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Title: Beatrice of Old York
Author: E. A. Taylor
Illustrator: L. A. Govey
Release date: November 26, 2025 [eBook #77341]
Language: English
Original publication: Toronto: The Musson Book Company, Limited, 1929
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEATRICE OF OLD YORK ***
[Frontispiece: "If Miss Bee is willing I can drive her to the
Towers."]
BEATRICE OF OLD YORK
BY
E. A. TAYLOR
_Illustrated by_
L. A. GOVEY
TORONTO
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY, LIMITED
COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1929
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY, LTD.
PUBLISHERS TORONTO
PRINTED IN CANADA
T. H. BEST PRINTING CO., LIMITED
TORONTO, ONT.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. How Bee Goode of Boston, came to England
II. The Man who Preached in Noah's Ark and Some of His Hearers
III. A Voyage to Canada in 1812
IV. How Ned came to York (Toronto)
V. How the Americans came to York, April 27, 1813
VI. How Ned Lost His Good Name and Vere His Soul
VII. How Ned Planned to Justify Bee's Faith in Him
VIII. How Ned Had Many Adventures, and Bee becomes a Woman
IX. How Ned Won the "Bubble Reputation", at the Cannon's Mouth
X. How Vere came to Newark, and Bee consented to be Betrothed to Him
XI. Kawque takes a Hand in the Game
XII. How Bee was Abducted--and the End
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"If Miss Bee is willing I can drive her to the Towers." ...
_Frontispiece_
"Miss Bee," exclaimed Ned, "are you hurt? What is the matter?"
"Dropped noiselessly overboard and swam ashore."
"Outside in the bitter cold a crowd of women and children moved about
aimlessly."
"Take that! you coward!"
"Then on the other side of the tree they saw her--or her spirit."
BEATRICE OF OLD YORK
Beatrice of Old York
CHAPTER I.
How Bee Goode, of Boston, Came to England.
The stage coach from Plymouth to London had left two passengers at
Liddon, a little manufacturing town in a dimple of the great chalk
downs of Dorsetshire. Dobson, the coachman with the big carriage
from Haslem Towers looked at them perplexed. His orders from his
master, Colonel Sir John Haslem, were to meet the stage. Vere
Haslem, Sir John's fifteen-year-old grandson and heir, had gone to
Plymouth to meet his cousin, Beatrice Haslem, from York, in the
mysterious far-off Canadas. But Vere was not to be seen, and there
only alighted from the coach an enormous negress with a scarlet and
orange turban and a small white girl whom Dobson did not notice for a
minute. He was wondering in horror if this awful-looking savage
could possibly be his master's granddaughter. He knew that Mary
Haslem had made a runaway marriage with an unknown American twenty
years before, and that her father had sworn never to forgive her.
But she and her husband were dead, and he had consented that the
Canadian guardians of her youngest child, Beatrice, should send her
to him, and call her by her mother's name of Haslem.
Dobson had a vague idea that all Americans were Red Indians, and
thinking that this black woman might be a variation of the race, he
touched his cap in some trepidation, saying questioningly: "Miss
Beatrice Haslem?"
"I am Miss Bee Goode, of Boston," said the child by the side of the
woman, in a composed, distinct voice. Dobson looked at her; a slip
of an eleven-year-old girl, pale-faced beside the rosy English
children, and wearing the miniature woman's dress which was the
fashion of the day--a green stuff gown, short-sleeved and cut low at
the neck, with its waist-line under her arms, and a straight, narrow
skirt. On her yellow curls she wore a very large straw bonnet
trimmed with flowers, and tied under her chin with huge bows of
ribbon. Long black lace mitts and a handbag of gay flowered chintz
completed her costume.
"She's Haslem all right--furren too, though," thought Dobson
embarrassed by her unchildlike, shrewd, gray eyes. Then he said
aloud, "I was to meet Mr. Vere, and Miss Beatrice Haslem, Miss."
"I do not like my cousin Vere," said the child calmly, "and he stayed
behind at Plymouth. Also my name is Goode, and unless you call me by
it I will not go with you to see my grandfather."
Dobson looked helpless, and a boy came forward from among the
interested spectators of the little scene. He looked about fifteen,
with a sturdy figure, and honest, good-tempered face. He wore a tall
black silk hat, and a man's suit of bright blue cloth, the coat with
long flapping tails and a very high stiff collar. "Dobson," he said,
"I have the pony here, and if Miss Bee is willing I can drive her to
the Towers, while you take her maid and the baggage. And Dobson, you
needn't mention Mr. Vere not being here." Then turning to Bee he
added formally, "I am Ned Edgar, at your service, Miss Bee, I think
you may have heard of me."
Ned had thought Bee very homely till he spoke to her; then he saw her
eyes grow soft in an instant, and her cold little face flashed with
smiles that made her fascinating, if not lovely. "Oh, I know your
father," she exclaimed, "He is Mr. Edgar, fur-trader, of York in
Upper Canada. I love him and Mrs. Edgar, your step-mother. I have
lived with them since my mother died; and I was hoping to meet you
when I came here."
So Ned drove Bee through the narrow streets of the town, pointing out
the old house in its big garden, where he lived with Dr. Brown, his
dead mother's father. "He is a Friend," said Ned, "but as the
Friends have no meeting house here we go to the Methodist
chapel--that's it there--we call it Noah's Ark."
"I know Mr. Edgar went to Canada when you were born and your mother
died," said Bee. "But he never said you were a Methodist; he don't
like them at all."
"I'm not a professor yet," Ned answered, then had some trouble to
explain to Bee what it meant. The woollen workers of Liddon were
almost all Methodists, while out of the town the gentry and their
farmer tenants went to the Church of England, the two classes living
entirely separate lives. Ned went to school with Vere Haslem, and a
friendship had grown between the boys, partly because it was
discouraged by the elders on both sides. To Sir John, Ned was a
tradesman's son, brought up in the unspeakable religion of the
Quakers, and a most unfit companion for a Haslem, all of whom were
"soldiers and gentlemen". While in straight-laced Liddon to become a
professor--to profess conversion--was the one aim in life. They took
their religion very seriously; classes, preachings, and quarterly
meetings were their only dissipations, and many heads were shaken
over Ned's friendship with handsome, idle Vere, brought up to think a
gentleman's business was war, his amusements heavy drinking and
hunting, and his only religion a soldier's code of honour. And
Liddon groaned over Sundays at the Towers, spent in cock-fighting,
hunting or cards, winding up with the dinner, where often every man,
including the parish rector, got drunk.
Ned wondered how bright, odd, Bee would get on with her autocratic
grandfather; then asked how it happened Vere was not with her.
"I detest the creature," said Bee decidedly. "He laughed at my name,
and went with some horrid boys to a cock-fight. And as it was time
for the stage to start I came on with Mammy Chloe and left him."
"Vere generally wriggles out of his scrapes," said Ned, "and I expect
he posted up after you, but Sir John will be very angry with him if
he knows he didn't obey him and come with you."
"I don't tell tales," said Bee contemptuously; then she exclaimed in
delighted wonder, for they had left the town, and driven through
great gates into a wooded park.
It was Haslem Towers, Ned told her, and Bee forgot to keep up her air
of American indifference to all things English as they drove up the
long winding avenue of glorious oaks and elms. Large-eyed deer moved
among the trees, and Bee exclaimed again as she saw a flash of water.
They came out by a little lake where white swans sailed, and beyond
it, flanked by pleasure gardens, rose a stately pile of white
stone--the Towers.
"The three towers are two hundred feet high and the newest part of it
is three hundred years old," said Ned. "I don't know when a Haslem
didn't live here."
"Cousin Vere said he would have it all when grandfather dies," said
Bee. "It's too good for him. Who will have it when he dies?"
"Oh, he'll grow up and have children most likely, but just now the
next heir is Captain Percy Haslem. His wife, Mrs. Betty, is staying
at the Towers, and he is visiting there, for his regiment is marching
from Ireland across England, and is camping to-night in this
neighbourhood."
They went through the great doors into a vast hall, where Bee was
welcomed by Sir John, a militant looking old gentleman,
sharp-tongued, rather thick-headed, and very soft-hearted where his
own were concerned. With him was Betty Haslem, a very pretty young
woman, with affectedly languid manners, and dressed in a
high-waisted, narrow-skirted Empire gown of flowered muslin. Her
fair hair was piled on the top of her head, and ringlets hung down on
either side.
They were both prepared to be very kind to a nervous child, but Bee
was not at all shy. She said she had let Ned bring her because she
knew his father, and no one asked after Vere. Betty's afternoon
"dish of tea" was brought in, with more solid refreshments, which Ned
found he had to sit down to with Bee. He refused to touch the fruit
pie which was pressed on him, then the sweet cakes too, while he felt
himself growing furiously red under Betty's disdainful eyes.
"I protest, uncle," she said to Sir John, "I never knew a boy to
refuse everything sweet before. What ails the creature?"
"He is a Methodist, Betty," said Sir John dryly, "and I believe that
it's one of the articles of their faith not to eat sugar."
"A Methodist! I hear of them everywhere," exclaimed Betty. "But I
shall die of curiosity if someone doesn't tell me at once why the
creatures won't eat sweets."
"It is only sugar that Friends and many Methodists won't eat, Mrs.
Haslem," said Ned flushing. "We are pledged not to taste sugar or
rum till slavery is abolished in our West Indies. We use honey for
sweetening."
"Then you can't make pastry or light cakes," said Betty; "honey would
make them soggy."
"I have never tasted pie in my life, Mrs. Haslem," smiled Ned.
"You can when you go to your father in Canada," said Bee, "for there
they get their sugar out of maple trees, and anyhow Canada abolished
slavery in 1797."
Sir John asked Bee about her voyage, and she answered directly, "We
had a very quick one, sir, only twenty-seven days. We left Quebec on
July 14 and reached Plymouth on August 10. There were forty-two
ships in our convoy, with the warship 'Primrose' to guard us from the
wicked French."
Sir John chatted with her, so pleased with her intelligence and
fearlessness, that when at last she boldly said that she must be
called by her father's name, he only laughed. "She's too fine for
rough handling," he thought.
"A little thoroughbred all through," he told Mrs. Betty later, "and a
few years of proper English living will make her ashamed to own that
she had such a scoundrel father. I'll wager that she's all Haslem,
not a low drop of blood in her. Queer too, when her father was one
of that crew of pirates and matricides who, with less morals than
savages, fought us under Washington, and made most of our American
colonies into an infernal Republic. Ay, and now in 1810, when we're
fighting single-handed with that crowned hyena Bonaparte, all their
sympathy is with those French assassins."
Meanwhile Betty talked to Ned, dropping her scorn and affection. The
boy's simple manliness had won her respect, and when he left she
shook hands with him, though Sir John raised his eyebrows. "It's no
kindness, Betty, to give the lower class ideas above their station,"
he said. "Ned will do well unless he thinks he ought to be better
than his birth made him, then he'll go wrong, mark my words. He's
being educated too much as it is."
"La, uncle," yawned Betty, "it's easy to see you were born long
before the French Revolution; since that upset nobody really believes
in anything. I'm an atheist in politics as well as in religion."
"Don't, Betty, before the child. I'm thankful you are a lady-born."
"And so can't go wrong, eh? Well, I was taught that as long as a
man's not a coward or liar, everything can be excused, and I really
think Methodism is as excusable as some things I have been required
to overlook in fine gentlemen. A boy who refuses sweets for
conscience' sake, and won't give way even when a woman ridicules him
can never be a coward or tell a lie. And if I were Vere's guardian,
I should encourage his friendship with Ned Edgar."
Sir John frowned, but before he could retort, Vere, a very handsome
boy, came in. He was followed by Percy Haslem in his captain's
uniform, who, like Betty, his wife, spoke and moved with affected
langour.
Sir John spoke irritatedly to Vere. "How is it, sir, that you left
your cousin to be brought home by that doctor's boy?"
"Oh, Ned's all right, sir. He met the coach and claimed Bee because
his father was her guardian in Canada, so I rode over to meet Cousin
Percy."
"Insolence," growled Sir John. "To think he had such assurance, and
I was blaming you for running off and letting him do it. Mark my
words, it would be a kindness to give that boy a lesson that would
break his proud spirit, otherwise he'll end on the gallows."
"Don't uncle, before the child!" mimicked Betty. "You'll frighten
her."
"I'm not ever afraid of white men," said Bee calmly. "I'm only
afraid of Red Indians when they have war paint on. I hate them; and
I despise white men who tell lies."
"Haslem all through," chuckled Sir John, but Vere flushed angrily.
He knew by instinct that Bee would not tell tales, but he hated her
for her contempt of him, as he had never hated anyone before.
Sir John was talking to Percy who had just returned from unhappy
south Ireland to whom England then was too busy to show justice, much
less mercy. His regiment had been recruited there, and the country
was in such dangerous ferment that all Irish soldiery had been
withdrawn, and English sent there. Sir John denounced all Irish,
"Traitors and papists!" he growled. "A heavy hand and the cat o'
nine tails is the only way to keep them down."
"This regiment isn't all Papists, sir," put in Vere. "A little
soldier spoke to me, saying he was a Methodist, and asking if there
were any 'serious people' near. I told him that Liddon was the prize
serious town in England, and that it had a Methodist chapel called
Noah's Ark, because only those who go to it can be saved. I made him
think I was 'serious', and he told me--Cousin Betty, you'll die of
laughing when you hear--he, a private in the ranks, and Irish at
that, preaches, yes preaches, in the streets, and in Methodist
chapels when the regiment halts over Sunday near one. He'll be
trying to speak in Noah's Ark to-morrow."
"Impossible," said Sir John angrily. "Percy, do you know what Vere
means?"
"Very much what he says, sir. The man is George Ferguson, north
Irish, born in Derry. He worked there in a muslin factory till a
year ago, when the hard times caused by the war threw him out of
work. There was nothing to do anywhere, he had a young wife, and
finding she would be taken on the strength of the regiment if he
enlisted, he did so, to save them both from starving. He is a strong
Methodist, with a taste for preaching, and the regiment, who are
nearly all Catholics, nick-named him the Swaddler Priest."
"The what?" exclaimed Betty.
"Swaddler, my dear. The first Methodist preacher who went to Ireland
in the days of Mr. Wesley, preached his first sermon on the text,
'She brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling
clothes', and Irish Methodists are always called Swaddlers."
"And whenever did you become an authority on Methodism?" exclaimed
Sir John.
"Ferguson has been my servant, sir, and while I am an infidel myself,
I find him interesting. He can read and write, but he must have a
hard life. He probably thought that entering the ranks would only
mean the irksomeness of a discipline he had never been accustomed to,
and the possible dangers of war. He didn't realize he would have to
live in the closest companionship with men of, unfortunately, our
lowest class, and their brutish tastes must hurt his self-respect.
Yet I have never known him anything but serenely cheerful. He not
only keeps himself above his surroundings, but he does it as if the
effort were enjoyable, and tries to preach somewhere each Sunday."
"I should have thought it impossible for a north Irish Protestant to
live in a south Irish regiment," commented Betty.
"I don't usually know much of what happens in barracks," said Percy,
"but I was told--not by Ferguson--that when we were in Dublin he
joined some Methodists who were preaching on the streets, and they
gave out he would speak in their chapel the next Sunday. His
comrades told him they would whip him if he did, but of course he
went, and coming back, lay down on his cot and went to sleep quietly.
No one disturbed him; the man who told me said they thought they
might find themselves up against something bigger than they liked if
they did. I think that men of our people, no matter if they are
unsaintly themselves, respect a saint. Ferguson lives a strictly
correct life, never touches drink, always does his duty, and is
always cheerful and ready to do a kind act for a comrade."
"What does the fellow preach about?" growled Sir John.
"I heard him once speaking just outside the barracks to a crowd of
soldiers and passers-by, and he spoke so strongly against swearing,
that I refrain from profanity in his presence, fearing that he might
think it his duty to reprove me if I did."
"What's England coming to," shouted Sir John, "when a private soldier
is allowed to set himself up as a teacher? The end will be like when
she let cobblers and tinkers usurp the place of ordained clergymen,
and under that man whose name shall never be spoken in Haslem Towers
while I live, dipped sacrilegious hands in the blood of her sainted
king, Charles I. And when you allow a man to go as far as this
Ferguson does, Percy Haslem, you are a traitor to your king."
"My dear uncle," said the unruffled Percy, "when Mr. Wesley began his
work many thought as you do, but since then, the Supreme Being, or
Fate, put a full stop to that period of the world's history by the
French Revolution. Now no one is sure when our dear lower classes
may not demand our heads; but we are quite sure that we would rather
have a revolution of Bible readers than of atheists, so we let men
like Ferguson alone."
* * *
So Bee spent her first evening at Haslem Towers, and on the Sunday
morning went with the family to the beautiful old parish church,
which only lacked a preacher and congregation to make it a perfect
place of worship, for in the pulpit a curate dashed through the
magnificent liturgy, and the congregation was a handful of farmers
and the Towers' servants.
Bee sat in the great square pew trying to follow the service as she
had learned to in York with Mrs. Edgar, while Betty lolled in a
corner with a novel, and Vere was studying out a trick with a pack of
cards. Sir John worshipped by doing nothing whatever, and only
Percy, good-humouredly, thinking Bee might feel alone, looked at his
prayer book when he remembered it.
In the afternoon Vere slipped off to the Methodist Sunday School,
which he attended sometimes when his grandfather forgot to forbid it.
He brought home the news that Ferguson had come to the school and
been asked to speak, which he did so well, that it was announced he
would preach that evening. "I was with Ned," said Vere, "when one of
the elders asked Ferguson. Dr. Brown was there too; he looked odd in
his drab coat and broad-brimmed hat by the soldier's scarlet.
Ferguson seemed taken aback. He said, 'How do you know that I am not
an impostor?' And the elder said directly, 'You would be the very
first I ever met in the army; a hypocrite could never stand it there.
He would be in torment indeed if he tried to wear a mask as a soldier
among soldiers.' Then Dr. Brown asked him to have a dish of tea with
them. Methodism is awfully upsetting. Think of even a Quaker, who
is a doctor, asking a private soldier, the lowest class of all, to
sit down with his wife!"
"Vere," said Betty, "you shall take me to this ridiculous Noah's Ark
to-night. I am dying to hear this Ferguson creature. We will take
Bee too, and Percy can come to keep us out of mischief."
CHAPTER II.
The Man Who Preached in Noah's Ark, and
Some of His Hearers.
Noah's Ark was a big, bare building, frigid in its lack of adornment
or grace. Two things only made it fit for a place of worship--one
who preached and those who listened. The woollen workers of Liddon
with their drab-gowned, prim-bonneted women, filled the hard benches,
women and young children on one side of the house, and men and boys
on the other. Percy and Vere were seated with Ned and the doctor,
with Betty and Bee just across the broad aisle. They were
fashionably late, and the whole congregation were singing, without a
touch of instrumental music to lead the hard strength of their
voices--
"Let the house of the Lord be filled with glory, Hallilujah."
Three times they sang the line, their voices swelling in a harsh
exaltation that was almost menacing.
"Let the preacher be filled with Thy love,
Hallilujah.
"Let the members be filled with Thy love,
Hallilujah".
Ten verses in all they sang, each consisting of the triple repeating
of one line. Betty listened with the distaste of an educated music
lover, yet she was oddly fascinated by the strength that showed in
every note of the shouted hymn. These Methodists hurled their joy
and confidence in God like a gauntlet of defiance at some unseen foe,
and Percy's blood tingled. He recalled a morning on the hills of
Spain, before the battle of Vimiero, when he had been with
Wellington's army. There was the same intense sense of many men held
together for one thing, and swayed absolutely by one man's words; but
here, both the Commander and Enemy of these Methodists were of the
other world, and according to Percy's arid philosophy, probably did
not exist. He had fed his mind on Rousseau and Tom Paine, till he
believed the miraculous and supernatural were scientifically
impossible, and he felt irritated at the very tangible faith of these
people in intangible possibilities.
