Book: Ridgeway

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Barry entered the army under the most terrific pressure only. He
found that Kate and her friends were destined for America, and being
himself, at the period, totally destitute of funds and without the
means of realizing them speedily, in a moment of desperation he
enlisted in a regiment that was under sailing orders for that
country, in the hope of being stationed somewhere near the being he
loved, and of being able, at least, to keep up a constant and
unbroken correspondence with her until fortune should turn the wheel
in his favor. And so he enlisted and parted from Kate and her
friends, to follow her in a short period across the Atlantic, and
renew his vows of love and affection upon another shore.

The ship that had borne her away from his view had been scarcely two
days at sea, when the deadly intelligence reached his ear that the
sailing orders of his regiment had been countermanded, and that
instead of proceeding to Quebec, it was to sail for Malta, where it
was likely to remain for perhaps a couple of years. This dreadful
news almost annihilated him. He had made a sacrifice to no purpose,
and was now bound hand and foot beyond the hope of redemption. Before
Kate and he parted, he had agreed to write her to Quebec, in care of
a friend, if anything should occur that might postpone the sailing of
his regiment, or that portion of it that was for foreign service; and
now the dreadful opportunity arrived, when he found himself called
upon to convey to her the intelligence, that not only was the sailing
of the regiment postponed, but its destination altered. In due course
the fatal disclosure reached her, and almost deprived her of life and
reason. In the space of one brief hour she passed through the agony
of years. The being she loved, in the burning ardor of his young
soul, had hastily--thoughtlessly sacrificed his freedom; and all for
her! It had been a sufficient dagger to her soul to see him attired
in the blood-stained uniform of the enemies of her country, yet she
knew that he had been driven by the most inexorable circumstances to
assume the hated garb. But now he was overtaken with twofold
desolation--he was a slave, and beyond the reach of one kind word of
solace from her, for whom he had sacrificed all, save and except that
which might be borne to him, through the ordinary channels, across
the trackless deep.

Racked as she was with those torturing reflections, and while the
first wild burst of grief was yet rolling down her cheeks, she
determined to begin her lone, young widowhood by instantly writing to
him and bidding him hope. In this epistle, all the nobility of her
true heart and nature blazed forth so transcendently, and with such
fierce, womanly fervor, that the moment it reached the hands of the
young soldier the light was re-kindled within him, and he at once set
about procuring his discharge, or rather realizing the means of
effecting his release from the bonds into which he had allowed his
pure 'though ungovernable passion to betray him. His education, as
already observed, was most excellent, and now, when off duty, he
turned it to good account, and slowly but surely began to add daily
to what trifle he was able to save from his paltry pay, in the hope
of yet commanding a sufficient sum to purchase his freedom and enable
him, ultimately, to sail for America. In this way, and during the two
years he was stationed at Malta, he spent his spare moments, being
throughout that whole period particularly fortunate in keeping up
what was life to him, an unbroken correspondence with his beloved.

At the expiration of three years, having been quartered, on his
return from the Mediterranean, for the last one, in England, at
length came the welcome and startling intelligence, that the
regiment, now indeed, was to proceed forthwith to Canada, where it
would be likely to remain for a considerable period. In a delirium of
joy he communicated the happy intelligence to his love, and had just
time to receive a hurried epistle in reply, in which the very arms of
the true-hearted and beautiful Kate seemed thrown open to receive
him. For some months previously, however, she had been informing him,
from time to time, of a very disagreeable position in which she had
been placed, through the persistent attentions paid her by an Irish
gentleman named Lauder, who, by some means or other, had so
ingratiated himself with her relatives, as to win them over to urge
his suit; and who was reputed to be a person of means. These hints,
however disagreeable, were always accompanied by a renewal of the
vows they had long since plighted on the banks of the Shannon, and
the fervent assurance that no one living or yet to live should ever
lead Kate McCarthy a bride to the altar, save her own Nicholas Barry.

