nothing good in so cunning a face; but
what is the real news to-night, and have you heard from New York or
Buffalo?"

"I have harde from both places," returned Tom, "and everythin looks
well; but how are things here, and are you all prepared to assist the
invading army when they cross the lines; and what number of men can
we fairly count upon?"

"It has, I believe, been ascertained beyond a shadow of doubt,"
replied Burk, "that there are upwards of one hundred thousand men
throughout the Provinces who would at once rush to arms if they found
the flag of the Irish Republic firmly planted at any one point within
our borders; while it is known or believed, that more than twice that
number would follow in their wake, if Toronto was once in the hands
of the invaders. In fact, Toronto and Montreal once taken, the day is
ours, for we should have the French almost to a man, no matter what
Monsieur George Etienne or Master John Alexander may say to the
contrary. Canada is evidently tired of British rule, and is only kept
from kicking over the traces by a pack of government officials who
hold the purse strings, and a subsidized press that destroys the
homogeneity of the people, by making them doubt each other, and
impressing every man disaffected to the Crown, with the idea that
every other individual Colonist, or nearly so, is opposed to him. In
this way, the sentiment of independence which underlies the nine
tenths of our population is obstructed and embarrassed, and one man
prompted to look with distrust upon another, although both may
entertain precisely the same sentiments in relation to the
desirability of throwing off the British yoke. As to how the army
stands, Nick here can tell you more about that than I can."

"The army," said Barry, "is just as you might expect it to be. The
Irish who compose it in part, are, as you know, not British soldiers
from choice, but from necessity. They had no resource between
starvation and a red coat; so that their oath of allegiance to the
English Crown may be said to have been exacted from them under pain
of death. For ages, their country had been devastated and plundered
by the power that now holds them in special thrall, and the means of
existence wrested from them through the inhuman exactions of a
tyrannical government. Their name and race had been banned, their
humble homesteads razed to the ground, and their families scattered,
naked and hungry, throughout the length and breadth of the land, or
exiled to foreign shores. The stranger had stolen in on their
hearthstone, robbed them of their lands, goods and chattles, usurped
their powers of local legislation, and then closed every door to
preferment against them, leaving them without a hope or a crust for
the future, on their own shores. Under this horrible pressure,
thousands of them necessarily gave way and fell victims to those
gaunt recruiting sergeants of the government--Hunger and Rags.
Unable to earn wherewithal to keep body and soul together at their
own doors, or within their own borders, and perceiving that the
commerce, the manufactures and all the native resource of their
country were crushed to the earth, beneath the relentless heel of the
oppressor, they fell into the pit-fall dug for them by an accursed
perjurer and traitor, and, in obedience to the first law of nature,
assumed her livery, and swore allegiance to her flag. But think you
that either God or man attaches the slightest importance to an oath
exacted under such circumstances? Here am I, Nick Barry, now in the
service of the usurper, and driven into it with tears in my eyes and
rebellion in my heart, and do you suppose that I regard my oath as
other than an additional incentive to plot the downfall of the
infamous tyrant and robber who hounded me into swallowing it, and
who, to-day, keeps the girl I love out of her mother's property,
that, on a mere technicality, was laid hold of, and thrown into
chancery, by a villainous and traitorous relative, long in the secret
service of the government at home, when he found the poor, young
thing an orphan, and without a wealthy friend in the world to back
her, and that too, upon a claim that hadn't a leg to stand upon, as
everybody knew? My soldier-life, and his continued absence in
England, prevented my meeting the villain before he died; but as he
has left the suit to his son, who, I learn, is no better than he was
himself, and is also a great hanger on about the Castle of Dublin, I
am in hopes of one day or other meeting this same gentleman, who
purports to represent the old villain in this case, when, no matter
how the chancery suit may go, I shall hold him to a severe reckoning
for the injustice and hardships to which she has been so long
subjected through their joint instrumentality. But why should she
complain any more than Tom there, whose father's side of the house,
once powerful and wealthy, in the west of Ireland, have been all but
beggared through the same infamous government, and their accursed
agents, who had plundered them of every acre they possessed, and
exiled the bravest and best of them to these distant shores?"