The congregation were seated again, and George Ferguson in his
regimentals, a splash of scarlet in that hall of grays and drabs,
stood at the preacher's desk. He was a slightly built man, about
twenty-four, and in no sense an orator, but he had a good voice and
delivery, and believed so intensely in what he said that his simple
words had a certain power.
He was telling his own story--"I was born August 1, 1786, in Derry,
Ireland. My parents were respectable and in comfortable
circumstances, but though members of the Church of England, had no
knowledge of spiritual things. I was allowed to follow my own
inclination and became very wicked and profane. The one exception to
the godlessness round me was an aunt--a Methodist--who grieved at the
way I was growing up, and would talk to me of my soul. So I became
anxious, fearing to lie down to sleep lest I should wake in hell. I
would lie awake groaning and sobbing, 'Oh, God, have mercy on me.' I
went whenever I could with my aunt to class meetings and preachings,
and at one I wept openly, saying when spoken to--'I am so wicked. I
am not washed in the Blood, and I am afraid I shall be lost. May God
have mercy on me.' The preacher and class prayed with me, and then
he said, laying his hand on my head, 'George, you will yet go to
preach the Gospel to sinners.' So I obtained grace, and resolved to
turn from my sinful manner of life, being then seven."
The last words came as a shock to Percy, who wondered what kind of
sinful life could be lived by a boy under seven in a respectable
home. But the congregation saw nothing incongruous in it; they
shouted "Amens" and "Hallilujah" as the speaker paused, then
listened, many groaning aloud as he went on to tell of his "fall from
grace". His parents moved from Derry into the country where there
were no Methodists, and he drifted with other boys into attending
cock-fights, and horse races on Sundays. At sixteen he was bound out
for three years to learn his trade at a muslin factory. The hours
there were long, and the work and confinement very hard to a boy
accustomed to the indulgence of home. "I felt like Israel in Egypt
in bondage under taskmasters," he said quaintly, "but in my dungeon I
saw the Cloud, the Pillar, the Rock, the quails and the manna that I
had rejected, and I hungered for them. I joined the Methodist
Society as a probationer, I read the Bible daily on my knees, I
retired for prayer seven times a day, I fasted entirely every Friday,
and kept close watch over my words and conduct, hoping to find peace
with God. The persecutions of my shopmates were hot and heavy, but I
was convinced I must be singular, I felt it was life or death--death
to live after the flesh. Mental distress and severe fasting reduced
me to a skeleton, and my master kindly sent me home on a visit, but
it was my soul that was suffering, I felt I had sinned beyond the
mercy of God. I was tempted to give up. If God could not pardon me
I had better know the worst of my case at once, by putting an end to
my miserable life. I took a rope to an old warehouse one night,
fixed it to a beam, and made a noose."
He paused dramatically, and his audience leaned forward with excited
faces. All the colour and passion that raised their lives from
grayness was in the unseen world. The excitement that outsiders
sought in theatre and lurid novel, in war and gambling for high
stakes, the early Methodist found in these soul-conflicts with the
Enemy.
In a wonderfully soft voice Ferguson continued, "As clear as if
spoken I heard the words, 'Pray first'. I instantly fell on my face,
crying to God for Christ's sake to have mercy on me--on vile and
wretched me. In a moment the rock was smitten, and I rested on
Christ. I threw myself in the Blood of the Atonement crying--'Wash
me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.' In a
moment hope took the place of despair. I had peace with God. I
loved God above all things. Christ was the altogether lovely."
Ferguson's voice had risen to a shout, he stamped his feet and
clapped his hands in an ecstasy, as his words rang above the tumult
of the congregation, who were now jumping up and down in their seats,
weeping, singing, shouting "Hallilujah", clapping their hands, while
some fell on the floor where they lay rigid as if in a trance. Betty
half rose, then sat very still. Bee was rather too astonished to be
able to think, and Percy was studying Ferguson's face. Its features
showed the Scotch blood that is the backbone of Ulster, and a
stainless life with much fasting and prayer, had given it an intense
refinement. There was as little sign of mental as of moral weakness
in it. Percy told himself the man was self-deluded; but in his heart
he was not quite sure of it.
The congregation quieted enough to hear the preacher again, and
Ferguson resumed, "I returned to work a new creature. I thought I
was out of Babylon--that the Enemy had done with me; I expected this
'time of singing birds' to last the whole year. But the Enemy said
to me, 'You are young, if you tell of this wonderful change people
will not believe you. Keep it to yourself till you see if you can
hold out. If you don't you may hurt the cause of God'. So--
'I was brought into thrall, I was stript of
my all,
I was banished from Jesu's face.'"
The audience intent on every phase of this soul-drama, groaned deeply
as they swayed to and fro in their seats, and Ferguson lingered over
the details of his next three months of mental agony. "But on June
11, 1805, I secured peace at last. Though I was in the shop I began
at once to praise God aloud, and my shop mates said, 'The matter is
decided at last, George is quite crazy.'"
Again the joyful tumult rose, and Percy felt irritated. He lived
above the low moral standards of his day, and he thought it
preposterous to preach that nothing saved a man but this converting.
How could Ferguson with his intelligence believe that without
salvation he was as low in the sight of God, as the vilest man on
earth? Then he looked at the boys by him. Ferguson and the elders
were shouting Bible promises above the "blessed disorder", and urging
penitents to come forward. Ned, white-faced, and trembling with
excitement, but with determination in his eyes, rose and held out his
hand to Vere. Percy saw in his cousin's face a reflection of the
whirl of feeling round him, and had a vision of himself breaking the
news to Sir John that the heir of the Haslems had knelt at a
Methodist penitent bench. Then he wondered if this mad religion
might not give Vere the moral strength he knew he needed. On the
spur of that thought, he whispered to the wavering boy, "Ferguson's a
straight man, if you believe what he says, go forward."
But Ned went up alone. All that was good in Vere clung to Ned, and
whatever sense of peace and strength he knew, he had met only in Dr.
Brown's home, but he felt he could not face his grandfather's anger,
nor give up in a moment his habits of idleness, and his drifting into
doubtful pleasures rather than seeking them.
After the meeting the boys stood together, Ned quivering with the
thought that he had pledged every fibre of his strong young body
forever to the service of the Lord who had died for him. Vere said
eagerly, "I feel as you do, Ned, but I can't go forward. If you were
in my place--if my grandfather were yours, you would keep your
religion to yourself for a little while."
And Ned, as was his habit, excused Vere and believed him. So the
boys parted, Ned joining his grandfather who pressed five guineas
into Ferguson's hand, as he bade him good-bye, saying, "If ever thee
passes this way again, George, remember my house is also the home of
all weary pilgrims on the road to Canaan, no matter what the colour
of their coats may be."
The young soldier listened with bowed head, until he went off, and it
was six months later that a messenger brought Dr. Brown and Ned a
thick letter from Battle Barracks, Sussex, where Ferguson's regiment
was quartered. Ned's letter was mainly advice to young Christians,
mixed with bits of the writer's experiences. "In a crowded, noisy
room," Ferguson wrote, "I have learnt the secret of lying on my cot
so shut away in spirit from my surroundings, that I can hear the
voices that speak to my soul as distinct as if I was in a solitude."
Ned was walking just outside the town as he read the letter, and then
he met Vere, who exclaimed excitedly, "Glorious news, Ned! Sir
John's going to get me a commission as soon as I'm sixteen--next
month, and I'll be off to see life in his Majesty's service."
In spite of his up-bringing in a Quaker home Ned felt half-envious of
his friend's future, and Vere went on impulsively. "What are you
going to be, Ned? You don't want to spend your life taking pills to
old women. Of course you couldn't expect your grandfather to help
you to be a soldier, yet it's the only life for a gentleman. Why
don't you write to your father and tell him you want to enter the
army like me? That little cat, Bee, talks as if he was quite well
off--almost a gentleman."
Ned did not answer, he really knew nothing of his father. Certainly
very interesting and valuable presents came to him every year on his
birthday, from far-off York, where Mr. Edgar lived with the second
wife he had married and her three little boys; but he seemed to have
given his eldest son entirely up to his grandfather.
So Vere went away, but Ned was far too loyal to his grandfather to
ever think of appealing to an unknown father against him.
Nevertheless, now that Vere's departure had broken off all his
connection with Haslem Towers, he began to feel that life at Liddon
was very dull. He saw Bee sometimes when she rode out with Betty;
she was growing up into a tall girl, but she still smiled at him with
a child's frank friendship. Betty decidedly refused to forbid this
very slight intercourse, when Sir John grumbled at it, so he said no
more, for Bee had grown very dear to him. He was content to give her
her own way in calling herself by her father's name, but he was
resolved that some day she should marry her cousin, Vere, and be
mistress of Haslem Towers. Her refinement of spirit and high
courage, he thought, might save the unhappy boy, who in the
temptations of an idle garrison life was showing many signs of moral
and mental weakness; Sir John refused to believe the worst. "Boys
will be boys," he said impatiently to Betty. "Of course I'll pay his
debts again, and ask no questions; if he sows all his wild oats now,
he'll make all the better husband for our little maid later. She'll
steady him fast enough, never fear--Bee Goode, as the minx insists on
calling herself, not bad, eh! She shall be his wife on the day he is
twenty-one, and she will be seventeen."
Betty felt a womanly reluctance to think of Bee thus sacrificed, yet
she went on helping to train Bee in the ignorance of life that should
make her unable to resist when those she loved and trusted pushed her
skilfully into marriage. Betty, though a good woman, was warped by
the artificial world in which she lived; she knew that Bee's parents
had left her nothing; her brother, Eli, five years older, was with
relatives in Boston, but Bee, when seven, had been adopted by the
Edgars, who had given her up unwillingly to Sir John. Betty could
not imagine any lot for a girl but marriage; and surely, she honestly
believed, luxury in England, even with the lowest of husbands, was
better than exile in some howling wilderness.
Bee had not forgotten her American brother, or her Canadian friends,
but she never heard from either, and she believed Sir John when he
blamed French privateers for the destruction of the Atlantic mail.
She still wrote sometimes, but as none of her letters went overseas,
her friends there naturally thought she had forgotten them in English
luxury. Vere, who knew his grandfather's plan, hated Bee with all
his mean little soul, but never dreamed of refusing to obey; and Bee,
who had not the faintest idea that she was destined by her kin to be
her cousin's wife, still despised him. Conditions of thought round
her, however, were gradually bringing her to feel that it was the
bounden duty of the relatives of the heir of Haslem Towers to make
any sacrifice to save him.
In the big world outside Liddon much was happening. England, with
her industries crippled, her commerce half-strangled, and seeing the
carrying trade slipping into American hands, passed the unfortunate
Orders-in-Council proclaiming any ship that did not touch an English
port the lawful prey of her men-of-war. The answer of the United
States was an immediate threat of war, should the order not be
rescinded. England, fearing to lose Canada, whom she could not then
defend--she did not imagine that Canada could defend
herself--rescinded the orders, all of which did not prevent the
States from declaring war on June 18, 1812.
The post that brought the news to Liddon also brought a letter for
Ned from his father--"Upper Canada will be invaded before this
reaches you," Edgar wrote. "We have a population of 70,000--both the
Canadas have only 225,000, against the eight millions of the States,
but we mean to keep the old flag flying. We have 1,500 miles of
frontier to defend, and only 4,000 English regulars to help us do it.
We have appointed our Governor, General Isaac Brock, as Commander,
and are calling out every man between eighteen and forty-five. I am
going, and I began this letter meaning to command you, as my son, to
start for Canada at once, and add one more man to our little army.
My friend, Surgeon Tam, at the Isle of Wight, would arrange for your
passage out. You may refuse to obey me; I know you belong to a
religion that teaches a man that he can enjoy the protection of the
laws of a country, and grow rich there, but he must not fight in its
battles. It is a 'sin' for him to go to war, but quite right to
accept the safe living that other men are dying to defend. I cannot
compel you to obey me, but, oh my son, won't you give up your
religion and come to be my comrade? I have a wife, whom you would
love if you knew her, and three little boys; won't you be near to
give them a protection if I fall? No one can doubt the righteousness
of our cause. I don't deny England has often sinned and blundered,
but no land on earth has sinned and blundered so seldom as she, and
her flag is the only one that shall ever wave over Canada--so help
us, God! The American people have been excited by exaggerated
stories of England's claiming the right to search their ships for
deserters from her navy, but the President and Congress wish to take
our country--our Canada. Will you come to be a soldier, to help me,
your father?; or is your honour less to you than this Methodist
salvation?"
Silently Ned laid the letter before his grandfather; the Quaker
doctor read it, looked at the boy keenly, and said quietly--"Thee
means to go, I see, but what of giving up thy faith?"
"Grandfather, I am a Methodist, not a Friend. I know some of our
people think with you about war, but others are like Ferguson, whom
you call a good man. I must go, to show my father that I can; I must
keep my religion, yet fight bravely beside him. Don't you think I
ought to go? Don't you think Canada is in the right?"
The Quaker looked at him wistfully. Ned was nineteen, and careful
rearing, and the habits of self-discipline that his rigid faith
taught him, had given both his body and mind the strength of tempered
steel. Dr. Brown had planned he should be a healer of wounds and a
saver of life, like himself, and now all this splendid young manhood
must be offered to the Moloch of war. But he said--"In many ways I
admire thy father, but he is over-hasty in judgment; yet I am free to
think he does right in fighting in this war, and certainly thee must
go as he says. I know thee will never forsake the rules of thy
faith."
* * *
Ned, wandering off by himself to say good-bye to his old life, was
amazed, in his loneliness, to find Bee. She also was alone; sitting
on a stone, in tears.
"Miss Bee," exclaimed Ned, "Are you hurt? What is the matter?"
[Illustration: "Miss Bee," exclaimed Ned, "are you hurt? What is the
matter?"]
She stood up; a tall slender girl in a purple serge riding habit and
a plumed hat; not a beauty, but fast developing into a woman who
would have the elusive flaire of charm. "I came out here by
myself--ran away in fact," she said impulsively. "I could not bear
servants or friends or anyone near me--I had to cry alone. You are a
Friend; why isn't everybody like you? Why do they make these awful
wars? Do you know that Sir John has got the War Office to take him
off the retired list and he is going to Canada, and Vere with him?
And we think Cousin Percy is going too, and he will take Betty and
me. They are going to fight, and Eli, my brother, I know, will fight
too, on the other side; it is the most miserable war that ever was."
"Perhaps your brother won't want to fight," said Ned trying to
comfort her. "I should think many Americans would see they were in
the wrong--."
"You know nothing about it," she interrupted with flashing eyes. "We
only hear one side here, but I know there is another. Sir John and
Cousin Betty would be so angry if I said such a thing at home, and I
love them--and I love Eli too." Under her breath she added, "and I
am an American."
She stopped, suddenly realizing her impulsiveness in confiding in a
young man who was almost a stranger. "But he is one of those odd
people," she thought, "who think women should preach, and rule, just
like men; and that a man mustn't do anything that a woman shouldn't."
So much Bee had heard, and she thought Ned's ideas must be foolish,
and rather improper, but interesting. Ned said nothing, but caught
her horse, which was grazing near.
"Thank you," she said, rather shyly as she mounted, "for listening to
me. I feel better now."
She galloped off, and Ned looked after her--"What an odd girl," he
thought. "But she is rather interesting."
CHAPTER III.
A Voyage to Canada in 1812.
The Isle of Wight with its white chalk cliffs, and the semi-tropical
vegetation of its valleys, is a paradise among islands; though in
August, 1812, when Ned landed there and was met by Ferguson, the
babel of screams and howled curses he heard made him think of an
inferno.
Ned had parted with his grandfather at Southampton, where the
Surgeon, Dr. Tam, a bluff Scot, looked him over, and told him shortly
that he was to go out, forward, on the troop ship "Lightfoot", with
eight hundred men, which was all that England could spare to send
Canada--and General Brock had said that ten thousand was the smallest
number with which he could possibly defend the brave colony.
Ned was too delighted that Ferguson was one of the eight hundred to
mind anything else, but he looked at his friend startled, as they
came into the deep water harbor of Ryde, and heard the sound of women
shrieking as if death itself had gripped them. Ferguson's face
paled, "God pity them," he said. "Only a few women can go with the
regiment to Canada. They have been chosen by lot--my wife by the
good providence of God drawing a full number--and you can hear the
ones who drew blanks."
They went on board H.M.S. "Lightfoot", a fine bit of the "wooden
walls of old England." There, all seemed confusion. The Irish
womens' screams were heart-rending as they were, as gently as
possible, forced back on shore. Ned was glad to follow Ferguson
below, first to the cramped "married quarters", where he was
introduced to a neat, quiet little woman with a baby--Mrs. Ferguson.
Opening off this smaller cabin was a wide space "between decks",
where the men's hammocks were hung so close, that a man who left one
when they were all slung would have to perform an acrobatic feat to
get out, and dress on his knees on the floor under them.
As Ferguson showed Ned how to sling his hammock, and told him what he
would have to do, rough voices round them called mockingly on the
"Swaddler". Ferguson took no notice until big, brown-faced Dr. Tam,
in his uniform, appeared beside him. He nodded curtly to Ned, and
said gruffly to Ferguson--"Ye'll have to keep your Swaddling talk to
yourself this trip, man. We are going to have some trouble with this
crowd--they're Papists, too, and we can't have any religious fights.
So you see you keep your mouth shut. Our new colonel hasn't any use
for preaching soldiers."
Ned was too bewildered by the astounding unexpectedness of his new
surroundings to be able to think clearly for the moment, but Dr. Tam
shrugged his shoulders as he went aft to his quarters; Edgar was his
friend, and Edgar had insisted that Ned should be sent out with the
men of this regiment. "The best of them," growled Dr. Tam to
himself, "are Irish rebels whom England doesn't dare to send to the
Continent, for fear they might go over to the French. As to the
worst of them, the regiments that threw them out weren't saints, but
there are a few things that a man can't stand, and keep the least
scrap of decency. And to think of that boy, who is as innocent as a
girl, being compelled to live among them for a month! But it's his
own father's doing, and I suppose it was the only thing to do."
Dr. Tam was a friend of Edgar's, and like him believed that a man
whose religion condemned war must be a coward; and when he also held
remarkable views on the equality of women, it showed he was
effeminate. It was to cure Ned of his supposed weaknesses in one
rough lesson, that he was reconciled to his making the voyage as he
did.
Ned, who had the cheerful temper that goes with perfect health,
decided that his new companions would probably improve when he got to
know them better, and in any case he had a good comrade in Ferguson,
so he stayed on deck, enjoying the novelty of everything.
By now everything was in perfect order. Screaming women and howling
men had been put out of hearing and sight before the captain and the
officers' ladies who were cabin passengers, came on board. Ned saw
Chloe's broad black face, a good foil for the patrician loveliness of
Betty beside her; Bee was with them, and Ned thought--"Vere's as ass
to call her ugly, or even plain; she's not a beauty like Mrs. Haslem,
but she's sparkling, and radiant. When she's grown up no one will
call her plain."
Then Ned saw some one in whom he was more interested than in any
girl--Vere, with whom he still corresponded, and whom he still liked;
for all that was good in Vere showed itself when he wrote to or met
Ned; he valued Ned's good opinion more than any one's, and if any
influence could ever save Vere, from himself, it would be the quiet
strength of young Ned Edgar.