When Kate and her relatives arrived at Quebec, they remained in that
city but a short period, as they had friends at Toronto, as well as
near Fort Erie and at Buffalo, in the State of New York, whom they
were desirous of visiting, and near whom they had determined to
settle permanently. Unfortunately for Barry, the more intimate
guardians or relatives of Kate had become unfriendly to his suit ever
since he entered the army; impressed, as they had become, with that
Irish idea, that the red coat of a private soldier in the British
service was the most disreputable that could be worn. In this light,
therefore, they encouraged the advances of Lauder, in the hope that
absence would so weaken the first love of Kate, as to induce her to
yield ultimately to her new suitor. But they little new the girl with
whom they had to deal; for when Lauder, under their sanction, made a
formal declaration of his passion to her, she quenched his hopes, as
she supposed, forever, by informing him that both her heart and her
hand were previously engaged, and that were they even at her
disposal, she should be quite unable to bestow them upon any
gentleman for whom she did not and could not entertain a single
particle of true love, although he might have secured her esteem.
This rejection, however, did not, as she supposed it would, preclude
the possibility of any further advances from such a quarter, for
Lauder, nothing daunted, kept up the siege when and wherever he
could, without giving absolute offense; so cunningly and intangibly
did he still pursue the object set before him. At last, nevertheless,
so constant were his visits at the house, and so permanent a footing
was he getting in the estimation of her friends, that, after having
resided at Toronto upwards of two years, she left it at the instance
of one of the family, who, on their first arrival in America, had
settled in Buffalo, to which city she proceeded, and in which she now
took up her residence.

While in Toronto the thought struck her that she might be able to
turn whatever abilities she had to account, in the hope of being able
to accumulate sufficient funds to aid our young hero in purchasing
his discharge, fearing, as she did, that his own opportunities, in
this relation, would be greatly restricted. So with her needle, and
through the instrumentality of a small private school, she ultimately
found herself mistress of the required amount, and was about to
forward it to Nicholas, at the very period when she received
intelligence of his regiment being ordered to America. She therefore
thought it better to wait until they met, as she had made up her mind
to set out, when apprised of his arrival, for any place in which he
might happen to be quartered, and there plan for their future and his
freedom.

In due time Barry reached Quebec, and from thence was ordered, with
his company, to the town in which we first encountered him. Here he
was soon joined by the true-hearted Kate, who remained for a few days
with her cousins, Big Tom and his sister. During this period it was
decided that Nicholas should purchase his discharge when he found
that there was any prospect of the regiment being called home. The
reasons for his not at once availing himself of the freedom he knew
he could obtain at any moment, need not now be referred to more
minutely; and as Kate left him to return to Buffalo, just four months
previous to the opening of our story, after having made more than one
pilgrimage from the United States to spend a few days with her
cousins as she averred, it was settled upon finally, that he should
quit the service in the ensuing summer, when they should become man
and wife, as well as residents of the great Republic of the United
States of America.

The intimacy, then, between Big Tom and Nick, is now accounted for in
a satisfactory manner; and thus it was, that whenever the young
soldier got leave to spend a night out of the Fort, he invariably
took up his quarters at the sign of the Harp, where he not only knew
he was welcome on his own account, but was sure to find company that
was agreeable to him, and sympathized with all his aspirations in
relation to his poor, down-trodden country.