These few observations were made with an earnestness and vehemence
that showed how fierce and hostile the blood that boiled in the veins
of the speaker. Nor was there any appeal from the inexorable logic of
his remarks. From the inhuman manner in which England has, for seven
centuries preyed upon the vitals of Ireland, and plundered and
expatriated her children, the latter are morally absolved from all
allegiance or fidelity to her, no matter what the circumstances of
their plighted faith. No man should be bound by oaths or obligations,
to maintain the supremacy or defend the interests of a tyrant,
exacted under an inhuman pressure or in the presence of such an
alternative as the poor Irish recruit is subject to, namely, that of
enlisting or starving. How can any Irish soldier, possessed of a
single spark of pride or patriotism, and wearing the queen of
England's livery to-day, be other than the deadly enemy of the
representative of a people who have laid his country waste, murdered
his kindred and left him and millions of his race without a roof to
cover them on their own native shores? How can he gaze with any
degree of enthusiasm or pleasure upon the blood-stained rag that
waved over Mullaghmast, that was perjured at Limerick, and that
endorsed with its baleful glare all the demoniacal atrocities of the
Penal Laws? "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God"--therefore
the children of Ireland who have been so long trodden in the dust
under the feet of an usurper, are but obeying the dictates of heaven
and of humanity, when, by every means within the boundaries of
civilization, they endeavor to encompass not only their own
redemption from the bonds of the oppressor, but the total destruction
of his power in every connection. Ireland owes no allegiance to
England. For seven hundred years she has been crying out against the
colony of foreign bayonets that have kept her in bondage and reduced
her to beggary. For one single hour, throughout the whole of that
long period, she has never voluntarily accepted the condition of her
thraldom, or bowed submissively beneath the British yoke. She
therefore cannot be regarded in the light of a conquered nation, but
must be looked upon as still engaged in the deadly and mortal
contest, whose first field was fought long years ago, between the
Anglo-Norman freebooters and the Fenians of Cuan-na-Groith, or the
Harbor of the Sun, when Strongbow, at the instance of the second
Henry, made an unprovoked descent upon her shores.

"Yes," replied Tom, when Barry had finished, "both I and mine have
felt the cruel fangs of the despoiler; but, sure, where is the use of
singlin out ourselves, when the whole of the thrue native
Irish--which manes the nineteenth twintieths of the kingdoms-are jist
as badly off. The quarrel is not yours nor mine, nor the grievances
naither. Both belong to every man, woman and child possessed of a
pure dhrop of Irish blood in their veins; for all have suffered
alike, as far as that is consarned. And, now, all that has to be done
on the head of it, is jist to wait the nick of time that we are all
expectin, and then, with one well directed and united blow, dash the
tyrant to the ground on this side of the Atlantic, and thrust to
Providence, the sympathy of the great American people and our own
sthrong arms and hearts for the rest."

"Quebec and the fort beyond there," observed Burk, "may give us some
trouble; but further than this, from what has been ascertained of the
Province generally, there is little to be apprehended. The intimate
business relations and the intermarriages between the Canadians and
the people of the United States, will exercise a most powerful
influence in the case, while the manner in which both the English and
Canadian Governments fomented the recent civil war on the other side
of the lines, cannot fail to have embittered the American people
against the British Flag, wherever it is to be found. The treacherous
attack of England upon the existance of the Republic, in subsidizing
the South with arms and money, and in destroying, as she did for a
considerable period, the American carrying trade, through the
instrumentality of pirates built and fitted out in her own ship-yards
and docks, will now afford the American government an opportunity of
paying her off in kind, through permitting Fenianism to pursue its
course without interruption, until the Provinces become part and
parcel of the Union, when they have served as a basis of operation
for the purpose of fitting out expeditions against the arch enemy of
Ireland and of human freedom, and contributed to the final redemption
of that oppressed country from the bonds in which it has so long
lain. Surely, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander;
and if England, through the House of Commons, cheered the Alabama
when her destructive qualities were described before that body by Mr.
Laird, and, after having built the pirate, sent her out to make war
upon the North when it was in sore trouble--surely, I say, America
will not be over anxious to throw obstructions in the way of any
party who may take in hand the chastisement of such an infamous
power, no matter what the grounds of the quarrel. But when it comes
to be understood that for the last ninety years, and up to a very
recent period, England has been the deadly defamer and the secret or
avowed enemy of America and American institutions--when it comes to
be understood, that the statesmen, the business men and the wives and
daughters of the citizens of the American Commonwealth, ever since
the immortal Washington won the day for the oppressed of the whole
world, have been subjected to the sneers and jibes of the English
aristocracy and press, and held up to the ridicule of despotic
Europe--when this comes to be understood, I repeat, in connection
with the fact, that the cause of Ireland is the cause of human
liberty and of republican institutions, there will be but little fear
of America stepping out of her way to uphold the skull and
cross-bones of St. George, either on this or on the other side of the
Atlantic ocean, or, in fact, in any portion of the globe."

"Nor will the clear-sighted children of the Republic be cajoled into a
friendly attitude towards this blood-thirsty dastard, because that,
in the feebleness and fear that have now overtaken her, she essays to
gloze over the infamous acts of which she stands convicted before the
nations, and assumes an air of friendship towards them. Had the Union
fallen, through her infernal machinations, not a city throughout her
dominions but would have blazed with joyful illuminations at the
result; while her government would again introduce the impressments
of 1812. Even when the slightest reverse was suffered by the arms of
the North, the news was heralded throughout the whole of England with
tokens of the most intense satisfaction; while both her people and
statesmen took a fiendish delight in referring to the Commonwealth as
"the late United States!" All this, I say, will influence, and ought
to influence, America in favor of the independence of Ireland, and
prevent the American people from regarding the present pusillanimous
blandishments of John Bull as other than simply the result of
cowardice, and an attempt to propitiate a great power that had
survived his infernal machinations, and now looms up a just and
mighty avenger before him. So long then, as England is permitted to
hold Ireland, that is battling for her rights, in chains, or to taint
permanently the pure atmosphere of this free continent, so long will
the Stars and Stripes shine with subdued lustre, and the memory of
the immortal heroes of '76 be but half honored, by those who are
pledged to defend it to the death in the sight of both God and man."