Vere saw Ned at last, and went to him amazed--"What on earth are you
doing here?" he exclaimed.
Ned explained, and though the sudden coldness with which Vere turned
away hurt him a little, he was not surprised, nor much disappointed
in his friend, for he understood that now less than ever, among his
present companions, would Vere be able to meet him openly as a friend.
* * *
They were off now. At a word, sail after sail had unfurled, and
beautiful under her enormous spread of white canvas, the "Lightfoot"
"trod the waters like a thing of life." Ned was fascinated at this
manifestation of drilled power. Every man on the ship had moved as a
part of one great machine, and his imagination took fire. It seemed
audacious that men should show such strength.
Ferguson seemed to have guessed his thoughts, for later when the
shores of England were fading from view, he said--"Look ahead now,
Ned."
Behind them the sun was shining, but before them the Atlantic rolled,
a mighty heaving waste of gray waves, under a heavy sky piled with
lowering storm clouds. A heaved-up ridge of water caught the
"Lightfoot", she rose on its height, and slid down as it passed--a
plaything of the sullen sea. Suddenly she seemed small to Ned, a
winged insect fluttering in the grasp of the terrible ocean.
"The sea is His, He made it," cried Ferguson in mingled awe and
exaltation, "I am afraid when I think of His infinite power, yet this
awful God is mine--my Lord and my Lover," and his voice sank to a
thrilling softness as he said the last word.
By night Ned had forgotten Ferguson and everything. With most of the
unhappy soldiers he was horribly seasick, faintly wishing that some
enemy might in charity sink the "Lightfoot" with all on board her.
Even this, however, finally passed. He felt an interest in living
once more and even in eating again. A few men, Ferguson among them,
remained sick and stayed so all the voyage, crawling shakily about
when the sea was very smooth, and collapsing at a hint of rough
weather.
Every morning each man received his rations for the day, cooked
meat--salt beef or pork--pease-pudding, some rice or porridge, sea
biscuits, a little sugar and butter, a pint of hot cocoa, some rum,
and three quarts of drinking water. The fare was coarse, but it was
wholesome and abundant, and Ned enjoyed it.
Sells, a ruffianly looking man whose hammock hung next to his, swore
at everything.
"Dog's food, that's what it is," he growled, "And do you know what
they're eating aft? Every morning there's a dish of chocolate or
coffee, with cakes and biscuits, and all the butter they like. Then
biscuit and cheese at noon, and a high class dinner at night with
fresh fowls and meat--they've live sheep, and pigs, and chickens on
board for themselves--and potatoes, and pickles, and plum-pudding,
with porter and wine. Then they have a supper of coffee and cake,
and preserves, and more wine. Curses on all rich, I say."
He closed with a stream of profanity which brought Ferguson, pale and
shaken, to his feet with a stern--"Thou shalt not take the Name of
the Lord thy God in vain."
With an ugly oath Sells knocked him down, and Ned sprang to his
assistance, for mal-de-mer had left Ferguson too weak to defend
himself, and Sells was beating him savagely. The crowding men round
them, cursing all "Swaddling interferers", struck at the two
Methodists, yelling the war cries of persecuted, bitter, Papist
Ireland. Ferguson and Ned were only saved from serious injury by the
prompt interference of the sergeants, who, however, told Ferguson
that the next time he "preached" and caused a riot they would report
him.
His bruises, and anxiety as to Ferguson, kept the boy awake for some
time that night. When he slept, at last, he was almost immediately
awakened by a confusion of frightful sounds. The shriek of the winds
and the pounding of the sea showed that "no small tempest was upon
them." Frantic voices cried that a mast, or spar, had fallen, that
the captain was killed, the boats were all swept away, and that the
ship was sinking. Eight hundred fear-crazed men, with a score of
women, all penned in the pitchy dark, under fastened hatches,
screamed, cursed, and called on the saints, while the ship seemed to
roll nearly over, and Ned shuddered as he clung to his hammock and
tried to pray. Then through a lull in the tumult he heard a woman
singing--
"Jesus, Lover of my soul, let me to Thy
bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll, whilst the
tempest still is high."
"It's the Swaddler's wife," Ned heard Tim Kelly, an ignorant Irish
giant, groan, "Sure, it's hitting him has brought this on us. A man
that hits a woman or a priest never has no luck. Mary! save us all,
we're going now. Boys, ask the Swaddler to pray. Sure, a heretic
priest, if he's a good living man, is better than none, when it comes
to dying."
A hundred voices called to Ferguson, and men were silent, while
between the roars of the wind the Methodist spoke, the perfect
calmness of his voice reassuring the terrified people. Bit by bit he
shouted the story of the Man who walked on the sea of Galilee, and
who slept in its wildest storm, only waking at the prayer of His
frightened companions, to still winds and waves with a word.
"The "Lightfoot" weathered the storm--thanks to Ferguson's prayers,
Kelly and his mates believed, and they treated him with the rough
respect which the south Irishman, lovable and unreasonable,
superstitious and chivalrous, gives to his women and priests. They
tried not to swear in his presence, and took his reproofs meekly when
they forgot themselves. Sells and the few like him who were really
thorough blackguards dared not say a word.
"You see, Ned," said Ferguson, "how God can change the lion into a
lamb, and cause enemies to become friends."
Ned smiled, thinking--"The old Greeks were right when they said the
gods help those who help themselves."
There was now a dead calm. For several days the "Lightfoot" lay idle
on the sea. The soldiers' rations were reduced, and as the calm
continued, reduced again. The drinking water became unspeakably
foul. It was a time of considerable anxiety for the officers--eight
hundred men, illiterate and coarse-minded, the class that thinks most
of what it eats, were now only half fed. Every hour they looked for
trouble, ready to meet it with the utmost severity--yet it did not
come.
"I don't understand," said the colonel over his wine after dinner.
"Here's a mob of Irish recruits who are probably all rebels in their
hearts, and a few score English blackguards. What's making them
behave?"
"A Swaddler named Ferguson from Ulster, I think, sir," said Dr. Tam.
"In some utterly incomprehensible way he has managed to mesmerize a
crowd of south Irish into imagining he is a priest. He is suffering
still with sea-sickness, and he lives on air and saying prayers, but
he is always cheerful, makes jokes on his own privations, and is so
tactful with his religious talk, that the men are ashamed to complain
before him."
"Hum, I don't believe in Methodists and these preaching soldiers, but
this seems to be an exceptional case. But why isn't he in hospital
having proper food, if he is as sick as you say?"
"I wanted him to go, sir, but he didn't."
"Are you in the habit, Doctor, of letting your patients decide
whether they shall obey your orders or not?"
"As you said, sir, Ferguson is an exceptional case. Under the
circumstances I thought it best to let him have his way."
"Hum, yes, but we can't have a man like him sacrificed to keep a
rabble in order. I'll go and see him myself."
So the colonel stood with Percy and Dr. Tam by the Methodist's
hammock. Ferguson was too weak to rise, but he answered the
colonel's inquiries very cheerfully--"Thank you, sir, but I have
everything I need and more. I don't have to depend on food to
sustain me while I have the Book which says 'man shall not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from God'."
"Er, that is, of course the Bible is a very good book," blurted the
Colonel, somewhat at a loss, "but if you require anything, mind and
let the doctor know."
As they returned to the deck he said abruptly--"What's that man's
record before he joined us? What's he doing in the ranks after three
years service?"
"His record's all right, sir," answered Percy, "but he is a Methodist
first and a soldier afterwards. He has spent the bulk of his time as
an officer's servant, preferring that to being a sergeant, as it
gives him more liberty and more time, to go out and preach."
"And suppose I object to this regiment being made a convenience for
the Methodist itinerancy?"
"Seeing the Methodist itinerancy in the shape of Ferguson is being a
great convenience to us, sir, I don't see the reason for your
objection."
"Well, well, we will see. Doctor, don't let that man starve himself
outright, while he is shaming the others into not complaining."
Then the welcome wind came, rations were increased, and on September
17, Ned saw Canada--Halifax, with the deep green of the all-embracing
forest round her, and the vivid scarlet of the British flag still
above her forts.
The regiment with its officers, and the soldiers' wives were packed
on the "Herald", a little 70-gun warship. They sailed up a mile-wide
river, Ned straining his eyes to see a line of distant hills clothed
with the same unbroken forest. Then the hills were blotted out by
dark driving clouds, and sheets of rain. The waves rose, and the
"Herald" plunged through a night of storm and great discomfort to all
on board. Sunshine came with the morning, but the ship stopped off a
rocky mountainous spot, with no sign of human habitation. Orders
were given, the men took their arms and knapsacks, the women their
children, and all were landed with much difficulty.
There was no sign of a road anywhere. They climbed a rugged slope
only to descend on its further side, and find another and steeper one
before them, many of the men having to get up the worst places on
their hands and knees. Mrs. Ferguson was being helped by Dr. Tam,
and Ned took her child on his back as they scrambled up the second
hill and slipped down it into a wide deep bog.
"Sure, and I don't see why we don't present this country to the
Yankees as a gift," grumbled Tim Kelly. "It's not fit for a decent
Christian to live in. I don't wonder it hasn't any people. Murder!
there's my shoe gone, and I daren't swear with the little Swaddler so
near."
"Forward," said a voice, and with demoralized ranks the regiment
crawled out of the mud, leaving many more shoes behind it. Night
came, but there was no halt till it seemed to Ned that he had spent
weeks falling over bushes and into creeks. At last, however, the
worn-out men were allowed to rest, and soon forgot their fatigues as
they ate their suppers round huge fires of logs, and then bivouaced
by them.
"I wonder where we are, and if the enemy is anywhere near?" said Ned
as he lay down by Ferguson, "I guess you are pretty done up."
"I certainly feel the need of being under the grace of God," said the
Methodist, "to lay the rough path of my peevish nature even, and open
in my heart a constant Heaven."
The next day they marched back to the ship, and soon reached Quebec,
the excursion being an official idea to "break-in" fresh troops to
campaigning in Canada. The fortress city on the cliff with the many
priests in her streets, and French spoken everywhere, seemed very
foreign to Ned.
"I thought Canada was English," Ferguson said to him as they went out
together.
"And so she is, stranger," said a fine looking man, who after
watching them closely, stepped up beside them. His speech and
manners showed education, though he wore a hunting shirt of buckskin,
and blue cloth trousers with fringes on the seams. A skin cap,
beaded moccasins, and a silver-handled hunting knife in his belt
completed his costume. He went on talking in the same frankly
friendly manner, telling of the first invasion of Canada, across the
Detroit River, by General Hull, with twenty-five hundred American
troops.
"He sent us a proclamation--'To the People of Canada'--telling them
to choose between the 'peace, liberty, and security' he'd give them
if they'd hurry in and be annexed, and the 'war, slavery, and
destruction' they'd get if they didn't.' Canada didn't seem to want
his 'peace and liberty', especially after he had given us a sample of
them by raiding on the Canadian side. Then Brock left York with
three hundred regulars, four hundred militia, and five guns, and near
Detroit he met Tecumseh with seven hundred Shawanese."
"Excuse me," said Ned, "but we don't know who these people are."
"The Ohio river Indians--they've been scrapping with the Yankees all
along, and Tecumseh, their chief, thought if we were fighting them
too they might as well join hands with us."
"I've heard of the Ojibways and Mohawks," said Ned. "My father is a
trader in York, and he wrote me that Upper Canada would raise six
thousand militia, and her Indians could send in four thousand men as
well."
"Canadian Indians are all right," said their friend. "They're under
our government and laws, but Indians don't fight like white men, and
as the Shawanese are only our allies, we mayn't always be able to
control them. But it will be all right as long as Brock's at the
head of things. On August 15, with only fourteen hundred men, half
of them Indians, he moved to attack Detroit, and Hull with
twenty-five hundred in a strong fort, capitulated."
"He was a coward," exclaimed Ned.
"Not so fast, son. He had Detroit with its women and children to
think of. He knew what it would mean if it was stormed by Indians.
In his place I'd have surrendered to any decent white man."
"Well, that's one victory for us," said Ned.
"We would have had more, but Sir George Prevost, the
Governor-General, made an armistice with the Yankees. He hoped to
make peace, but they wouldn't meet him, and only used the time to arm
their ships on the lakes. And now, I suppose I may introduce myself,
I'm James Edgar, of York, and I'm down here to meet Ned, my son."
* * *
After a joyous greeting, Ned was hurried off by Edgar to the little
steamer "Accommodation", the first of her kind on Canadian waters.
For nineteen shillings she took them to Montreal, giving them food,
and letting them "berth" with their blankets among her piles of
freight. At Montreal a score of bateaux--broad, heavily-built
boats--were waiting, and Ned was surprised to find his father in
command of the Indians and white men in buckskin shirts who manned
them. They were loaded with ammunition, and meant to run the
gauntlet of the guard the Americans kept on the river between
Montreal and Kingston, blockading Upper Canada--now Ontario.
CHAPTER IV.
How Ned Came to York (Toronto).
Ned was standing, nervously alert, his hands gripping the long rifle
that still seemed strange to them. Before him was a strip of water,
and all round him was forest--the gorgeous colored autumn trees of
the Thousand Islands. The Canadians were travelling by night and
hiding by day, for the two American warships that kept the lake sent
their boats out searching constantly. Ned had been set as sentry by
Tahata, the Mohawk, who was Edgar's lieutenant, and he was very
afraid of failing to see some one of the little things which are
important on watch duty.
He stared at a boulder jutting out in the shallow water. A minute
ago bushes had screened its shore side, now they were certainly
further along. With a remembering of the trees that marched to
Macbeth's castle, Ned gave the bird call Tahata had taught him for an
alarm, and instantly two lithe brown men appeared at his side. The
suspected bushes stirred, showing part of a deerskin clad man, and
all the Indians' alert savagery vanished. Muttering, "It is Kaanah,"
Edgar's Indian name, they lounged back to their places.
Edgar stood up, taking the branches out of the loops in his garments,
and walking lightly, he passed Ned with a smile, and came to Tahata.
"The Long Knives' (Americans) ship has passed," he said. "We will go
on at dark. And what of the boy?"
"He has lived with men who did not know how to see," answered the
Indian, "but he will learn, for he does not make the same mistake
twice."
"I wanted to see if you would notice me," said Edgar to Ned later.
"I did not think you would be so quick."
There was pride and affection in his voice, and Ned almost worshipped
the father who, a few weeks before, had been a stranger to him. So
they journeyed on, escaping a hundred dangers through Edgar's careful
leadership, for he was indeed just such a man as would be a hero to
any boy; and finally reached Kingston with their cargo--Kingston with
all her flags drooping at half-mast.
Edgar hailed a red-headed young man on the deck of a smart
schooner--the "Susan". "What's happened, Archy?" he called.
"Pretty bad news, Mr. Edgar. Them blamed Yankees got across Niagara
river before daylight on October thirteenth. While our boys were
beating them off at Queenston, a lot more sneaked up the mountain,
took our battery there, and dug themselves some real smart trenches,
then fired down on us. The York 'Gazette' said they were 'villainous
aggressors', and there were a thousand of them."
"You red-headed blockhead," shouted Edgar. "Do you mean to say we're
half-masting our flags because we're invaded?"
"Now don't get mad, Mr. Edgar," said the imperturbable Archy. "We're
not invaded. General Brock started up to rout them out, but the
firing was too hot. It's durned difficult to run up a mountain with
sharpshooters firing at you from behind logs and earthworks. He went
back, but only to try the other side with a lot of redcoats. He
passed our boys, and he said, 'Forward, York Volunteers', and you can
bet them volunteers did go forward."
"I see," said Edgar with sarcastic resignation. "We won Queenston
Heights, and then put all our flags at half-mast."
"I meant, Mr. Edgar, that General Brock was shot dead as they charged
the second time, and the boys had to go back. That's why the Yankees
are calling it their victory, though General Sheaffe took command.
He had fifteen hundred men, half of them Mohawk Indians, and they
went up the heights in three parties, and smashed the Yankee lines.
The 'Gazette' said 'Our unprincipled neighbours were totally
defeated', but we hereabouts are only thinking that General Brock is
dead."
* * *
So Ned heard the story of Queenston Heights, a fight which the
American histories record as a "frontier skirmish of no importance
but on the whole in favour of the Americans," while Canada lauds it
as her great victory, on each 13th of October raising the flags on
her schools and telling her children how Brock died. His ringing
last command, Toronto has taken as her watchword--"Forward, York
Volunteers!"
And in reality, the American invasion was little more than a
reconnoitre--a test of the strength of the enemy, and its repulse was
nothing in comparison to Canada's loss in Brock's death at that time.
Yet we do well to count it a victory, for that tall granite
shaft--Brock's monument on Queenston Heights--overlooking the gorge
of wild Niagara, is Canada's declaration of independence. When our
gray-coated militia charged up the heights beside the scarlet-clad
English regulars, we affirmed that this North American continent was
large enough for the growth of two nations and the flying of two
flags.
Edgar and his party went on board the "Susan", and Ned was surprised
again to find his father here also in command. The voyage had its
excitements, as Archy explained to Ned. "Them blamed Yankees have
ships all over the lake. We have some too, but we haven't, and can't
get, a gun heavier than twelve and eighteen pounders, while theirs
are twenty-four and thirty-two pounders, which means they can send a
heap heavier shot. I was captured with the 'Susan', going to
Kingston this time."
"How did you get away?" said Ned, hoping for a story.
"I left Niagara just after the battle to run to Kingston, to meet
you, and to take General Brock's papers and stuff there. There was a
bit of a blow, and the 'Susan' was caught inshore with a Yankee
waiting to blow us out of the water as we came 'round. Course, I
surrendered. Says the Yankee. 'What ship's that, and what's your
lading?' Says I, 'Susan', Niagara to Kingston, with General Brock's
papers and things'. 'Pass,' says the Yankee, 'General Brock was all
right, and I'm real sorry he's dead'. And he dipped his flag to me.
That Yankee was a gentleman and I've known others like him. I don't
like this having to fight with them."
"But you wouldn't let them take Canada?"
"No, sir, you can bet your sweet life that Canada won't let no Yankee
boss her into changing her flag. They're too blamed interfering, and
old Upper Canada'll fight while she's got a man left to hold a gun.
Maybe they'll remember not to come in here again. That's York."
Ned saw a narrow peninsula, curving round to form the harbor. It was
the promontory that has since become Toronto Island. The entrance
was on the west, between Gibraltar Point (Hanlan's), with its
lighthouse and blockhouses, and on the mainland, Fort Toronto, and
Western Battery. These consisted of earthworks and massive log
barracks, armed with a few small cannon, where the present fort now
stands.
The "Susan" sailed past the forts down a placid sheet of water. On
the right Ned looked across the low sandbanks of the peninsula to the
lake stretching away to the horizon. On the left was open ground
where cows grazed, and beyond, the long wall of the forest. Then
they were abreast of Half-moon Battery (Bathurst Street), where stood
the Governor's "Palace", a big log house in the form of a half
square, with verandahs round its inner sides, and a garden shaded by
stately oaks. There too were the quarters, with their magazines and
storehouses.
Then came more pasture and the "Susan" stopped at the wharves, (John
Street) east of which lay the little town of York, with its nine
hundred population, and three straggling streets--Palace Street
(Front), which had houses only on its north side; King Street, and
Lot (Queen)--then came the bush again. Yonge had wheat fields on
either side, and was only known because it ran north into the bush
where it became an Indian trail ending at Georgian Bay, and down
which the natives came with their furs each spring. All the
buildings were of logs except the two brick houses of parliament, of
which York was inordinately proud. They stood on open ground by the
mouth of the Don.