Kate McCarthy, as we have already said, was in her twentieth year at
the time we were first introduced to O'Brien and his customers, and
certainly, as previously intimated, a more lovely woman could
scarcely be found in a day's walk. Her face and figure were absolute
mirages of beauty, while, if there could be such a thing as black
sunbeams, her eyes and hair would have illustrated them to intensity.
She was above the medium height, with a slightly olive complexion
that harmonized superbly with the glorious orbs through which the
pure light of her soul poured forth a mellow blaze, and the dark,
heavy tresses that fell in shining masses upon her pearly shoulders.
Nothing, too, could surpass the intensified loveliness of her soft,
rounded arms, and exquisitely shaped hands and feet, while her
delicious mouth and beautifully chiseled nose and ears were really
mysteries of loveliness so rare, that few could entertain the idea
that she who possessed them could have laid her whole heart at the
feet of a common soldier, and that, too, when it was in her power to
turn such charms to high account in the every day market of society.
But she knew Nicholas Barry and the nobility of his nature, and was
aware, in addition, that had he not, like herself, been the victim of
foul play and of a government that fostered crime in its adherents,
he would never have been constrained to swear allegiance to the flag
he both hated and despised, or have been obliged to exchange the garb
of the son of a true Irish gentleman for that which had so lowered
him, in the eyes of her relatives at least. But rich or poor, in
scarlet or homespun, he was all the same to her; and now that he was
almost at her side, and master, in a measure, of his own fate, she
only looked forward to the period when she should have a legal right
to his protection, and to call him by that name which, beyond all
others is the one that lies nearest a woman's heart.

The relative and his wife with whom Kate lived in Buffalo, were, in
reality, noble and true-hearted people. They had known Nicholas from
his childhood, and had always loved him for his manliness and bold
struggles to gain some position at home in which he might be able to
realize a sufficiency to maintain both himself and the girl of his
love, before he led her to the altar. They had witnessed his repeated
failures when he applied for any vacant situation where his education
could be turned to account, and felt for his dire disappointment upon
many an occasion when he was denied even a subordinate office in
connection with the management of the large property that had once
belonged to his family. With pain and anger they saw his praiseworthy
exertions baffled at every turn, and, unlike the rest of their
relations, discovered more of his self-sacrificing spirit still, in
the desperate step he took for the purpose of joining his betrothed
upon a foreign shore--a step which they would have gladly prevented,
had their own slender means been sufficient to have transported him
with them to their new home. Moved by this spirit of kindness and
esteem, these worthy people were the very main-stay of Kate in the
hour of her sorest trial, and now that Barry was near her once more,
they entered heart and hand into all her projects, and were delighted
to know that his discharge should be purchased before his regiment
was ordered to leave the colony.

It must not be presumed, however, that Kate, since her arrival in
America, had permitted herself to be a burden, in even the slightest
degree, upon any of her friends or relations. Far from it; from the
moment that they became settled at Toronto, up to the hour of
Nicholas' arrival in the colony, she not only supported herself
through her industry and perseverence, but contributed, in a degree,
to the maintenance of some of them also. Of course, in view of the
all-absorbing object she had before her, regarding her lover, she
could not be expected to do much in this latter relation; yet she did
what she could, and so satisfied her pride and her conscience.
Sometimes the recollection of the long and weary chancery suit would
obtrude itself upon her, but only to provoke a hopeless and languid
smile, prompted by the conviction that her enemy, whom she had never
seen, and who had recently succeeded to the claims of his
father--Philip Darcy, now but a few months dead--had too much
influence with the government and its legal minions, to permit her to
indulge in the slightest hope, that, were the case decided tomorrow,
it could be otherwise than against her. Consequently, it mattered but
little to her whether she was worsted by Philip the elder or Philip
the younger; so, in this way, she now invariably disposed of the
unpleasant matter. Yet, she felt, notwithstanding, deeply and
bitterly upon the subject: and knew that she was the victim of a most
diabolical plot; but she did not permit this to interfere with her
daily avocations, or induce her to sit down in apathetic sorrow, and
repine over a fate that no effort of hers could influence in any
degree whatever.

Still, as may be readily supposed, both from her education and a
knowledge of her own personal wrongs, and those which had for
centuries been inflicted upon the unhappy land of her birth, she was
no friend or admirer of the government or people who had wrought her
so much ruin in this connection. On this head she was most
inexorable, and felt that it was the duty of every true Irishman and
Irishwomen in existence, to conspire, as best they could, against a
power which had plunged their race and country into such frightful
ruin; and she believed, firmly, that, in so far as her native land
was concerned, its children were justified in using any means by
which they could rid themselves of a tyrant and usurper, who, in
violation of every law, both human and divine, subjected them to
sword and flame for ages.