"As to Quebec and the other garrisons down this way," observed Barry,
"when Hamilton and Toronto are in the hands of the Army of the Irish
Republic, they will be easily managed. None of the strongholds are
proof against Irish sympathizers, in their vicinity. This I know to
be true. Every genuine Irishman within easy hailing distance of the
garrison at Quebec, has more than one tried friend within its walls;
and so of the other strongholds along the St. Lawrence and lakes. But
supposing, for argument's sake, that any of those forts should take
it into its head to stand a siege, where would it be when invested
with such an army as Fenianism can now put into the field, composed
of thousands upon thousands of veterans who are still grim with blood
and smoke from the terrible fields of the South? What, too, would
your militia do, with their holiday legs and maiden swords, against
the men who fought at Cold Harbor, Gettysburg or Bull Run? Why the
one-fourth of the force which it is said Fenianism has at its
command, would sweep Canada like a tornado from Sanwich to Gaspe, and
be recruited every yard of the road, besides; while the instant one
signal victory was won by them, the government of the United States
would at once acknowledge them as belligerants. This, I believe, is
the true state of the case; and if the Fenian organization across the
lines, and here amongst us, possess honest, brave and competent
leaders, the overthrow of England in the Provinces cannot fail to be
achieved; for, after all, she has no secure footing in the hearts of
the masses, and enjoys nothing but a mere official existence here,
under the protection of her guns, and through the instrumentality of
a corrupt government and a hireling press. But as it is getting well
up in the small hours, and as I feel I need some rest, I think I'll
take another tumbler, if you only join me, and then turn in."




CHAPTER III.


When young Barry spoke of the girl of his love, he referred to Kate
McCarthy, now in her twentieth year, and certainly one of the most
beautiful Irish girls that had emigrated to America for many a long
day. Kate and he had been schoolfellows and neighbors from their
infancy, and, as they grew up, were regarded as a sort of "matter of
course match," from the fact, that they were always together, and
apparently cut out for each other. They were both natives of the
county Leitrim, and born on the banks of the Shannon, in the sweet
little town of Drumsna. It was by the beautiful waters of this noble
river that they first felt that impassioned glow that colors all the
after life of man or woman, and which is as different from the
feelings that characterize early boy or girlhood, as the noon-day
solar blaze is from the cold and placid beams of the pale new moon.
There is one point at which the true passion of love, in all great
hearts, leaps into fierce and instantaneous existence. There may be
many imperceptible approaches to it in some cases, we know, but out
of these it is possible to turn aside. When the hour arrives,
however, in a single moment the storming party, under one wild
impulse, unknown before, mounts the ramparts of the heart, and, after
a moment's sweet confusion, the garrison falls and is surrendered
forever into the hands of the enemy. And thus it was with our hero
and heroine. Although they had long been the dearest of friends and
constant companions--although they had long felt that the happiness
of the one was necessary to that of the other, the great secret of
their existence was never fully revealed to them, until they felt
they were about to be separated from each other for an indefinite
period; Kate to accompany her only relatives to America and poor
Barry to enter the British army, under a pressure of poverty too
dreadful to relate. As already intimated, the prospects of both had
been blighted through oppression and villainy, brought to bear upon
them by distant relatives, who were the infamous agents of a still
more infamous government. The case of Nick, although sore enough in
its way, was not so heartrending as that of Kate. He was of a sex
fitted to wrestle with the storms of life, but she, proud and brave
as she was, occupied a different position. Fortunately for both,
however, through the instrumentality of a small pittance set aside by
the Courts in her case, and a kind relation in that of Barry, their
education was far above their pecuniary pretensions, so that at the
age of twenty Kate was really an accomplished and refined girl, while
her lover, at that of twenty-five, was a dashing young fellow, with a
well stored mind and quite as capable of acquitting himself agreeably
in society as any man, no matter what his rank, in the regiment to
which he belonged. It was, then, in consequence of his education
that he was looked up to by his comrades; although neglected and
studiously kept in the back grounds by some of the officers of his
company, who, viewing his attainments through the, medium of their
English spectacles, closed the door of preferment against him, and
never suffered a single stripe to appear on his jacket. With as good
blood in his veins as the best of them, and with a sense of the
wrongs inflicted upon his country by the government whose abettors
they were, he could never bring himself to stoop to the fawning and
servility through which the lower grades of rank are attainable, only
in the service; and thus, it was that, from first to last, he was
viewed with an eye of suspicion by his superiors, who regarded him as
an incorrigible young Irishman, who, notwithstanding that he wore the
uniform of a British soldier, had no love for the service or the
interests it represented.

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