Edgar was now wearing his uniform and sword as a militia major;
Tahata was in elaborately fringed and beaded buckskin, with silver
mounted tomahawk and scalping knife--and a tall black silk hat! Ned
in the clothes his father had given him, wore a fine cloth suit and
starched much-frilled shirt, with silk stockings and silver
shoebuckles. He was realizing that Edgar, militia major, wealthy
trader, and member of the Upper Canada Legislature, was a man of
importance.
As the "Susan" stopped, a pretty woman, in lavender silk, with a huge
bonnet trimmed with flowers and green gauze, came on board, and Ned
was introduced to his stepmother, with his half-brothers, three small
boys, between ten and three. Ned and Susie Edgar liked each other at
first sight, and were glad to leave together for shore, where Edgar,
Tahata and Ned were to go to the "Palace". It was only a log house
carpeted with skins, but all the formality of a petty court was
observed within.
"General Sheaffe, whom Brock's death has made our governor, is a
Swiss," Edgar told Ned. "He entered the English service when his
country was over-run by France, and being bred in a Republic, he
seems afraid of not being formal enough in his position here. Still
a deal of ceremony is good policy with the Indians. A lot of the
trouble they have had in the States is because the Indians have
imagined an insult in some informality in council."
After Edgar had made his report to the coldly formal Sheaffe, and
they were going home, he said to Ned. "Of course you will join the
militia now, in the ranks. You may wonder that I don't buy you a
commission. I would promise you that I will in one year, only I know
by then you will have earned it."
Still talking Edgar reached his great store, crammed with goods for
Indian trading. Ned was getting his first sight of the spirit of the
new world, the ignoring of class distinctions, and the determination
to rise.
"This isn't England," Edgar said. "Here the people own the land and
pretty soon will have the ruling power, and the men whom they will
choose for leaders will be those who have worked beside them, yet
risen by their own work."
Ned felt chilled. He of all people felt no shame in humble
beginnings, but his father's standards of value depressed him. He
wondered what he would think of his Methodism.
Then Ned was taken into the house, built of logs. It had hall and
living-room, the last with open fireplace, brass andirons and fender.
Tall brass candlesticks stood on the mantel, the rugs were of fur,
and the furniture rough made, but the sideboard held a fine array of
silver plate, which society then demanded of every one who would hold
position. Army officers dragged it through the bush with them, and
wealthy traders proved their station by the amount they owned. There
were books too in the parlor, which made Ned feel more at home. He
followed his father past the four smaller bedrooms, and the big guest
chamber, furnished with bunks round its walls, into the great
kitchen, where the family ate and spent most of their time. Ned
noticed a jug of whiskey with a cup on a small table, for any one to
help himself. Then he sat down to supper.
The table was loaded with broiled venison, ham, homemade bread and
butter, cheese, fruit pies, tea for Susie and the children, and
whiskey for the men. On duty Edgar never touched anything but water,
but now he frowned as Ned refused the whiskey black Bob handed him.
At that time almost all the house servants in Canada were negroes,
and Susie kept two, Bob and Fanny.
"Don't be a Methodist, Ned," said Edgar.
"I am one, sir."
"Was one," said Edgar coolly. "I let you come out forward to knock
the nonsense out of you."
Ned wisely said nothing, and the next day he put on the dark gray
uniform of the Canadian militia, took the oath to serve the king and
obey his officers, being pleased to find that his captain was Archy,
his father's employee. He enjoyed his new life and threw himself
with such zest into his six hours of hard drilling a day, that Edgar
gave him half grudging approval, but he was still unreasonably sore
at his son's steady refusal to drink "like a man."
The war was still going on. Though American attacks on Lower Canada
and Kingston had been repulsed, and 1812 closed with Canadian soil
still free from the enemy, and the English flag over Detroit. Yet
with their splendid naval victories the Americans were confident of
conquest. It was the good seamanship shown in these fights which
caused dismay in England, and filled the new republic with thoughts
of its own naval supremacy. Canada took the news stoically;
England's hands were too full in Europe for her to send out further
ships. Certainly England would conquer Napoleon some day, and till
then Canada would "hold the fort".
In January, 1813, an American force marched two hundred miles through
a wilderness to retake Detroit. They were defeated, and Proctor, the
English general, was unable to keep his savage allies from butchering
many of the prisoners who had surrendered to him. All over the
States this caused justly bitter feeling. Forty dollars was offered
for the scalp of any Indian fighting in the British ranks.
"Don't speak of that at home," Archy told Ned. "Women folks are
awful easy scared, and it'll hit your pa." For the English, to keep
their Indian subjects under better control, had given Indian military
rank to the white men, who like Edgar, had been elected sub-chiefs.
* * *
Ned found Susie interested in other things than war, when he went
home that March evening. "General Sheaffe is back, Ned," she
exclaimed, "with Bee and her grandfather, and two companies of
regulars. There's going to be the ball of the season at the Palace,
and I must find out if the fashions have changed much."
"They always change the same way, Sue," said Edgar, "less dress and
more bonnet. It's Bonaparte's wife that starts them, and if I were
he I'd suggest that she tie her dress round her head, and dress the
rest of herself in her bonnet, for a change."
Then a small whirlwind, and Bee was in the House, in Susie's arms,
laughing and exclaiming over the little boys, and Edgar welcoming his
old friend, Dr. Tam. The surgeon handed Ned a letter. "From your
Methodist friend, Ferguson," he said, and Ned hid himself in the
lofts above the store, to read it without interruption.
"After you left us," Ferguson wrote, "we were ordered to St. Johns,
near Montreal. We had to leave our families behind and had a severe
and tedious march. The country and people and almost everything
seemed strange, and not one of those I travelled with knew Canaan's
language. But blessed be God, though I was a stranger and a pilgrim
marching through the 'enchanted ground', I could now and then snatch
a cluster of pleasant grapes, and see the end of my toils.
"On February 3, we marched to the Isle of Maux on Lake Champlain,
where there has been some skirmishing with the enemy."
Ferguson went on with many quotations from his only reading--the
Bible, Hymn Book, and John Bunyan, going rather fully into his
examination of his own conscience, as to how a man could be a soldier
and yet "love his enemies".
"I need to consult the Divine Oracle daily," he wrote, "for it is the
soul's geography, which will show me the path I must needs take."
As Ned finished the letter, he saw his father and Dr. Tam come up
into the next room which Edgar had fitted up as a "den", and sit down
to drink together.
"Come in, and take your glass with us," ordered the half-tipsy Edgar,
as Ned tried to pass the door unseen.
"Yes, come," said Dr. Tam, "even if you are a Methodist. Lots of
them take their glass, its only their preachers and saints that set
up to be so extra good. Come, you'll never be a man till you drink."
"You're no Methodist," roared Edgar, as Ned sat down unwillingly.
"What do you mean by writing to them? Give me that letter that you
got from one of them to-day, or I'll break your neck."
Ned obeyed, though his eyes flashed. Edgar read the letter, then
burst into a torrent of oaths. "The canting coward," he shouted, "to
take the king's pay and dare to talk of loving his enemies! And
what's this gibberish about picking grapes in a Canadian forest in
mid-winter? See here, you'll give me your word right now to drop
this Methodism, or I'll flog it out of you to-night."
Ned sprang to his feet. "You can do what you like to me, sir," he
said sternly, "for you are my father, but if you do touch me, I shall
leave your house and never enter it again."
CHAPTER V
How the Americans Came to York, April 27, 1813.
"Steady, man," said Dr. Tam, with his hand on Edgar's arm. "The
laddie's threatening to disinherit you, instead of waiting for you to
do it to him. Now, listen, I'm an officer in Ferguson's regiment,
and no matter what he puts in private letters, which are none of my
business, I want to tell you something. Down at Lake Champlain the
Governor-General, Prevost, visited us. We were to make an attack on
the Yankee camp, and the night before I heard Ferguson preaching to
the men. He told them that being ready to die made a man more fit to
live. A Christian soldier can do his duty more calmly and bravely
and be more true to the king and obedient to his officers.
"He was standing on a box by a camp fire, with the men all 'round him
listening in deep silence. I saw the colonel come up with Governor
Prevost, who seemed surprised at a soldier's preaching. The colonel
said to Captain Haslem, who was there--'What kind of man is Ferguson?
Does he do his duty?'. The captain said--'He is always ready for any
call; all I ever heard against him is his preaching, and reproving
the men for swearing.' The Governor said--'I think we will let him
go on then. The army needs some chaplains.'
"The Yankees were gone when we went the next day. Our men plundered
the farms quite a bit. I kept my eye on Ferguson, and saw that he
not only never touched a thing, but kept the men near him better
behaved than they would have been. Now, you let the lad be till the
lake opens. There'll be stiff fighting then, and if he does his duty
let him have what religion he likes."
Edgar nodded grumpily, and as Ned left the room, he added, "If he
fails I'll send him off. I've worked too hard to make a name here to
have it disgraced by a Methodist coward."
He said very little to Ned during the next two months. On the
twenty-fifth of April, the ice had cleared from Toronto Bay, and Bee,
in her serge habit and plumed hat, sat very upright on her horse as
she rode by Sir John along the muddy water front to the wharves.
"They are very slow with those ships," she remarked, with the air of
a naval expert. "Major Edgar says there is too much red tape."
"Ladies shouldn't talk of war or politics. The feminine mind cannot
understand such things," but Sir John smiled on Bee with kindly
toleration as he spoke, for he was very fond of the outspoken,
affectionate girl. Then his face clouded again. Three ships should
have been ready by now, and only one stood complete--the
"Gloucester", which was then leisurely taking her guns on board. The
second ship was ready for launching, and men were working hard on the
third. Sir John had not been able to adapt himself to the new
conditions 'round him, as a younger man might. He was mainly
responsible for the delay with the ships, for Archy had been
recommended to him as a practical ship-builder, and the stately
baronet had been so scandalized by Archy's free and easy manners and
lack of grammar, that when that young man pointed out a score of
makeshifts that could be used on the new ships, and quoted the
Americans as having built a vessel of sixty-six guns at Sackett's
Harbor, eighty days after her first timbers had been laid, Sir John
told him firmly that such things would not do in British
ship-building. So snubbed him, that Archy had given no more advice.
Work on the ships had been stopped continually, while "proper
equipments" were being dragged up the long trail from Quebec.
"Old man means well, and I kinder like him," Archy told Edgar, "but
he's so stiffened up with pipeclay that he can't move except
according to regulations. I'm getting sorrier all the time that
General Brock's dead. Them Shawanese at Detroit wouldn't have acted
up so if he'd been round, and these ships would have got done."
Blake, the pompous captain of the "Gloucester", came to speak to Sir
John, and Bee, looking round, saw Susie walking with Ned in his
militia uniform, along Palace Street. Susie looked very pretty in
her short skirted house dress of homespun, with white collar and a
knot of red ribbon, and one of two young officers riding by stared at
her with impertinent admiration. The other, who was Vere, pretended
not to see Ned, but as they reached Sir John, Roke, his friend,
remarked, "Pretty thing over there with the red ribbons."
"That lady is the wife of Major Edgar, sir," said Sir John coldly.
He disliked Roke, whom he blamed for enticing Vere into the drinking
and gambling bouts which were continually unfitting him for duty, and
bitterly disappointing his grandfather.
"We don't speak of a lady under a colonel's wife," said Roke to Vere
as they rode on. "A captain's wife may be a woman, but under that
they are only things; and militia titles don't count."
Vere laughed, because he was afraid of being laughed at if he didn't,
though he was secretly disgusted with Roke's coarseness.
Unfortunately, Archy, passing by, heard the doubtful joke. He
repeated it to four militia men who knew Edgar and his wife well,
adding, "There's a dance to-night at their Palace place, and Mrs.
Edgar will be there sure, with most of our women. Now I haven't
anything against most of the crowd they'll meet--a bit too starched
for my taste that's all. But that there Roke doesn't get to no dance
in York with our women, and I guess you boys will have to help me
find him another engagement for to-night."
The ball was at its height that evening (and away at the other end of
the lake, two frigates with a dozen transports stood out from
Sackett's Harbour to attack York) when Sheaffe was asking why Roke
was not there, he having sent for him.
Roke finally entered, smothered in mud from head to foot. He said
that as he drove to the ball with his servant, five masked men
stopped them. One cut the horse loose and drove him on. The others
lifted the light cart and turned it over with its occupants
imprisoned beneath it in a deep mud hole. When they got out, the
five had vanished, but Roke accused Ned and some companions, for he
imagined the young man had resented his look at Susie. It was easily
proved, however, that Ned had not left home that evening, and his
name was dropped, though Roke still thought him responsible.
All York talked of Roke's mishap the next day, and Sheaffe attempted
vainly to find the mysterious five. Then Roke was forgotten, for at
four in the afternoon Gibraltar Point signalled that the enemy's
fleet was in sight, about twenty miles away, and approaching them.
York called out her defenders, two hundred regulars, three hundred
militia, and one hundred Indians. These last were stationed in
little groups in the woods round Humber Bay, Edgar and Tahata being
with them. The white men spent the night under arms in Fort Toronto,
while in the town the women buried silver, and tore up linen for
bandages.
Before dawn Ned was hurrying through the bush with Archy and his
company, very afraid that a queer feeling he had was fear. Hideous
faces daubed in black and white and blood red, peered at them as they
passed. The Indians were waiting for the fight in their war-costume
of loin-cloth and paint. Only the chiefs wore buckskin shirts and
leggings, though their faces looked like demon masks. Suddenly Ned
met his father, dressed as he had seen him first at Quebec, with a
belt of wampum as his badge of office. Now he only held out his
hand, but his grip and smile steadied Ned's nerves. He felt that his
father believed in him, and it gave him confidence in himself.
He crouched in the woods by Humber Bay, watching the enemy's ships.
They seemed very close now, ghostly looking shapes in the morning
twilight. Their boats were being loaded with troops to land beyond
the range of Fort Toronto's guns.
The boats came in, black shapes on the dawn-lit water, and from every
point in the woods on the shore came the wildest, most blood-curdling
sound Ned had ever heard--a long drawn out unearthly yell--the
war-whoop of the Mohawks. At the same time they fired, not in
volleys, but each Indian picking out his man. Then Fort Toronto
spoke in fire, for the two warships were nearing the entrance to the
harbour. They answered instantly with their heavier guns, and a
rolling cloud of smoke shut out the sight of the risen sun from
Humber Bay, and the roar of the cannonading dulled the noise of the
conflict on the shore. A mass of blue-clad men had landed there, to
be met by a savage scattering fire from the Indians and a sheet of
flame from the ambushed militia. Ned, for the first time, was firing
at living men. His nervousness had vanished, he forgot his scruples
against war. He fired, loaded, and fired again, in almost mechanical
obedience to orders.
He stopped firing on command, for out of the fort came a wave of
scarlet tipped with steel--the regulars were charging with the
bayonet on those blue lines forming on the shore.
"My happy grandmother!" ejaculated Archy, "there's something besides
starch in those fellows, swinging into battle like that. I just hate
to fight out in the open; you see----"
Ned never knew what. The order to charge came to them, and he was
dashing out of cover at Archy's heels. He gasped as the man beside
him fell in a crumpled heap, and the bullets whistled past his ears.
Then he forgot himself in that mêleé of battling men.
* * *
The sun, a fierce red ball, gleamed through the smoke, and by the
green woods men in red coats, men in gray coats, and men in no coats
at all, flung themselves on the blue lines which wavered, and
stumbled backward into the shallows of the lake. Now more boats were
coming from the ships, the American general, Pike, standing in the
foremost, as he cheered on his men.
Ned was parted from his companions in the rush. He sprang over a
log, and fired at an American officer who came at him with uplifted
sword. The man fell, and all the delirium of battle passed from
Ned's brain, as he stared horror-struck at his fallen foe. The
American was on his feet again, and the dark blood streaming from his
shoulder. He leaned weakly against a tree, and raised his sword.
Ned looked round and saw a young Indian, frightful with his naked
painted body and a dripping scalp at his girdle, levelling his musket
at the wounded man. Instantly Ned was between them--"Stop, Kawque,"
he cried to the Indian, "the man is wounded. He has surrendered."
"I have not," said the American, adding with biting contempt, "I do
not surrender to a renegade. I prefer to be shot, rather than
massacred as my countrymen were, who surrendered to yours at Detroit."
Ned heard the Indian move behind him, and knew in a moment that he
would see the wounded man shot down. Something in the American's
proud eyes gave him an inspiration, and he cried, "Are you Eli Goode?
I am Ned Edgar, and I know your sister. For Bee Goode's sake,
surrender now."
The American's face changed, as quickly as Bee's often did. He
lowered his sword, exclaiming, "Bee wrote of you in England."
The Indian glided away, and Eli sank fainting to the ground again.
Ned cut his coat away, bandaging the wound with a skill he had learnt
from Dr. Brown. He did not knew that for a few minutes he and Eli
had been alone in the thicket, but that they were then surrounded by
the advancing Americans. For an instant Ned was covered by a dozen
rifles, which were raised as quickly as his occupation was
discovered. He stood up very dismayed, but the foremost American was
speaking. "Reckon you took the captain prisoner, and now we have
taken you, so an exchange will be all right. Better chase yourself
out of this, stranger." Ned snatched up his rifle and ran.
He was soon back to the woods, where his friends had retreated. It
was now ten o'clock, and the battle was lost. Fort Toronto's
fortifications had been ruined, and her guns silenced by the enemy's
fire. Her garrison had left and fallen back on Western Battery,
where the scattered men from Humber Bay joined them. As Ned came in
he saw the American flag rise over the ruins of their first fort.
Just then he did not love his enemies at all.
He saw Sir John sitting on his horse as composed in that hour of
defeat and danger as if he had been on parade. Ned watched him
giving orders to the waiting men 'round him, with a great respect for
British discipline. Then Edgar hurried by, his stern face softening
as he saw his son. He went to Sir John who sent him on to burn the
ships on the stocks, and wrote another order for Vere to take to the
captain of the "Gloucester", that she must be blown up. Then after
speaking to the men who were spiking the guns of Western Battery, he
rode off towards Half-moon Fort where Sheaffe was waiting. Ned and
his companions followed, plodding along like the weary defeated men
they were.
Outside Western Battery, Pike and the advancing Americans had halted,
summoning the silent fort. But they got no answer, the regulars were
just leaving, Vere riding by their captain. Ned saw flames bursting
from the new ships, and immediately after was thrown to the ground by
an explosion that shook the earth beneath him. The powder magazine
of Western Battery had blown up--an awful volcano of flame and smoke,
the debris of a fort, and the high-hurled broken bodies of three
hundred men.
Americans, including General Pike, and English were killed alike, and
the explosion itself was a mystery. Certainly neither army could
have been intentionally responsible for it, entailing as it did, the
lives of so many men on each side.
Ned picked himself up unhurt, and looked back in horror. He saw Vere
stumble up from beside his dead horse, and run a few steps, then fall
again, brought down by a sharpshooter's bullet. Many of the
scattered Americans were sheltering in the woods.
Only remembering the old schoolboy friendship, Ned crept from stump
to stump, till he was crouching by Vere in the slender cover of a
pile of brushwood. Vere's face was drawn, and his eyes, wild with
fear, stared at Ned as he spoke in panting jerks--"I'm dying, Ned."
"You're not dying, Vere," said Ned, as he skilfully bandaged the
wound. It was in the leg, dangerously near a large artery. Ned knew
it needed better attention than he could give, but how was Vere to be
got to Half-moon Fort, across the common swept by the enemy's fire?
Ned knelt down, managed to get Vere on his back, and praying the
bandage might not slip, stepped out boldly. Very slowly he walked
along beside the forest in whose shades Death crouched, but with
American chivalry no man fired, and they reached Half-moon in safety.