It will be perceived, then, that both Kate McCarthy and Nicholas were
influenced by the same just and deadly spirit against England; and
that neither thought it otherwise than meritorious, to hurl that
tyrant to the dust, at any time and under any circumstances. The iron
had penetrated their souls; and now that rumors were afloat touching
the intention of the great organization of Fenianism, which
overspread the American Union, to make a descent upon the Canadas,
with a view to destroying the power of England upon this continent,
and ultimately rescuing Ireland from the grasp of the oppressor,
Kate's eye was lit, from time to time, with the most patriotic
fervor; while the world could, at any moment, discover the true
nature of the fame that burned within her soul, from the emerald
sheen of the silken band which invariably bound up her raven hair,
and encircled her snowy throat.

Once or twice she happened to encounter Lauder in Buffalo, so as to
recognize him without the possibility of mistake; while on several
occasions, she could not divest herself of the idea that he had just
passed her in disguise; although she could not imagine what prompted
him to such secrecy, when she never noticed him since she had left
Toronto, or recognized him on the two occasions when she chanced to
meet him in the public street. Yet, a strange presentiment seemed to
impress her that he had not, after all her plainness with him,
abandoned the idea of obtaining her hand, notwithstanding the
repugnance she had always evinced towards him. Now, however, that
Nicholas was almost within hail of her, and that her friends, in
Buffalo at least, were true to her in every relation, she felt secure
from whatever machinations her imagination conjured up; and,
therefore, whenever the subject suddenly obtruded itself upon her
thoughtful moments, she dismissed it as summarily; reassured by the
conviction that she was totally beyond the reach of any schemes that
might have been concocted in relation to her or her future.

For the purpose, however, of setting the matter at rest forever, she
was resolved that her lover should leave the service now as early as
possible; and, stimulated by this desire, on returning to her
residence, one evening towards the middle of April of the year in
which we first encountered him on the bridge leading from the Fort,
she addressed a letter to Nicholas, urging him to leave the army as
soon as practicable, assigning as a reason the presence of Lauder in
Buffalo, whom she had, as she felt assured, again encountered or
rather discovered in the vicinity of her residence, and adding a
further reason, based upon the rumor, that the Army of the Irish
Republic would soon move upon Canada, and that his regiment could not
fail to be called out to oppose it--a circumstance that would, as
she well knew, be the cause of more actual pain to him, than anything
that could possibly occur in the discharge of what was termed his
duty.

This letter Barry received the second day after it was written; and
on consulting with O'Brien, at once set about procuring his
discharge; but as the Colonel of his regiment had gone to the Lower
Provinces, from which he was not to return for a week or two, the
matter was left in abeyance until he should again arrive in town. In
due course, however, he did return, and the necessary application
being made, no objection was offered to granting the discharge, as
Barry's conduct had always been most unexceptionable since he entered
the service.

In this way matters stood, then, on the night on which we found Big
Tom in secret conclave with his two friends, Nick and Burk, in his
own little sanctum; Nick having got leave to stay out until morning,
as the officer in command informed him, it was probably the last
request he should have the power of granting him.




CHAPTER IV.