There Ned was hailed by Archy. "Hello, didn't know what had become
of you. We've got to get out of here. The women from the Palace are
in town--Mrs. Haslem and Miss Bee are at your place and the Yankees
won't hurt anything in petticoats; Sheaffe and the regulars, and the
wounded in wagons, are making tracks for the Don bridge, and as the
Yankees won't take the militia prisoners, if they come in and give
their parole, he says we can do as we like. You can bet your sweet
life I ain't going to give no parole, but I'm not going to Kingston
with Sheaffe either. I'm off to the bush till I can find a general
who does things, but it'll be all right for you to look after your
redcoat friend."
So the very independent militia captain went off, with most of his
companions, to look for a commander they approved of. Ned meanwhile
found a surgeon, and helped put Vere in the last of the hurrying
wagons, that took the wounded past sullen little York, and crossing
the Don bridge, plunged into the woods along the Quebec Road
(Kingston Highway). Vere sat up and held out his hand to Ned as the
wagon reached the Don, for Ned was one of the rear guard who were to
fire the bridge, after the retreating party had crossed. They did
this, and Ned managed to be left on the Toronto side of the river.
Then he made for the woods behind York, hoping to find his sagacious,
ungrammatical captain.
The smoke from the burning bridge joined that of the fire by the
wharves, wrapping Edgar, as he stood on the shore, impatiently
waiting for the messenger with the order that should prevent the
capture of the "Gloucester". The Americans had been delayed by the
confusion following the death of Pike, but Edgar was expecting to see
their frigates off the wharves every minute. He had already been
once to beg the captain to blow her up without the order. He could
tell him it had been given, and its non-delivery was no doubt owing
to the messenger's death in the explosion. But Blake had declined to
take orders--or advice--from a militia officer, and Edgar had fumed
on shore, to hurry back as his quick eye saw the enemy's ships
advancing slowly through the smoke.
But Half-moon Battery was empty with her guns spiked, and without a
crew, the "Gloucester" could not fight. Still her captain refused to
destroy her till the last minute, and before Edgar could convince him
it had come, the frigates bore triumphantly down on them, and they
were ignominiously captured. York surrendered at once, and at two in
the afternoon, the American flag was raised over the town. The
parliament buildings were sacked and fired, the town escaping by
payment of a money requisition, but the stores were emptied and many
houses robbed of silver, the enemy getting a spoil, mainly in furs,
of half a million dollars.
The officers of the "Gloucester" were sent on shore. Only Edgar
stayed. A lean American pointed at him accusingly--"You are the
renegade who called yourself Kaanah," he cried.
"That is my name in the lodges of the Mohawks," Edgar answered
carelessly. "If you mean to hang me you have a good chance." He
glanced at the yardarm above his head, and threw open his collar,
adding, "I am also a British subject, and England will make you pay
for my murder. It would be nothing else, for you cannot find a man
who can say I have done anything unworthy of my race."
But the men round him were possessed by that hate of the Indian which
has so often hurried men of the new world into thoughtless reprisal,
and Edgar would have died, had not a girl appeared among the soldiers
on the shore. She was holding the arm of an American officer,
white-faced and with a bandaged shoulder. Eli had got himself
billeted on Susie to protect his sister and her friends, and he had
gone out with Bee to look for Edgar, whom he knew would be in danger
if recognized among the prisoners. Bee saw Edgar, and Eli sent her
back at once, going on board himself. "Gentlemen," he said to
Edgar's judges, "fifteen years ago my father met Mr. Edgar, both
travelling through the Ohio valley. They were captured by the
Shawanese. Mr. Edgar was spared because he was English, and Tecumseh
was hoping for the friendship of the English against us. My father
was to be burned at the stake, but Mr. Edgar risked sharing his fate
by pleading and offering bribes, and instead of both dying, both were
spared, and the Indians named this man Kaanah, 'One-who-is-a-Friend'.
They were close friends till my father's death, when he left my only
sister to Mr. Edgar's guardianship. England may have shamed her
civilization by her alliance with savages, but though as a soldier
Mr. Edgar could not choose his duties, I am certain he has never been
a renegade to his white blood."
Eli's defence of his father's friend was accepted, and Edgar was sent
to the other prisoners at the palace. It was night now; in conquered
York the women grieved for their dead, and prayed for their
living--the men who were in the woods, and who would not surrender.
As Edgar entered the big room where the English prisoners were, he
saw Roke among them, and heard him saying--"The worst of all is
letting them get the 'Gloucester', and Sir John gave Ensign Haslem
the order for her captain. I heard him. And I saw young Haslem
being carried to a wagon by Ned Edgar, and also saw him hold out his
hand to Ned, evidently giving him something. Now, that order was not
delivered, and as Ned is not among the dead or prisoners, it means
that he ran without doing what he was ordered."
"You lie," said Edgar promptly. Roke turned on him angrily, but the
other men interfered. Exhaustion was more responsible for peace than
forebearance, however, and Roke, with most of the others, was asleep,
when he was awakened some time later by Edgar.
"I'm going to escape," said the militia officer briefly, "I know more
about this Palace than the men who think they are guarding us, and
you are going with me. You called my son a coward, and when we find
Ensign Haslem, and when he says, as I know he will, that it was not
to Ned that he gave the letter, I shall take great pleasure in
shooting you."
CHAPTER VI.
How Ned Lost His Good Name, and Vere His Soul.
Two hundred dispirited men straggled wearily through the slough into
which the spring thaws and rains had turned the Quebec road. The
wagons laden with the unhappy wounded sank to their axles in the mud
holes, and had to be lifted and pulled out by the men, many of their
occupants begging to be laid by the roadside and left to die in
peace. Then, too, they were continually in fear of being attacked by
the American war ships, the road frequently running on the lake
shore. Fortunately for them, the Americans had crossed the lake to
attack Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) then the wealthiest town in Upper
Canada, with its strong Fort George.
After weary days the little force crossed the only bridge Kingston
had left standing, and its loosened planks clattered under their
feet. At the news of the fall of York, Kingston had destroyed every
bridge over the several rivers near her, except one, and that could
easily have been fired had the enemy landed in the neighbourhood.
Vere had suffered a great deal during the retreat, but he recovered
rapidly in the pleasant room given him, its windows showing a varied
view of lake and river, and the harbour where the little war fleet of
Lake Ontario lay, with the shipping that had escaped the enemy's
sweep. As the barracks and officers' quarters were at the eastern
extremity of the town, he could see much of Kingston itself, looking
sedate and solid with its many stone buildings.
He was half dozing in pleasant contemplation of all when Sir John
burst in upon him one morning. "Did you give the note you were
carrying when you were wounded to Ned Edgar?" he asked sharply.
"Yes, sir. Why do you ask?" gasped Vere, his lips growing white as
he remembered that in his fear he had forgotten the note, which lay
in his pocket still.
Sir John did not see Vere's face. He had turned to the window. "I
always feared Ned would come to a bad end," he was muttering. "He is
missing now, and I hope will continue so--for his father's sake.
Major Edgar came in with Roke this morning."
The deadly horror that had clutched Vere's heart relaxed its hold,
for he did not fear sin, but punishment. Now he thought he had done
no harm, for Ned was away somewhere, and might never meet these men
who believed this of him. Then as Sir John left the room, he limped
to the fire place, and dropped the paper on the flames. He was
called that day before a court of inquiry into the loss of the
"Gloucester", and gave his false evidence with no more reluctance
than seemed natural in one who had been Ned's school friend. Edgar
listened to him, his face calm, but his very soul scalded with the
shame he believed Ned had brought upon him.
A week later Ned stood at the gate of Kingston Fort. He had lost his
way completely in the woods, and had been found by a hunting party of
Indians, who when they had got enough game, took it and him to
Kingston. So Ned told his story, bewildered at the looks of the men
who questioned him. What had he done but try to join his captain and
company? Then suddenly his arms were jerked behind him and his
wrists shackled with steel. Ned's eyes flamed, and he felt himself
shaken with fury and resentment. But surely his father was there,
and would never let any injustice be done him.
He was still looking for Edgar when he was brought before a court of
bleak-eyed men, who were in hourly expectation of an attack on
Kingston. Newark had sent for help they could not give--and they
were in no mood to have mercy on anyone who did not do his duty at
such a time. Ned's brain reeled as he heard the charge against
him--of disobedience and cowardice. In a voice he did not recognize
as his own, he answered, "I never saw this letter, sir, nor heard of
it till now."
"Enter the plea, 'Not Guilty'," said the President shortly, as Roke
was called, and told to tell what he had really seen.
"This man is my enemy," said Ned in a low tone to the officer
appointed as his counsel, "He is saying this in revenge for a trick
he thinks I played on him. If Ensign Haslem were alive and here he
would say he gave me nothing. We only shook hands."
"Oh, you thought Ensign Haslem was dead and you could face the rest
out," said the man. "You are certainly a cool one."
Ned did not hear him, Roke had told his tale and stepped down, and
Vere, ghastly pale and limping, was taking the solemn oath. Then
with no thought but to save himself, he betrayed the friend who had
saved him--to death. In a low voice but without hesitation he
answered the questions put him.
Like one in the grip of a ghastly nightmare Ned looked 'round him.
He saw his father, with eyes that had love frozen in them. He knew
Edgar believed him guilty too, and he looked despairingly through the
window where the careless sunshine flashed on the open water under
the tender May sky. Would God, who was so careful of the spring
flowers and nesting birds, let the clean name he valued far more than
life be taken from him? Was there any God?
The room grew black round him for an instant, for they were
sentencing him to die--as a coward. The instinct of his blood made
him set his teeth, and force himself to face them calmly--to walk
steadily from the room, and back to his prison. But something seemed
to give way in his brain, and when they left him there, chained in
the darkness, he was very near the black bounds of insanity.
Vere had left the court directly he gave his evidence, and he looked
in blank horror at Sir John when he heard the sentence, "You have
influence, sir," he panted, "I thought--I hoped you would help him.
He is not as much to blame as you think, and he saved me."
"What on earth do you mean?" Sir John exclaimed irritably.
The truth that would save his soul rose to Vere's lips, but his
coward spirit kept it from passing them. "I meant he is so young,"
he stammered. "I should have given the note to an older man. And
then if he had not put that bandage on, I should have bled to death
before the surgeon reached me."
To Sir John, to be born a Haslem meant that a man could not lie. He
had learned nothing from the old scandal buried in the graves of his
reckless son, and the weak wicked woman he had married. Dr. Brown
could have warned him that Vere needed the wisest training, and that
drinking would surely rot the weak moral fibres he had inherited.
Now at twenty he was, even when quite sober, a decaying soul.
Ned roused from a stupor, as a man entered his cell. It was Sells,
the blackguard of the "Lightfoot", whom his regiment had managed to
get rid of, and who was now in the garrison at Kingston. He felt
Sells taking the irons off his legs, and the memory of everything
swept over him like a flame. He shuddered as if fire had touched his
flesh, then walked out quietly. A man waiting put his hand on his
shoulder, and led him out of doors into a still night, where a big
moon showed they were in a stump-filled field outside the fort.
They two were quite alone, and Ned felt some surprise. His escort's
grip tightened upon his shoulder and he dug his fingers in
convulsively. Ned said quietly--"Is it necessary to hold me so
tightly, sir? I am not trying to run away."
The sound of his prisoner's voice seemed to madden the man. With an
oath he flung Ned from him with all his strength. Ned went down
heavily among the limestone outcroppings, and picked himself up,
bruised and shaken, to face in the moonlight--his father.
Cursing him with the passion of a man utterly beside himself, Edgar
broke out--"Why didn't you shoot yourself when you knew what you had
done, instead of coming here to disgrace yourself, and your brothers
and me? It's that infernal Methodism that's put the coward taint in
your blood."
Ned crimsoned at the attack on his faith, and answered as
passionately as his father--"Why isn't my word as good as Vere
Haslem's? I tell you I never saw the letter."
He fell down again before his father's fist. There was blood on his
lips where it had struck as he rose, and he did not try to speak
again but stood with arms folded. He was indifferent if Edgar should
kill him, which he seemed quite capable of doing.
"Go," said Edgar thickly, "before I shoot you. Go to the Yankees,
curse them! You're the worst thing I could wish them to have. I
only bribed your guard to help you to escape so that your punishment
shouldn't disgrace your brothers. But if I ever meet you on Canadian
soil again, I'll shoot you on sight. Go, before I do it now."
Ned went blindly into the bush, where a rough voice called him. He
knew nothing and cared nothing. Coming to the shore, he was pushed
upon a boat which dimly impressed him as a large schooner, and which
set off at once across the lake. His brain clearing, he saw she was
manned by a score of men, in the uniforms of both armies, deserters
who instead of leaving one side to join the other, meant to form a
gang with Sells for the leader, and hide in the woods near Niagara,
plundering all they could. "And you want me to join you?" said Ned
indifferently, as Sells explained their intentions to him.
"We'll make you want to. We want you, for Dr. Tam on the 'Lightfoot'
said you could do a little of his job quite decently. We won't hurt
you if you do as you are told, and as you seem one of the coward
sort, we'll leave you behind when there's any fighting going on.
We're taking you to mend hurts, not to make them, and you can amuse
us too--give us a mock Methodist sermon when we're dull. I wonder
what Ferguson will say when he hears that his pet ran away in the
first battle? I never thought till I saw you in the court that you
were like that."
In the darkness Ned's fists clenched, but he did not strike the
mocking face before him. He felt that a blinded Justice had robbed
him of the right to resent insult. So he answered sullenly, "Any man
who was a coward would be glad to join you."
They took that for his assent, and left him to pretence of sleep. He
lay listening to the talk of these men who had dropped all thought of
decency and were thieves, and there came to him the temptation to end
his life. This scum of society was henceforth to be the only class
open to him--no honest man would ever touch his hand again. Why not
"Curse God and die?"
In Kingston, the next morning, Ned's escape was discovered, but only
Sells was blamed for helping him, and their names were posted
together as deserters. No one paid much attention. Across the lake
Fort George, the key to Niagara, was answering the heavy cannonade of
the American fleet. And on that same day, May 27, the British war
ships with a thousand men on board, left Kingston to attack Sackett's
Harbour, hoping that the absence of the American fleet would enable
them to capture the naval stores there. It was a day of double
defeat. In the afternoon a carrier pigeon dropped into Kingston with
a note that said Vincent, the commander at Fort George, running out
of powder, had retired into the bush after spiking his guns and
firing his stores. The Americans had not followed him, they having a
very exaggerated idea of the number of Indians in the British
service. They now held Newark, and the entire Niagara district.
Then the fleet came back from Sackett's Harbour, leaving three
hundred men, dead, wounded, and missing, behind them. Among them was
Edgar, who had volunteered to join the landing party, which had been
hemmed in and captured.
[Illustration: "Dropped noiselessly overboard and swam ashore."]
And Ned, in the deserters' boat, as the dark madness that suggested
suicide still held his mind, saw that the shore was near, and taking
a musket, dropped noiselessly overboard and swam to shore. There he
wandered into the bush, not knowing where, only avoiding every trail
of man, for his brain had been so weakened by the shock of his unjust
condemnation that he felt he was too disgraced ever to let any man of
any nation see his face again. He shot some game, and spent a few
days in a tiny limestone cave, then wandered on restlessly, sleeping
one night in the bush. Waking the third morning in utter despair, he
was almost surprised to hear himself calling out, "What shall I do?"
"Be good, that's all," said a clear voice near him, and he sprang up
in alarm, to face Bee in a homespun skirt and calico sunbonnet. He
heard the sound of chickens and cow-bells, and saw he was close to
York.
"Ned Edgar!" she exclaimed in delight. "I am so used to have
sentries stopping me everywhere, that when I heard you speak, I
thought I had better say my name, and let you see me."
"Be good, that's all," repeated Ned, looking at her with dazed eyes.
"But what can I do good now? Where shall I go?"
Bee gasped, dashed off, and was back in a minute with a brimming can
of milk. "Drink this," she said severely, and as Ned obeyed, she
added, "You are disgraceful; all the men I know are. They shoot each
other, and get hurt, and go without proper meals, when they might be
at home doing respectable work. Do you know a wonderful thing has
happened? Cousin Betty has the dearest baby in the world, and she is
here with Mamma Edgar, and Eli is taking care of us all. The baby's
name is York--and Cousin Percy stays with his regiment at Lake
Champlain, or somewhere. If I were he I would die if I didn't fly
home and see my delicious baby the minute it came. But you must come
to the house with me and have breakfast."
Revived by the milk, Ned followed Bee into York; desolate York with
the ashes of her buildings lying black beside the fields no one had
plowed or sown that spring. Ned missed the military life at the
barracks, and the flag he had always seen over them. The American
forces had left, Bee told him, but their ships came in constantly,
and Eli was there now. There were few men in the place, no one came
to trade, and the streets looked forlorn, for the blight of war was
on the land.
Edgar's empty store, with its doors swinging idly open, gave Ned a
shock. His father, Bee told him was a prisoner of war, but Susie
would be glad to see him. Evidently the news of his disgrace had not
reached York, but he knew he must not go under his father's roof, nor
eat his bread. He began to say something of this, but Bee stopped
him. "We will have breakfast out of doors, and eat what Eli brought."
"You don't understand, Miss Bee, what my father thinks I am."
"I can guess, I know Papa Edgar, but being an American I don't see
things as he does. Eli and I have been hoping you would do it."
"I don't know what you are talking about, but you certainly don't
know the truth, and you must hear it before we go any further."
Without preface he told her of his arrest at Kingston, and then the
trial. Bee's bewilderment at the abrupt beginning changed to horror
as he repeated Vere's evidence. "Poor Vere," she murmured.
"What do you pity him for?" said Ned roughly, "even if you do think
me guilty."
"You? You are strong, you will soon get over this; it is only a
little thing," (Ned wondered what her idea of serious trouble was)
"but Vere was a traitor to you, and traitors must go to--to their own
place." Her voice sank to a whisper, but she dared not say the
terrible name.
The straight, strong faith he had accepted once came back to Ned
then. Time seemed nothing beside eternity, the blundering injustice
of men too little a thing to think of beside the awful Justice of
God, high-throned in eternal calm. He raised his head for the first
time since they had chained him at Kingston--"Then you do not think I
am guilty, though Sir John does?" he asked her.
She laughed softly. "You a coward--who saved my brother!" she
exclaimed, and before he guessed what she meant to do, she had kissed
him on his forehead, flushing a little as the instinct of a young
girl made itself felt through the impulsive abandon of a child.
"That is what I think of you," she repeated. "I never kissed any man
but Sir John, and Papa Edgar and Eli before, but I think I love you
nearly as much as Eli, and I believe in you as much as I do in him.
Now, sit right down here, while I get breakfast."
Ned sat down, but that kiss had given him back his courage and
self-respect; he knew now what he could do. Then Bee came out again,
followed by Chloe with a tray of dishes, and Eli with the coffee pot.
So they sat down to their pic-nic meal. Eli was startled at Ned's
white face, and evident nervous condition, but put it down to
dejection at the British defeats, and weeks of starving in the bush.
He talked about the weather, and tried to stop Bee when she started
on the war, but that young lady insisted on talking as she liked. "I
hope this dreadful war is almost over," she said earnestly. "Upper
Canada is conquered except Kingston and those few men from Fort
George who are in the bush. Brother Eli, what are you making signs
at me for? What are you trying to make me do?"
"Nothing, I assure you, my dear girl. I may be able to manage the
crew of a ship, but I know I couldn't one woman, even a very young
one. Do you ever let any body boss you, Bee?"