An organization so wide-spread and so numerous as that of the Fenian
Brotherhood, it was not to expected that all its members, without an
exception, were good men and true; yet so rarely were traitors found
among its ranks, that no patriotic confraternity of its magnitude had
ever, in ancient or modern times, presented so pure a record in this
relation. When we take into consideration the fact that, the
insidious and subsidizing gold of England was brought to bear upon
the frightful poverty of the masses that composed the organization in
Ireland, as well as the temptations to treason held out by the
government, through their agents in the Republic of the United States
of America, the wonder is that there were not more Corydons and
Masseys to do the work of the usurper, and betray the cause to which
they had sworn fealty. However, there were traitors sufficient at
work to cause great damage in individual cases, and send many a brave
fellow into the gloomy depths of a British dungeon. Nearly all the
injury in this connection, however, appears to have been done at
home, as treason of this character was totally powerless under any
foreign flag--or at least not so capable of direct mischief. From the
first moment of the inception of the organization, the British and
the Canadian governments had their paid spies in and outside the
American press, who kept the authorities well informed as to all the
particulars that transpired within the range of their observation or
through other channels; but these disclosures were necessarily meagre
and, in many cases, totally unreliable; from the circumstance that
those disreputable parties, for the purpose of magnifying their
importance, and securing further the patronage of their employers,
colored and distorted facts so terribly, that scarce a line from
their pens or a sentence from their lips was worthy even the
slightest credence. Still, from time to time, some little rumor
struggled to the surface, which pointed to treachery somewhere; and
thus it was that the authorities of the organization were often
placed awkwardly in relation to the idle though dangerous gossip
which occasionally singled out this individual or that, as the party
who had betrayed his trust. In the various cities along the American
frontier, there was from time to time a good deal of this gossip--a
circumstance that might have been quite easily accounted for; seeing
that the inhabitants of some of these places were in what might be
termed hourly intercommunication with the people of Canada; giving,
in some cases, rise to suspicions, which were in the main without any
foundation. This distrust, although affecting the stability or
growing prosperity of the Brotherhood in scarcely any degree, had yet
the effect of strengthening the hands of British sympathizers in the
Union, and inducing them to resolve themselves into little coteries
or societies--such as was hurriedly formed not long since under the
influence and guidance of Mr. H----, of Buffalo, for the ostensible
purpose of aiding destitute Canadians, but with the real design of
keeping an eye upon Fenianism, and disclosing, as far as the members
could divine, all its intentions, hopes and prospects, to the British
government. Occasionally an emissary, direct from Great Britain, in
the guise of a lecturer or tourist, visited these associations and
received their report, which, as far as was practicable, he verified
by personal observation, and through whatever reliable channels, he
believed to be open to him. These emissaries have been supplemented
by others of a somewhat different character, but all bearing upon the
interests of England. In this latter case, however, it has been the
direct unfriendly relations between the American government and that
of Great Britain, which had stimulated the pilgrimages of certain
individuals of this class to the shores of the great Republic.
England perceiving that she had Fenianism to deal with on the one
hand, and American hostility, regarding her infamous course during
the late war, on the other, in her cowardly fears for the
consequences, backed up her anti-Fenian agents, by sending out such
persons as Mr. Charles Dickens and Mr. Henry Vincent, to prove to the
citizens of the Commonwealth how friendly the sentiments that England
had always entertained for them, and how disasterous a thing it would
be to both peoples, should a war, under any circumstances, be
permitted to take place between them. Both these gentlemen, and
others, distinguished and popular in their respective literary
shades, went forth preaching peace and good will between the Saxons
on the one side of the Atlantic and their so-called American cousins
on the other. With an audacity the most barefaced and unaccountable,
upon every possible occasion, opportune or otherwise, they wore the
olive branch at their button-hole, and described in periods the most
eloquent, the identity of blood and interests which characterized both
nations, and which it were heinous to ignore. Notwithstanding that for
ninety long years their infamous government had been indulging in the
most heartless sneers, insults and injustice towards the press, the
people and the executive of the United States--notwithstanding that
during the late war every reverse of the arms of the Republic was