"Only Cousin Betty; I have to do all she says. She made a heap of
regulations for my conduct, and put me on my honour to report to her
when I break one. I always write my reports in a book and give it in
to her. I made the book myself--its title is 'The sins of a
Lifetime, being the Confessions of Miss Beatrice Truth Goode, of
Boston.' And its motto is from that dearest Sir Walter Scott--'High
minds most deeply feel thy pangs, Remorse.' Then I have to sew
seams, for punishment, miles and miles of seams, I am sure. And now,
Ned, I suppose you will have to lodge at Widow Giles. Mamma Edgar
can't have you in the house after what your father said, but she will
be delighted that you are looking after the place, we can't get a man
to do anything. I don't understand the Canadian militia not coming
in, when they know they have only to give their parole and go to
their homes, where now just women and old men are trying to do the
work; and as they can't put in crops enough, they will all be
starving next winter. I am so glad you are sensible, and willing to
be friends."
Ned stood up very embarrassed, and realizing that these friends, the
only ones he seemed to have, were by the unnatural laws of war his
enemies. "Captain Goode," he said, "I must apologize to you and Miss
Bee. I think I lost my senses in the bush, for I forgot we were at
war till this minute. I cannot give my parole, so must surrender
myself to you as a prisoner."
CHAPTER VII.
How Ned Planned to Justify Bee's Faith in Him.
"I don't take prisoners at my table, Mr. Edgar," said Eli quietly,
while the happy laughter died out of Bee's face and she looked
bleakly at the two young men.
"But I thought the war was over," she cried. "Brother Eli, you said
that when the Americans had York and Newark, Upper Canada would
realize that she must change her flags, and the Canadian militia
would all come in and give their paroles not to fight any more, and
then they would go to their farms; and now they are all staying in
the bush, and even Ned, who I thought had come in, says he hasn't.
What are you going to do with him?"
"That is for you to say, Bee, you brought him in, and I presume you
had better let him go out again. Some more coffee please, with lots
of sugar."
Bee was very silent the rest of the meal, then she took Ned to see
the baby, which Chloe was nursing. Betty asked Ned eagerly after her
men; she was thinking too much of Percy, of whose whereabouts they
knew nothing, to notice Ned's embarrassment as he answered her. Then
Bee and Ned were out in the garden by themselves.
"What are you going to do?" Bee demanded.
"With your permission, Miss Bee, I will go to our men at Stony Creek,
or near. They have no communication with Kingston, so I can join
them, and hope for a chance to retrieve my good name."
"Yes, I understand, I suppose you must go on fighting," she answered
with a wan smile. "Here is a bag of bread, and you have your gun.
Good-bye."
Ned had a long lonely tramp along the lake shore, till one morning,
it was June 6, he heard at dawn the roar of distant cannon, and knew
the invaders had located, and were attacking Vincent. All that day
he walked on steadily, feverishly eager to know how the fight had
gone. The long summer day was ending, when he heard the sounds of
many men near him in the gloom, though there was no smell of smoke or
gleam of a camp-fire. Ned went on carefully, saw a redcoated sentry,
was challenged by him, and was the next moment exuberantly greeted by
Tim Kelly.
"Sure, and its the Swaddler's friend," Tim cried. "Are you asking if
he's alive and well? Just swear a bit, me boy, and he'll be down on
you immediate. No, we're not at Lake Champlain, we're here, breaking
our hearts entirely marching through woods that last forever and
ever. We left our women at Montreal, and have been getting through
the forest ever since, talking in whispers and walking on our
tiptoes. Barring the time we were at Kingston, we've never been able
to light a fire, and my stomach's about dead with eating uncooked
meat and things, and the Swaddler's real worried because he can't
stop to wash his clothes; if he'd been a gentleman born, he couldn't
hate being dirty more."
"Were you at Kingston long?" asked Ned with a great fear in his
heart. He had meant to give an assumed name when he found the
fighting force, but now this was impossible. And though Tim
evidently knew nothing, his officers might.
"Just long enough for Ferguson to find a bunch of Swaddlers," said
Tim carelessly. "Do you know, me boy, why the heathen here paint
their faces?"
"I suppose it is their custom," Ned answered absently.
"It's because these woods are cruel hard on clothes, me boy, and when
a man has only half of nothing left of his trousers he naturally
paints to hide his blushes."
* * *
Ned was passed into the lines, where Percy met him, and the captain's
greeting told him he was in no fear of discovery as yet. He was
given food, and a large ration of whiskey, which he refused.
"Look here, young man," said the old sergeant severely, "do you know
you're a fool? Going without drink's bad for a man's health,
especially when like now he can't get proper cooked food. We don't
want tee-total fanatics in the army, they'd break down on a hard
march."
"Let him alone, Giles," said Percy's voice behind them in the dark.
"Don't you know he is a Swaddler, like Ferguson? You know he never
touches liquors, and he has not broken down through all this hard
marching. I should imagine you would like more 'fanatics' like him,
who never grumbles at anything, and stands the hardest work better
than stronger looking men than himself."
"Stick to your Swaddling, Ned," Percy added, as the sergeant left
them, "you'll have a lot of temptations here with us, but don't
backslide--I think that is what you call it. You will do well for
yourself if you keep steady, and you'll do that if you can keep to
what you are now. Do you remember a man called Sells, on board the
'Lightfoot'? He had some education, but drink and wild living
wrecked his life and he enlisted. He might have risen then, for he
had the ability to lead men, but drink brought him into continual
disgrace. He's at Kingston now, too degraded ever to rise again."
Ned was thankful it was too dark for Percy to see his face, and he
was glad to be sent on to Ferguson, whose blanket he shared that
night.
"It seems a long time since our first night in Canada," the Methodist
said. "How is it with you? In all our hard marching I have seemed
to be dwelling in the clefts of the Rock."
"You were at Kingston?" Ned asked, not knowing what to say. He
longed to confide in Ferguson, yet dare not compromise him by letting
him know his friend was legally an escaped criminal.
"Yes," Ferguson answered, "everything had a warlike appearance
there--God and eternity forgotten. I asked if there were any
Methodists in town, and a peddler told me of a militia captain who
was also a class leader. The man spoke with a blush, for he had been
one of our travelling preachers, but had backslidden, and taken up
worldly work. Still he was very kind to me. He introduced me to the
class leader captain, whose company was like 'a water brook to the
panting hart'. I had been so long away from any who knew Canaan's
language."
"I can't understand why our lives should be so hard to live some
times," Ned spoke with a bitterness that surprised his friend.
"In the secret of His tabernacle did He hide me," said Ferguson
quietly. "My great trouble on this march is the injury this army has
done to the farmers on our way. We have plenty of meat, but not much
else to eat, and the men will steal handfuls of garden stuff, or slip
out and milk a cow. I have kept from touching anything that was not
paid for, and God has given me favor in the sight of all. My
comrades will not swear or steal in my presence, and any privilege I
ask of my officers is readily granted."
Ned slept then till he was awakened by Ferguson's touch. All round
tired men were sleeping heavily, but a wonderful dawn was flushing
the sky above Lake Ontario, which was turning from dull gray to the
tints of a pearl shell. Overhead the birds were calling, and
Ferguson had risen in accordance with the discipline of his church,
which bade a man rise an hour before his work compelled him to, to
read the Bible on his knees, and pray. Ned had forgotten to pray
since his life had been blasted by a traitor's lie, but now he knelt
by Ferguson, thanking God for the young girl's kiss that had given
him courage to face his world again.
And now for the chance to clear his name. At present communication
with Kingston was almost impossible, and if he could win a name for
bravery with Vincent, or with this column that was marching to his
relief, it might influence the judges who had misjudged him so.
There was plenty of excitement in their marching the next few days.
The Americans had discovered the column by now, and knew that they
were going to join Vincent, so the ships constantly landed parties
who lay in ambush. The regiment never saw its enemies, there would
be a quick spatter of shot from the green cover, a man or two would
fall, but the angry bayonet charge that was the prompt answer of the
British found nothing but leaves to use their steel upon; the
woodsmen from Kentucky were too quick to be caught by these heavy
footed new-comers to the world of lake and bush.
So they came to the bay where to-day our city of Hamilton stands.
Near by, in June, 1813, was the village of Stoney Creek, a straggling
street, outlined by orchards. Beyond rose Burlington Heights, with
the raw earthworks and log ramparts of Vincent's entrenchments, and
the battle-frayed flag of England floating above them.
Stoney Creek had a little Methodist church, the first Ferguson or Ned
had seen in the new world. The needs of war had pressed it for a
hospital, and from its doors a joyful crowd of bandaged men, Archy
among them, greeted the relief force.
"We're glad to see you all right," said Archy. "Though we wasn't in
no hurry to get relieved. We beat the Yankees sure on June sixth,
and fought some too. Them trees show that, I guess."
The trees did, to the men who were now among the orchards--great
branches broken and trunks scarred everywhere by bullets. On June
sixth the enemy had located Vincent, and knowing he was without
artillery and almost out of powder, they landed three thousand men,
who camped that night in the orchards of Stoney Creek. In the
morning they meant to attack, and with the help of their ship's guns,
capture Vincent's army before the relief column with abundance of
ammunition arrived.
"Blamed foolish of them Yankees," said Archy. "They oughter have
piled everything they've got on Kingston, and picked us up any old
time. Chasing after us like they are, makes me think of a man trying
to cut a tree down by taking an axe to its branches. Kingston's the
trunk. If it fell it would mean Upper Canada was cut off totally."
"We had fourteen hundred men," put in another man, "and Colonel
Harvey who did some fighting in Egypt with Bonaparte--and learned to
know how to do a few things too--wanted a night attack, as we had no
powder. He led it, and it was hot and heavy while it lasted, but
cold steel made the enemy glad to get back to their ships. They
started banging away, but Harvey and his men were back on the
Heights, and the enemy went back to get reinforcements."
Then Archy saw Ned, and called to him to know how he came there. "I
was lost in the bush several times, sir," Ned answered, hoping he did
not look as guilty as he felt. "At last I fell in with the relief
column. I tried to find you when I left York."
"Awful bad habit, Ned, this getting lost in the bush. When I got in
here and reported myself to General Vincent, he asked me why I hadn't
stayed with Sheaffe and gone to Kingston. I says, 'My memory's awful
bad, General, I couldn't for the life of me remember if Kingston was
east or west, so I got here; I guess some folks can't just help
forgetting things.' And he laughed, 'cause I'd come in with the
Indian who brought the note from Sheaffe saying he was to go to
Kingston, and so he knew I knew that he meant to 'forget' to obey it."
So Ned slipped back to his old place in Archy's company, and was
rather startled to find himself raised to sergeant. He worked hard
at his duties, but he was oddly silent, and seemed to shrink away
from his friends--so the men who knew him best, Ferguson, Archy, and
the keen-eyed Percy, thought.
It was a long summer of guerilla warfare rather than battle. The
enemy, with somewhat unwise generalship, wasted their forces trying
to crush the elusive British army at the Burlington end of the lake;
it dividing, uniting, and disappearing, trying to give the enemy the
impression at least treble its numbers.
"Play a waiting game," said Harvey, who with Fitzgibbons, was the
most daring and popular of the leaders. "Keep the enemy in complete
ignorance of your numbers and movements, and know everything about
him." It was possible to do this because the men who defended, had
the woods to fall back on. When attacked they retreated, while their
Indians hung on the enemy's flanks if they tried to follow, keeping
his men awake all night with war-whoops, and playing on their nerves.
Then the invader would fall back on the settlements, where the few
men, and every woman and child was a spy for their men in the bush.
The Americans came and went in sulky desolate York. They held full
possession of the Niagara district, the oldest settled and richest
part of Upper Canada. There they kept their men in strict order
hoping to make these obstinate Canadians realize they were friends,
but not even a child could be coaxed to give a "Yankee" any
information, even of the most harmless kind.
Laura Secord, in the Niagara village of St. Davids, whose militia
husband was a prisoner of war, cooked in her kitchen for the American
officers who had quartered themselves in her house, and overheard
their plans to trap Fitzgibbons. She passed the sentry at her door
with a pail to milk her cow--and instead plunged into the bush, and
walked twenty miles, reaching the men she sought utterly exhausted,
but with the news that made them able to ambush the enemy, and win
the little battle of Beaver Dam, on June twenty-fourth.
And because Laura Secord did only what almost every woman in Upper
Canada would have done in her place, the United States did not
conquer Canada.
A month after Beaver Dam, a party of officers were dining at Stoney
Creek, which was still Vincent's headquarters. They were the guests
of Archy, who had risen in rank in the bush fighting, but had not
improved in grammar. The men were unkempt-looking after their rough
living, and lack of many of the appendages of civilization. Only
Percy wore his patched and shabby garments with an uneradicable air
of neatness. He and Archy were close friends now, probably because
in all outside matters they were entirely unlike. The party ate from
silver plate, and tin dishes, at a table formed by setting two
shutters on three barrels. Their fare was roast beef and venison in
abundance, with a little dark bread, and a mess of mixed greens. War
was pinching Upper Canada hard, her crops would be very scanty, and
the government had already bought all the flour to be found, paying
the sometimes unwilling settlers twenty dollars a barrel, which was
considerably above the market price. Bread was selling at forty
cents a large loaf, and scanty rations of flour were doled out to the
army, who had to live mainly on meat, the farmers naturally refusing
to sell vegetables, fruit, or butter at any price, for they had the
winter to look forward to. The Indians brought in berries and edible
greens, and nobody starved.
Archy was looking doubtfully at the brew his servant was pouring into
cups. "This here, gentlemen," he said, "is birch bark tea. I don't
think its poison, and I was so sick of those herb drinks that I
thought I'd try it. If you don't like it, call it a horror of war."
Desert--a pot of cooked fruit, small peaches and apples, was on the
table, with a jug of whiskey, and Percy said to the host. "I trust
you came by that fruit honestly. Ferguson is wearing himself out
trying to head off three thousand irresponsible vagabonds from
picking up green fruit that doesn't belong to them. I often feel I
am the most virtuous man in the camp, for except when I dine out, I
know I get nothing to eat but what is paid for."
"It's starch you mean to steal, if you hear of any," said Archy,
laughing.
Percy sighed as he looked at the limp frills of his shirt. "That is
the worst thing I have to endure," he said. "If I hear of starch I
shall certainly wait till Ferguson is intent on some other criminal
and go out and steal it myself. Isn't that Ned Edgar over there? He
is certainly making a good record for himself, though he always looks
to me as if he had something on his mind."
Ferguson thought the same, and bewildered that Ned seemed avoiding
him, he met him that afternoon by the desecrated chapel, and Ned
could not escape speaking to him. Ferguson looked sadly into the
building, for the bunks for the sick round its walls had been made of
broken up pulpit, seats, and communion table. So war had ordered.
"I feel with Habakkuk," Ferguson remarked, "grieved for the Church
lest when her carved work and hedges are broken down she should
suffer loss. But the breaking up of a church building like this does
not matter if the members are strong in the faith. We are to have a
meeting to-night in Father Williams' barn. He is that aged saint who
leans on his staff and worships. We also need some candles, and
though the good sister who owns this orchard has plenty, she is
prejudiced against soldiers, so I want you to go to see her, and--"
"I will ask the lady for the candles," said Ned in a constrained
voice, "but I may not be at your meeting, I may have duties."
He was off then, before the astonished Ferguson could answer him.
Four years in the army had given the Methodist a thorough knowledge
of the things that lead many young men astray, but Ned avoided the
reckless set among his comrades, as much as he was now keeping away
from his Methodist friends; and the little soldier felt utterly at a
loss.
Meanwhile Ned had gone to the big farm house belonging to the lady
who owned the candles. She was middle-aged and militant looking and
she regarded Ned coldly. "The regulars are stealing my fruit
whenever my back is turned," she said, "and the militia have taken
eighty fence rails for firewood. Pray what do you want here? Tell
me at once, and don't be saucy."
CHAPTER VIII.
How Ned Had Many Adventures, and Bee
Becomes a Woman.
Ned thought a man would have to be mad or very drunk before he could
be saucy to such a lady, and he answered in his meekest voice, "We
wanted to hold a prayer meeting, madam, and hoped you might be so
good as to give us some candles."
"For the land's sake, a prayer meeting! Not but what you need them
badly. But whoever is going to hold a prayer meeting? There isn't a
chaplain of any sort here."
"We have a soldier preacher, madam, a Mr. Ferguson."
"What, not one of those soldiers?" Astonishment and unbelief were in
the lady's tones.
"Yes, madam, he preaches very well too, and I hope you will come to
hear him. He never steals apples or anything, for he is a Methodist.
And while I admit he is a private in the ranks, still it doesn't do
always to say 'Can any good come out of Nazareth?'"
She looked at him. His manner was certainly not what she would have
looked for in a private soldier, and changing her attitude with
feminine quickness, she said--"Come right in and sit down. Here's a
pie right out of the oven and you must try it. Not hungry?
Nonsense; men, especially soldiers, always are. Now, tell your Mr.
Ferguson to call on me. If it isn't some trick of you boys I'll keep
you in candles. I'm a Methodist myself, but its hard not to grow
cold in religion when there's no church, and war's making everybody
wild. My husband and three boys are all out with the militia--and
they won't quit fighting while there's a Yankee in Canada. But it's
hard on flesh and blood to see a farm like the one we had here going
to wrack and ruin, without a man to do a hand's turn. But I
shouldn't complain, my house is filled with officers, and they pay me
well. And the cows, and the stuff the girls and me did get in, are
doing splendid."
From the farm Ned went at once to Archy, to see if he couldn't be
sent out again at once--to avoid meeting Ferguson--and found Percy
there before him. "How'd you like to change into the regulars, Ned?"
said Archy briskly. "I hate to lose you, for you're a kind of
reliable--from that first hour when you were under fire at Humber
Bay, you've been to be depended upon. But Captain Haslem's going
with his company to try and steal some Yankee flour up Niagara way,
and he'll take you, if you're willing, and its a good chance for you."
"You would have the rank of sergeant," said Percy, "and the position
of 'Talk Man', as you call an Indian interpreter; for your captain
says you studied the Indian dialects with your father last winter in
York. Then we shall have no surgeon with us, and as Dr. Tam
recommends you highly as an emergency one, I think you can be sure of
getting a commission before six months are out."
Ned knew Ferguson had been assigned by Percy to duty with the
commissariat and transport, which would keep him in Stoney Creek, so
he thanked his friends and accepted. He set off that same day, one
of seventy-five white men, with a dozen Indian scouts.
They reached the Niagara district, and lay low in the great forest
that filled the back of the fertile peninsula between the lakes Erie
and Ontario. Before them was the garden land of Canada, guarded by
forts Erie and George, on the upper and lower lakes--and both alas
held by the triumphant enemy--fronted by the deep gorge of the wild
Niagara River. For the first time Ned heard the far-off awful roar
of the great falls, and in a sense he was afraid, for he understood
why the Indians said it was the voice of God.
But he had little time to think of the mysterious poetry of the Great
Waters. The party were marching silently across Niagara in the
night. Tiny lights, placed by brave women in farmhouse windows, told
Percy all he needed to know, and so they crept down to the shore by
Fort Erie, and seizing boats, put out, as a sentry challenged them.
"Provision boats from Buffalo," Percy answered instantly, and so they
passed.
Across Niagara River twinkled the lights of Buffalo and Black Rock,
and before them three ships laden with stores, loomed up dark as they
lay at anchor. The first was boarded with a savage rush of excited
men. In five minutes she was mastered, and scudding out into Erie,
keeping the other ships between her and the guns of the fort till she
was out of range.
At dawn the prize was lying in a little bay. She had landed part of
the men, including Ned and the Indians, with a good portion of her
cargo of flour, when the 10-gun "Hunter", one of the British
war-fleet on Erie, came up. She was to take the boat and part of the
stores to Detroit, that one bit of American soil to which Canada was
clinging. She felt that she was not quite conquered while she held
it, though her garrison there were very short of food.
So the war went on that summer, until it was September; and on
Friday, the tenth of that month--a day to be marked in American
histories--Betty sat in Susie's best room, feeling depressed. Susie
was with her, but both women were silent, thinking of their husbands.
Susie knew that Edgar had escaped, had got to Detroit, and then had
heard no more, and so she worked and suffered as thousands of brave
women did in that olden war. She had herself and her children to
keep on what she could get from her garden and cows and poultry, for
there was no possibility of getting food from outside. The
Americans, honourable invaders all, though they knew the women in the
country they occupied must be continually sending information to the
men in the bush, yet would not punish the captive but unconquered,
towns and villages. They had only burnt and plundered buildings
owned by the government. But to Susie and Bettie, and many other
women, the worst was the impossibility of knowing even if their men
folk were living or dead.
* * *
One day Chloe was at the door beaming on them; a small ship had
managed to run in from Kingston; her lading was ammunition for the
men at the west end of the lake, but she had left a bundle of mail,
and a woman in Quaker-like dress, at York. It was Mrs. Ferguson, who
had just made the risky journey from Montreal, and she brought a note
from Percy to his wife, asking Betty to keep her with herself, till
his commanders would allow women to come where he and the others were
fighting.
Betty welcomed her warmly, overjoyed to hear from her husband, and
know him alive somewhere--though his letter had run the blockade to
Montreal, and back again as far as York, before it reached her. She
had sent letters by the same boat, hoping he would get them.
Then Betty read the letter from Sir John at Kingston. He did not
mention Ned, so Bee was still the only one above Kingston who knew of
the boy's disgrace. Sir John wrote--"Vere is steadying to his work
like the Haslem and gentleman-born that he is. He is expecting
promotion, and may be sent to Montreal. I have spoken to him of Bee,
and like his spirit very much, for he is quite willing to overlook
that she is penniless, and that her mother made a disgraceful
marriage with an American. So I am hoping to arrange for you and Bee
to travel to Kingston under a flag of truce. The enemy, in spite of
their Infernal and Thrice Damnable Republicanism, seem to act like
gentlemen whenever our women are concerned. So you can prepare Bee
for her marriage soon. She is a wilful minx sometimes, but I am sure
she will be overjoyed at the prospect of being Lady Haslem some day."
Betty was not so sure. She looked out into the fine rain that had
begun to fall, while a south wind blew, and saw Bee racing home with
the three Edgar boys. Then Bee was in the room, flushed and
laughing, her eyes shining like stars, and her coarse homespun frock
showing her strong young figure. That dress had been made from wool
off Susie's sheep, spun and woven in York, for the women who made the
holding of Canada possible in 1812, had to depend on themselves for
clothing as well as food.
"You do look quite grown-up, Bee," said Betty. "Next thing you will
be thinking of getting an establishment."
Bee knew that her world had no room for an unmarried woman, but she
said nothing as Betty went on. "You could be very happy living with
me--and I would love to keep you--while you are young and
handsome--oh, yes, dear, you are that now--but when you grew old and
faded and sour-tempered, like all unmarried women do, you would blame
me for not helping you to get established while you were young
enough."
"But nobody wants to marry me," murmured poor Bee, heartily wishing
that girls did not have to grow up.
"Someone does, Bee, I know there has been a little against him, but I
have just heard that he is retrieving himself splendidly. We women
have to overlook very much in men, as long as they are not cowards."
Betty did not mention Vere's name, and Bee suddenly thought of Ned,
poor Ned!--yet not so poor if a woman like Betty believed in his
innocence. Knowing as she did what Sir John thought of her mother's
marriage, she never dreamed that he thought of her (with an American
father) as a future Lady Haslem, but confused at the idea of an
establishment, even with Ned, she turned to ask Betty what she had
heard of him. Then through the open window the damp wind brought the
terrible sounds of far-off cannon, and they both forgot marrying and
giving in marriage, as all that day, they and the other women in York
listened with straining ears to catch the faint sounds that meant the
men they loved might even then be dying among those thundering guns.
That day the most spectacular, if not the most important battle of
the war was fought. In a last attempt to break the American hold on
Lake Erie, and save Detroit from starvation, Barclay, one of Nelson's
captains, with six ships and carrying light guns, put out against
Perry, the young and daring American, with his nine ships, and doubly
heavy cannon.
The American Lawrence, with her flag inscribed "Don't give up the
ship," led into battle. It was a battle of seamanship. Barclay
wished to fight at long range where the better marksmanship of his
men might offset the heavier guns of his enemy, and Perry meant to
come to close quarters. The Lawrence was soon a wreck, with only
twenty men on board unhurt, and Perry transferring himself and his
flag to the Niagara, through a storm of shot. Then with consummate
seamanship he brought his fleet to where their broadsides "tore hulls
clean of masts and decks," and Barclay surrendered the tiny British
fleet--a drove of shattered, blood-drenched wrecks, laden with the
mangled bodies of one-third of their crews.
"We have met the enemy, and they are ours," Perry wrote laconically
to Congress, while the United States went wild with joy, and
Washington Irving writing what his countrymen believed, said, "The
last roar of the cannon that died along Lake Erie's shore was the
expiring note of British domination on this continent."
But Canada didn't see it that way. Her people were sorry for the
loss of the fleet, with the guns they could not possibly replace--and
more sorry when Detroit fell, and two thousand more were added to the
British prisoners of war in the States; but they thought it no reason
for them to "give up the ship." So, while American newspapers raged
against their stubbornness, they went on fighting as if nothing had
happened.
Perhaps the results of the battle were more felt in England than
Canada. There men realized that Perry's victory was really the
victory of the best seaman, and it made them inclined to consider the
wisdom of coming some day to an understanding with this arrogant
young Republic, who seemed willing--and perhaps was able--to meet
them on the seas they looked on as their own.
An American letter brought the news at last to York. It was to Bee,
and told of Edgar being again a prisoner of war, and that Eli,
seriously wounded in the lake fight, had been brought to Newark, and
wanted his sister to come to him. So Bee and Betty, with the baby,
and Chloe, and Mrs. Ferguson, sailed across Ontario. Betty was glad
that it was not to Kingston; she was relieved at Bee's quiet
acceptance of the plan to marry her cousin (as she supposed) but she
did not want to hurry the marriage. Let Vere show himself to be a
man indeed before this child was given him, she thought.
Bee had forgotten marriage all those weeks that her brother was in
danger. She told him, "I can't marry an Englishman or Canadian, when
they are trying to kill you."
"I'm not dead yet, Bee, and our father gave you to the Edgars, for
your grandfather to claim, if he liked, because our mother was
English. But who is wanting to marry you?"
Bee evaded the question, not feeling ready to tell him of Ned yet.
She wondered where he was, fighting for his country, that was half
hers, and to clear his name.
* * *
As for Ned, he was back at Stoney Creek again, hearing that
over-cautious commanders had again ordered Vincent to retreat to
Kingston, but instead Vincent was staying there, and sending the
regiment that Ned had come out with, on the "Lightfoot". Murray, its
colonel, was to fortify Twenty-mile Creek (now St. Catherines) and do
all he could to "annoy the enemy" then holding Niagara.
Ferguson would go with the regiment, and the people of Stoney Creek,
who had grown very attached to the soldier-preacher, and who thought
Murray's advance foolhardy, as the Americans had six thousand in
Niagara, came to church, to hear, as one pessimist said--"Mr.
Ferguson preach his own funeral sermon."
Ferguson had overheard the words, and he repeated them as he stood,
for the last time, in his scarlet regimentals, in the pulpit at
Stoney Creek. Then he added in a voice that rang with all the power
of a strong man's faith: "You may hear of George Ferguson falling on
the field, but he will not be dead. You have it from his own lips
that all is well with him. The sting of death is removed, and I know
that if this tabernacle of my body be dissolved, I have a building of
God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens."
* * *
Murray, carefully reckless, did annoy the enemy very much. McClure
who commanded at Niagara, demanded more men to crush the enemy who
was continually attacking his foraging parties. The American
newspapers loudly declared that "It is a mistake to keep the war in
Upper Canada. We could take Lower Canada without soldiers. We have
only to lead officers into the lower province, and the disaffected
people will rise round our standard."
Winter came early that year and two armies were preparing to invade
Lower Canada. Hampton, with five thousand men, was ordered to bring
stores by way of Lake Champlain and meet Wilkinson. This last
general, with nine thousand men, was to run the rapids of the St.
Lawrence, and make a dash for Montreal. Kingston would not dare,
they thought, to diminish her scanty garrison by sending men down the
river. Lake Champlain had been stripped of troops to aid Upper
Canada, and Montreal had only a few hundred regulars. Every thing
depended on the Lower Canada militia.
Late that October the French-Canadians came out. They blocked every
road that Hampton could take, and at Chateauguay, under De Salaberry,
on October twenty-fifth, an army entirely of militia and Indians
ambushed in the woods, so demoralized Hampton's army, that he decided
it was impossible to get through with his heavy baggage, and
retreated.
Cold and much snow came with November, but Wilkinson did not mean to
stop. On November fifth, the startled scouts on the Canadian side
saw one of the most dramatic scenes of the whole war. Between its
snow-covered banks the St. Lawrence was storming black through the
Galops Rapids, the first below Kingston, and down that rush of dark
water, flecked with spurts of white foam, hundreds of bateaux,
splendidly handled, were shooting one after another, laden with
thousands of blue-coated men.
But Kingston did not intend to remain idle. She sent eight hundred
men with a battery, to do anything they could. They fired on, and
followed the bateaux, which suffered some loss. The enemy being
delayed by want of provisions, and the landing parties sent out to
forage, found to their dismay that the French-Canadian farmers had
fled, burning what stores they could not take with them, and driving
off their cattle.
On November tenth, the invaders, suffering much with cold and hunger,
had most of their force down the Long Sault. Two thousand men were
still above that great rapid, when a terrific fire was opened on them
from the bank. The only thing to do was to land and dislodge the
enemy. So was fought the battle of Chrysler's Farm. Eight hundred
men with two cannon, poured a hot fire from behind the stone farm
fences, then rushed out, and charged the invaders with flashing
bayonets. Leaving many behind them, the Americans retreated in
confusion to the boats, and ran the rapids. Wilkinson had just heard
of Hampton's defeat, and as his men were starving, and the fights at
Chrysler's and Chateauguay had taught him the kind of "welcome" he
would get from Lower Canada, he retired entirely.
* * *
An old gray-headed man had command of the tiny battery at
Chrysler's--Sir John Haslem--and after the victory he went on to
Montreal, where Vere, now a lieutenant, was stationed. Since Vere's
escape through Ned's condemnation, he had lived carefully, attending
to his duties, and very hard on the failings of those under him.
"Can't be medium in anything," grumbled Sir John as he stood in a
Montreal ball-room on Christmas evening watching Vere dancing with a
pretty French-Canadian girl. "A year ago he was slackness itself,
now he seems to delight in detecting and punishing slackness in
others."
"He'll die by a shot from his own men in some battle," said the man
he spoke to, to himself, adding aloud, "Hullo, what's the matter?"
The music had stopped and a man coming in called to Vere: "Hell's
broke loose on the Niagara frontier, and we're to leave for there
to-night."
CHAPTER IX.
How Ned Won the "Bubble Reputation", at
the Cannon's Mouth.
Betty thought of hell, the hell of man's inhumanity to man, as she
stood by her window in Newark, looking down a street of fire. From a
hundred roofs red flames were bursting. Blue-coated men rushed out
of smoke-shrouded doors with their arms full of plunder. Outside in
the deep snow and bitter cold, a crowd of women and children moved
about aimlessly, or stood still as if stupefied by the sight of the
ruin round them.
[Illustration: "Outside in the bitter cold a crowd of women and
children moved about aimlessly."]
The Americans had feared to stay in bitterly hostile Niagara after
navigation had stopped, and they could not be helped by their fleet.
Sooner than risk a winter siege there, they had blown up Forts George
and Erie and were then burning Newark by way of retaliation.
Betty waited to see what their fate was to be. Sentries at her door
kept the women from going out or the plunderers from coming in. At
last Eli, who had almost recovered, came back--"This house will be
spared," he told her formally, "I have represented it as the home of
my sister, an American, and I came to tell you, you can take in whom
you like. There are one hundred and fifty families homeless, but you
may have room for the sick. I will see the house is guarded."
"You will find this burning of Newark is worse than a crime, it is a
blunder," exclaimed Betty, and in his heart Eli agreed with her,
though he said nothing.
The black, far-rolling smoke of Newark, gave the alarm at Twenty Mile
Creek, and over nine hundred men--the old Irish regiment of the
"Lightfoot", with a goodly number of Canadians added to its
ranks--marched hot-foot to rescue, or avenge, if wrong had been done.
The Americans had all crossed the river, and the sight of the burnt
and plundered homes roused even Ferguson to militancy.
The men were set to work; they roughly roofed the cellars to make
shelters for the women and children, and threw up hasty ramparts on
the ruins of Fort George for themselves. Then the Niagara militia, a
thousand raging men, came in, with their Indian allies after them.
Murray, the colonel, had no artillery, and very little food, and if
large supplies of food, blankets and other supplies were not procured
soon, the victims of Newark must starve and freeze in their cellars.
"And the only place we can get supplies is from the enemy--across
there." Ned was standing by the Niagara River as he spoke, to Tim.
"And a sweet little stream it certainly is," answered the Irishman.
It was night, and huge fires of logs blazed all along the American
side, throwing a lurid glow across the dark rapid water, and the
ghostly cakes of ice that whirled by. By the snow-covered banks the
ice was continually forming, and being broken off as constantly by
the swift flowing river.
"It sure will be lovely navigating to cross it," continued Tim, "and
do you know what we shall be up against on the other side?"
"Two thousand men at Buffalo," Ned answered. "And four hundred at
Fort Niagara, which has stone bastions, and the best guns on the
river. A hundred men could easily hold it against a thousand."
For seven nights the log fires threw their search-lights across the
river, and armed patrols watched, but they saw no movements on the
Canadian side. On the eighth night, the river was dark. Leonard,
commander of Fort Niagara, having ascertained the British had no
artillery, and feeling sure they would not attempt to cross the
dangerous river, drew in his pickets, for it was a bitter night.
On the Canadian side there was a quiet stir among the men waiting
savagely by the ashes of Newark, a crouching lion.
The regiment marched silently out of the ruined town and up the
river. Not a word was allowed to be spoken, and commands were passed
down the ranks in whispers. Ferguson and Ned were together again as
they entered the boats, which crept across the black river with
muffled oars, the tense excitement of the men keeping them from
feeling the cold. And distant and menacing sounded the deep thunder
of Niagara.
They landed, unseen, at Youngstown, three miles above Fort Niagara.
Here was the American hospital with its fill of wounded men.
Noiselessly the buildings were surrounded, and a party entered, the
sight of the hated redcoats telling the alarmed patients they were
prisoners. Two brave men, convalescents, did not submit. Ready to
die on the chance of being able to give the alarm, one sprang up the
wide chimney, but was dragged back, promptly and roughly. The other
leaped from a window, but was overtaken.
"We must go on, to get food and clothes for Newark," said Ferguson in
a low earnest voice, "but, remember, men, for every deed we do
to-night we must answer to God our Judge." He went on speaking
quietly as boat after boat touched shore, and the men crowded near
him, listening in respectful silence, till the word of command sent
them moving silently along the road to Fort Niagara.
No one saw them, but a man had gone ahead of them--Sells, the
deserter. He had been stealing cattle on the Canadian side, till the
retreat, when he followed the Americans across the river. Now he
came swiftly to the fort gate on his crunching snowshoes, urging the
immediate lighting of the "search-lights" along the river. "I know
the English way," he said to the sergeant-major, who came out between
the massive walls to see what he had to say. "They'll fool 'round
making mistakes, till the enemy do something like you did at Newark,
then they'll get serious-mad. Nothing will stop them, and I
shouldn't wonder if they're not crossing the river now."
"You're scared of them British; I'm not," said the American with an
oath. "If they cross on a night like this it'll be because they can
walk on the water."
Sells glided away, not many minutes before the forlorn hope--a
hundred men with scaling ladders, crept round to the back of the fort
where the grim eighteen pounders frowned. Percy led them, his
colonel knowing that in spite of his affected indolence, his
thoughtful kindness to his men made him a leader whom the warm
hearted Irish would have followed to certain death.
With the thought of burnt Newark firing his blood and steeling his
nerves, Ned followed Percy, climbing, scrambling, and slipping in the
ghostly snow light, up the ladders and across icy, snow-laden roofs.
The sentries were surprised at their posts, and captured or killed
before they could give the alarm. And there was no stir in the main
buildings of the fort, as the reckless assaulters dropped into the
dark courtyard.
Leonard, the commander, had his quarters at the village, but most of
the officers were in their mess-room playing whist. "What's trumps?"
one asked.
The room door swung open--"British bayonets, I think, gentlemen,"
said Percy, quietly, and the startled men knew they were prisoners.
The main body, led by their colonel, and with Ferguson among them,
had seized the outer works before the main gate, capturing the
sentries, who gave them the password, which enabled them to reach the
gate of the inner fort without their presence being known. The
bitter cold of the night kept every one in their warm quarters, with
every door and window closed.
The minutes seemed endless hours as they waited then, for the signal
that would show their friends were within. Then a single shot rang
out, followed by a scattering musket fire, and a tumult of
noise--shouting men, English cheers, and the screams of the women in
the married quarters, mingling with the sound of running feet.
Like hounds unleashed the waiting men went forward, carrying the gate
with a rush--the leaders asking themselves if the little advance
guard had been able to capture the yard batteries. If not, in a
minute the deadly six pounders would open on the mass of the invaders
penned within the high yard walls.
But with their officers prisoners, the bewildered Americans had only
fired from their barrack windows at the redcoats running across the
snowy yard. Many of them fell, but a dozen were beside the coveted
guns, when the main force surged through the gate.
Ned, feeling strangely breathless and giddy with a bullet in his
side, sat on the ground behind the guns, as his wildly cheering
friends came in. They charged the barracks, where every window was
ablaze with rifle fire. And from somewhere behind, a score of blue
clad men dashed on the guns, fighting hand to hand with their
defenders.
"Hold the guns," said the young English lieutenant.
"Hold the guns, for five minutes," cried Ned springing up, forgetting
wounds. The pieces were covered with a tangle of fiercely fighting
men, but they were not fired.
Ned remembered being struck down with a clubbed rifle, and with a
last effort threw himself on the nearest gun, clinging desperately to
its breech. There was a blank, then some one was trying gently to
drag his arms apart. He resisted for the moment, and Tim's voice
said coaxingly, "If you're not killed entirely, leave go to oblige
me. I've got to carry you out of this, and it'll break my heart sure
if you want me to take that gun you seem so attached to as well."
Ned relaxed limply, and was carried in to where the wounded of both
armies lay, with Ferguson and a few helpers doing the little they
could for them, as the surgeons had not yet come up. The fort was in
quiet possession of the English. Only the women, to whom no one paid
any attention, still screamed dismally--"The British and the Indians!
They'll murder us! They'll scalp us all!"
A redcoated sentry stood by the gate, the color of his uniform not
visible to the man who galloped up. Leonard had heard the few shots
fired, and supposing there was a riot in the garrison rode up to see
to it. Challenged by the sentry, he gave the countersign, and was
instantly ordered to dismount.