hailed with heartfelt joy by the English party, both at home and in
Canada, and that pirates were built and fitted out under the very eyes
of the British Cabinet, and with the secret sanction of that corrupt
horde, to make war upon American commerce and destroy the Union in the
hour of its extremity--notwithstanding all this, we say, and maugre
the kindred circumstance of subsidizing the South with money and arms
so as to prolong the fratracidal conflict until both parties lay
bloody and broken at the feet of English despotism, these able and
smooth-tongued gentry had the accursed assurance to stand up in most
of the principal cities of the Democracy, and assert broadly, that
England was the true and tried friend of republican institutions and
of the people who sustained them on the free continent of America.
Under the liberal laws which accord freedom of speech to every man who
touches the shores of the Republic, these men had, we know, a right to
express, publicly or otherwise, their sentiments in this connection,
how treacherous and untenable soever; but what we could never fathom,
was the daring of any journal professing to be true to the interests
of freedom or those of the Union, in endorsing those sentiments and
setting them forth to the world as truthful and worthy the acceptance
of every genuine American, no matter what his creed or party. An
attempt so monstrous to stullify all past experience and ignore all
history has never been made in any relation whatever; and the wonder
is, that, few as they are, so many Americans have been led astray by
it. To any individual, of even the most ordinary penetration, it must
be obvious, that the present cringing and treacherous attitude assumed
by England towards the American people, is but the mask of a foul and
dangerous spirit, snatched up in a moment of mortal fear to be worn
only until some opportune moment arrives when it can be thrown aside
with safety, revealing the old, familiar, demoniacal scowl which lurked
unaltered beneath its smiling exterior. America, to be true to herself,
must beware of such false lights, of the press as these. They are for
the most part subsidized by English gold, or so imbuded with English
sentiment, that the interests of the Union are quite a secondary
consideration with them. In evidence of the truth of this assertion,
we have only to dwell upon the apathy with which these journalists
regard the building up of a dangerous despotism upon our borders,
in the very teeth of American traditions and sentiments, and in
opposition to the feelings of the masses whom it effects more
immediately, and who were not permitted by their tyrants to express
a single opinion at the polls on so grave a subject as the total
disruption or remodeling of the constitution under which they lived.
Look at the expression of Nova Scotia on this head, and see how it
reflects upon the course pursued by the great American people in
relation to the confederation of the adjoining Provinces. Not long
since the inhabitants of that section of the New Dominion set forth,
in a memorial to the British government, that this same confederation
was forced upon the people of the Canadas, through falsehood, bribery
and the vilest fraud. And, yet, free and generous America, who assumes
to be the day-star of freedom on this continent, and to the world,
permitted this despotic measure to be enforced at her own threshold,
and in relation to a people, thousands upon thousands of whom
sympathized with her interests and institutions, and looked forward
with longing eyes to the hour when the Stars and Stripes should float
from every flag-staff and tower throughout the whole of the English
possessions in the New World. Surely the missionary spirit of the
Republic has not been best illustrated in this instance; nor can we
discover now, how it is, that the authorities of the Union sit quietly
playing at thumbs, while the Parliament of the Dominion is voting
millions for the defenses of the new despotism, and framing projects
that are intended to result in a line of impregnable forts from
Sandwich to Gaspe, and at every point where it is possible for an
invader to set foot upon their shores. Wait until false, foul and
treacherous England can sit beneath the shadow of the guns of her
infant monarchy, on the Canadian frontier, and then see if she does
not begin to show her cloven foot anew. Let her once get a permanent
foothold among the newly projected fortresses along the St. Lawrence
and the Lakes, with Quebec as their key, and the peace and prosperity
of America, as well as the stability of republican institutions,
cannot be counted as secure, for a single day, from petty annoyance,
or perhaps inroads of a more formidable character. This idea may,
we know, be scouted by those who have a well grounded faith in the
destiny of the American people and the power they undoubtedly possess
in a naval and military point of view; but, after all, a gun is a gun
and a garrison a garrison; and to allow an implacable and formidable
enemy to possess herself of either, within range of our fire-sides,
when we can prevent it, is what we should call courting the presence
of a bombshell on our borders, that may at any moment be thrown into
our midst.

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