"You thundering blockhead," cried the enraged American. "Can't you
see I am the commanding officer?"
"Dismount, sir," repeated the man as he levelled his musket, "I am a
British soldier."
The dumfounded officer obeyed, and was escorted to the slightly
wounded English colonel, to whom he formally surrendered the fort.
"Sure, and this is the lucky day of my life," exclaimed Tim as he
suddenly entered the hospital. "There'll be promotions for those who
are looking for them, and plunder for the lot of us. For the love of
Heaven somebody give me a sack. They've unlocked the stores, and we
can plunder till daylight. There's food enough for twenty armies,
and heaps of merchandise sorts of things, that'll sell for a lot in
Upper Canada now--needles and pins and everything. It's too bad that
even a heretic priest can't plunder."
Ferguson's helpers all followed Tim as he went off with his sack, and
Ned roused himself from the dull aching stupor that wrapped his
senses. "Don't stay here just for me," he said faintly to the
Methodist, "This isn't like plundering private property."
"You heard what Tim said," smiled Ferguson, "I must live up to my
priestly reputation, though I would like to take something, this
time, for I am a poor man, yet it wouldn't do."
Morning came; the quartermaster took possession of all the stores
that were not in the sacks of Tim and his comrades, and Dr. Tam was
at his ghastly work of probing and operating--for this was before the
mercy of chloroform. Ned, waiting his turn on the surgeon's terrible
table, heard Ferguson saying to the colonel--"We need, sir, to show
by our lives, our gratitude to God for the mercy of our victory last
night; for it was a most foolhardy venture."
The officer looked at the fortifications, as he answered, "Yes,
Ferguson, that's true. And I ought to be a better man than I am, I
know; so thank you kindly for your advice."
Then the colonel entered the hospital to ask Dr. Tam's permission to
speak to Ned before he passed under the surgeon's hands; and his
words were a tonic that helped the young soldier through the ordeal
of having his exhausted, fevered body probed for the ball in his
side. He had won his commission, and when he left hospital it would
be as an officer--an ensign.
Prisoners, plunder, wounded, and even the smaller guns, were all
carried across the river that day, and the most daring and successful
raid of the war was ended by serving out food and blankets to the
people of Newark.
But as soon as Canadian Niagara knew of the capture of the fort,
another raid had been made. The militia and Indians had crossed the
river and flung themselves furiously on the enemy's countryside.
Fortunately the people had all fled up to Buffalo, but Lewiston,
Youngstown, and three other villages below the Falls were fired, and
everything found was carried off. Very unwillingly the raiders
obeyed Murray's signal for their recall to their own side of the
river. He expected the force from Buffalo would be coming down to
cut them off, but the Americans made no attempt to cross the river.
After nearly two weeks of delirium and fever, Ned awoke in a
wonderfully comfortable bed, in Betty's house in Newark, which had
been requisitioned as a hospital, and the first thing he saw was
Ferguson being carried in, his drawn face showing that he was
suffering greatly.
"It is an answer to prayer," said the Methodist faintly, "God is very
good to me."
"Cook was carrying a kettle of boiling water across the yard, and
slipped down, and threw it all on a sentry's feet, which sentry was
Ferguson, sir," one of the bearers explained to Dr. Tam, as he
dressed the badly scalded feet.
"It was a special providence," murmured Ferguson, "We had orders to
go up the river, and crossing above the Falls, drive off the enemy's
troops, which our scouts say, are badly disorganized and with no
decent officers, and burn Black Rock and Buffalo. I had a struggle
in my mind as to what I should do. It was not Christian to commit
these greater enormities in retaliation for what we had suffered; so
I cast my burden on the Lord, and He opened this way of escape."
Ned made no response, and the Methodist added--"Did you quit
belonging to us, because you thought religion was too unfashionable
to profess, when you were called an officer and a gentleman?"
"You had no right to say that to me," Ned cried, adding instantly,
"No, no, but a man has wronged me, and I cannot forgive him, which
you will not think Christian."
CHAPTER X
How Vere Came to Newark, and Bee
Consented to be Betrothed to Him.
It was the last day of 1813 when the raid that Ferguson had escaped
joining was made, and Buffalo and Black Rock went up in flames.
Fortunately the terrified inhabitants had fled, when their troops
retreated--it is not very clear why--but everything they left was
destroyed or carried off. And so 1813 ended, with black ashes strewn
on either side of Niagara River, and a blacker hate in the hearts of
Americans and Canadians alike.
Bee shivered, not with cold, but at the thought of the hate of war,
as she left the house one brilliantly cold January day. She meant to
take a long sledge drive by herself, and think things over. Like
many others on both sides, the war hurt her cruelly, because in many
ways it was so like a civil war. Yet after seeing the burning of
Newark, she could not blame the savage retaliation from the Canadian
side, and she could not hate Ned, or Betty and Sir John, with whom
her brother had been quite willing to leave her--"But," she thought,
"I cannot possibly be happy, or think of marrying a Canadian till
this war is over, without anyone I love getting killed."
Then she saw Ned. He had left the house for the first time, to try a
short walk, but he had over-rated his strength, and he was
staggering, when a cutter drew up beside him, and he looked into
Bee's bright face, as she said--"Oh, dear, how foolish men are. When
you wanted to go out, why didn't you let someone know, and we would
have taken you out. Get in here now."
"Just back to the house, please, Miss Bee," said Ned as he obeyed and
sat down among the soft, thick furs. "Your guardians would not allow
you to be with me a moment, if they knew what you do of me--what I
told you at York--Miss Bee, what are you doing?"
For the wilful girl had let the spirited horse go, and they were
flying out of ruined Newark, and away across the open country, where
the keen air thrilled Ned like wine. Her horse kept Bee's hands
full, but she looked round at Ned for a moment as she spoke, and he
wondered that he had never noticed how bright and soft her eyes were.
"Listen," she said, "of course I never repeated what you told me, but
I know Cousin Betty suspects something--I thought you must have
written and told her--and she doesn't mind at all. She said that
women must always overlook a few things in a man, and I'm sure I can
overlook you being accused of a crime you did not commit."
Ned gasped, realizing that there was a big misunderstanding
somewhere--but he was so desperately lonely. Shut in with his
secret, it was hard for him to refuse the sweet comradeship of this
warm-hearted girl.
"Miss Bee," he began gravely, "you must have mistaken Mrs. Haslem. I
believe Sir John will reach Newark to-day, and when he sees my name
marked for honour, he may consent that I receive pardon for what I
did not do; but I know I shall lose all other rewards; I shall
doubtless be allowed to fight in the ranks till the end of the war,
and afterwards I can find something to do. I know my father will
never forgive me, and I will never go back to Dr. Brown with this
stain on my name. You should not ride out with me like this."
Ned spoke with all the bitterness that had been fermenting in his
brain so long, and with his hot hands clenched under the furs. Then
a small hand, that was cool and very firm was suddenly laid on them,
and its touch calmed Ned strangely--"You know very well that I will
be your friend till death," said Bee Goode.
Behind them at Newark, Sir John and Vere had arrived, and the baronet
sent Vere off to find Bee, while he talked over Ned's case with the
Niagara officers.
Vere rode off, greatly disturbed to know that Ned had not deserted
with Sells, and dropped forever out of his world. He hated him with
all his weak, unwholesome nature, and then he saw him, in the sledge
with the girl his grandfather had determined he should marry.
In a moment he was beside them, shouting with an oath--"I thought
your dirty American blood would show some time, you minx! What spy
work are you plotting with this deserter?"
[Illustration: "Take that! you coward!"]
Instantly Bee was on her feet, and with the strength of anger, struck
him across the face with her whip--"Take that, you coward," she
cried, "and never dare to speak to me again." Then turning her horse
she drove home in a storm of jangling bells and flying hoofs.
She left Ned at the hospital door, and went to find Chloe waiting
with her one silk dress--blue with a white flower pattern.
"Missy must dress up fine to-night," said the old nurse. "Mr. Vere
is here, the gentleman who is to marry you, honey."
Bee thought Chloe was mad for a moment, but when the woman repeated
what Betty had told her, she understood the mistake she had made at
York.
"But I won't dress, I'll stay in my room, and lock the door while
that cowardly liar is in the house," she cried. "And to-night we
will run away, you and I to my brother."
"We can't, honey," said Chloe sympathetically. "There's miles of
snow and burnt houses, and soldiers who would stop us, and that
almighty wild river that nobody can't get over nohow. Let me dress
you, honey, and make you look pretty, then you can go down and ask
Mr. Percy to help you--he's here now."
Percy had not seen Bee since he left her, a slip of a girl, to go on
to York, a year before, and for an instant he hardly recognized this
silk-robed, pale-faced young woman, with her haughty poise, and
flashing eyes. Then she was speaking to him, passionately and
impulsively, repeating what Ned had told her at York, until he said,
so sternly that she started at him--"That's enough, Bee, this is the
first time you have shown yourself untrue to the Haslem name, let it
be the last. Vere has his faults, but no man of our family could be
a coward or lie."
"My name is Goode, sir," said Bee, at white heat now, "and I am sorry
that I am half a Haslem if their family pride makes them blind to the
vices of a relative. Sir, I demand that you send me across to my
brother--to my father's people."
"Bee!" exclaimed Betty aghast, but Percy, after a keen look at the
girl, said slowly and sternly--"I have just come from considering Ned
Edgar's case. If he admits to having been afraid to deliver the note
at York, we can pardon his panic--seeing what his record has been
since--on his first day under fire, unless he persists in this
attempt to smirch the name of another man."
Bee read a threat to Ned in the emphasis Percy put on his last words,
and she forgot herself, thinking of Ned's possible danger. Then in
came Sir John, furious, for Vere had given him his version of the red
welt on his face, but the angry words on the old man's lips were
checked as he saw the child he had left at York shot up into young
womanhood--"Bless me," he exclaimed, "I didn't know you."
She made a mocking little courtesy to him. "My cousin did not know
me either, it would seem, sir. I met a sick soldier and was driving
him home, when Vere met us and spoke insultingly to me; I hope sir,
you will say I did right to strike him."
"Bless me," Sir John repeated helplessly. "I don't know what the
world is coming to."
He was relieved at hearing the summons to dinner then, the dinner
which was to publicly announce the betrothal of Vere and Bee. Such
family arrangements for the marriage of young people who hardly knew
one another were not uncommon then, and the guests did not pay
particular attention to the sulky boy, who felt that he hated this
"Yankee girl," as he called her in his heart, who had so openly shown
that she was on his enemy's side. And the girl herself, who in
white-faced silence heard her grandfather's speech, felt trapped,
believing that if she resisted it meant further injustice and
suffering for Ned.
The evening was almost over when Archy got Bee away by herself. "I
thought you would like to know about Ned," he said bluntly. "He just
wouldn't say anything, only that him or Vere Haslem was a blamed
liar, and we could decide which it was."
"What are you going to do with him?"
"Because of what he did here, he will be pardoned for what he did, or
didn't, at York."
"Then you don't think he is guilty?"
"Not so fast, young lady. I don't know, and the only way to find
out, is to wait and watch them both. The liar will act the coward
and lie again, sure."
"You may have to wait a long time for that; and while you are
watching both, you treat Vere Haslem as if he were innocent, and Ned
as if he were guilty. You are cruelly hard on him."
"There's a heap of hard things in life; one of them is that the day
we clear Ned, we break Sir John's heart."
* * *
And Bee, who remembered that she loved her grandfather, shivered.
She had not expected to sleep that night, but health and youth
asserted themselves and she rested well, and woke in the sunny
morning feeling that somehow things could not be as bad as she had
thought them in the night. She was greatly helped to this
comparative cheerfulness by a talk she heard under her window, where
Ferguson was energetically telling Kawque, the Mohawk scout, the
story of Ned and Vere. The Indian grunted such emphatic assent to
Ferguson's belief in his friend, that Bee was half comforted. At
least Ned had true friends.
Ferguson's friendship was doubly warm now that he knew the reason for
Ned's "backsliding", and it helped the boy through the ordeal of
returning to his comrades, reduced in rank.
Ferguson had ridden home with Percy that evening, and the men had
scattered to their messes, busy getting supper and preparing for the
night. Each mess consisted of about a dozen men who divided the work
among them, the non-commissioned officers always being exempt. Ned,
to whom no one had yet spoken, picked up a pail to fetch water,
washing to take his part in the work before he was ordered to by the
sergeant. But Tim snatched the pail from him.
"Me Swaddler friend," he said earnestly, "unless you are wishful to
go back to hospital immediate, you won't try to work round this mess."
Perplexed, Ned looked at his sergeant, but that man only said,
"Better put off arguing with Tim for a few years, Ned, you haven't
the weight to stand up to him yet."
So Ned knew he had been tried and acquitted by a very powerful
court--the opinion of the men among whom he lived. After hearing of
Ned's condemnation at Kingston the regiment had talked of nothing
else for a week. They had also compared notes with a company just
arrived, and decided which man had lied. Now with rough delicacy
they let Ned know what their verdict had been, and that they knew his
reduction was only temporary.
* * *
Betty had moved to St. Davids, a village by Queenston Heights, where
Percy and Sir John came often, and Vere seldom. He managed to find
duties, any duties, to keep him from meeting the fiancée he now
detested. And still Sir John delighted in Bee's brightness, and
believed that in practically forcing her to marry Vere he was doing
the best for the girl he really loved, and for the family whose
honour was rooted in his heart.
Spring came, and there was some skirmishing on Lake Ontario. Erie
was entirely in American hands. But on land there were only a few
raids by the Americans, who had a new general, Winfield Scott, who
was carefully training the army with which he meant to take Upper
Canada that summer. If he did not, he well knew Canada would not be
taken at all, for England was making peace with France. Earnestly
Canadians were praying that peace might be made with the United
States also, though they were as ready as ever to fight if the
American flag should again be carried across their border by armed
men.
A breathless June evening Bee stood alone in Betty's garden, thinking
that July was very near, and feeling desperately afraid. Betty had
spoken to her very decidedly--"Of course you will marry Vere in three
weeks." To herself she said, "The boy is steady enough now, and this
wretched business of Ned Edgar's refusing to take back his shameful
lie that Vere never gave him the letter, makes it all the more
necessary that we should stand by him."
Alone in the hot June dusk Bee shivered. She was too young and too
affectionate to be able to defy Sir John and Betty, and as she
helplessly prayed for some one who could advise her, a man who walked
noiselessly as an Indian, came beside her, and she held out her hands
to him with a little cry of joy. "Papa Edgar; you have escaped! But
you are so thin!"
"Prisons aren't palaces," said Edgar indifferently, "In the winter
there was no fire and in the summer no air, below decks, where we
were. We lay on the bare planking. But down in Montreal harbour,
our prisoners were on similar other prison hulks so I had nothing to
complain of--it was the fortune of war. At last Tahata came one
night and helped me to escape."
Edgar bore his enemies no grudge for his rough prison--he lived in a
rough age--it was really the memory of Ned that had aged him, and he
tried fiercely to stop Bee when she mentioned his name. He still
thought him with Sells the deserter. But the girl insisted on
telling him all, and the light of her faith in his son kindled hope
in his heart again. Ned might be, nay, must be, soon proved
innocent. Then another thought made him exclaim, "But you must not
marry this villain, child."
"You will help me not to, sir," said Bee confidently as she clung to
him, and Edgar frowned to himself. He was on duty, scouting with his
Indians, and he had snatched only a moment to speak to his one-time
ward. He knew he was helpless to aid her; he could not possibly take
her from the Haslems. Then among the bushes he saw the dark face of
Kawque the scout.
Kawque was to stay at St. Davids, and used to quick thinking and
daring action, Edgar spoke reassuring farewell as on sudden impulse
he went to the Indian.
The first thing he had meant to tell the Mohawk was unnecessary.
Kawque was quite sure already of Ned's innocence, and Edgar looked
visibly younger as he heard what Kawque could tell him--"Blessings on
that Methodist after all," he thought, then spoke earnestly to the
Indian about Bee. Kawque nodded; he never wasted words.
"Bee Goode not marry till you say so, all right," he said decidedly.
And so Edgar went off, not stopping to think that the methods of an
Iroquois warrior in preventing a formally arranged aristocratic
wedding might prove startling.
CHAPTER XI.
Kawque Takes a Hand in the Game.
It was the morning of Sunday, July 3, 1814; Ferguson was preaching in
Warner's Chapel (the third Methodist church erected in Upper Canada),
at St. Davids, when, like a hideous spectre of advancing war, Kawque
stood in the doorway, half-naked, and frightful in his war-paint.
"The Longknives have crossed the river," he cried, for his hard black
eyes picked Percy out among the congregation. Gliding toward him, he
gave him the note calling him to a council of war. All the
congregation were running out, the women to bury silver, and the men
to prepare their arms in readiness for the summons which would soon
call them out.
Percy said a few words to his wife, then rode off, to look round as
Ferguson trotted his mount after him--"You have not been sent for
yet, Ferguson," said Percy, "and I wonder your religion lets you
travel on Sunday when you are not compelled to."
"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, sir."
"Oh, certainly have it your own way, but now I want you to take my
keys. We are going to have the most desperate fighting of this war,
and I have made you my executor in my will. You can see that my
trunk, now at Fort George, goes to Mrs. Haslem, some plate and a
considerable sum in gold are in it."
That Sunday morning seven thousand Americans entered the Niagara
peninsula, and supported by the gun boats of Lake Erie, took Fort
Erie. Their plans were to surround and capture the army of the
defence--instead of chasing it into the bush--also taking Fort
George. Then with the co-operation of the Lake Ontario fleet they
meant to seize and fortify Burlington Heights. The plan was a good
one, but to keep it from being carried out, were fourteen hundred
regulars, sixteen hundred militia, and three hundred Indians,
stationed in Niagara itself. Behind them, Burlington and York had
been stripped of men to make their numbers what they were. Behind
them too, round Burlington and York were the ripening wheat fields,
that must be saved unless Upper Canada was to be starved into
surrender the next winter. Kingston had sent her fleet to blockade
Sackett's Harbour, and was herself blockaded by the American gun
boats of Lake Ontario. In Lower Canada the enemy had massed a huge
army at Lake Champlain, and every available man and gun on the
Canadian side had been called out to guard the roads to Montreal.
On Monday evening, July fourth, Ned stood, once more a sentry, by
Chippewa Creek, the little river that enters the Niagara a few miles
above the Falls. Two miles away was the enemy's camp, strongly
entrenched with a breastwork of logs. The British position was also
good, among sheltering trees, with the rapid stream in front, crossed
by only one bridge. Both leaders were hoping the other would attack.
It grew dark, and Ned, straining his ears to catch the sounds ahead,
felt depressed. He did not like the stories he had heard of the new
Commander, the haughty Marquis of Tweedsdale, and the memory of all
that he had been robbed of, came to him, hurting him fiercely.
Then a dark, silent figure rose before him, and he challenged
sharply. It was Kawque, the scout, and as he had not the password
Ned called for an escort to take him in.
There was a noise of trampling horses, as Riall and Tweedsdale with
their staff rode by. They stopped when the scout was brought to
them, and Ned heard Kawque's laconic report--"Long Knives too strong.
Twice too many for you to attack. Got thirty-six cannon."
The two leaders spoke together, Riall apparently urging something on
his companion to which Tweedsdale answered in his loud harsh
voice--"Nonsense, these Yankees are a pack of untrained cowards. Are
we to sulk here for fear of a mob of scape-gallows and prison men?
They will never stand against a bayonet charge."
"That means we'll go out and attack, only cowards would want to wait
here for them," Ned heard Vere's voice say gleefully, as the leaders
rode on. Ned's face darkened as his enemy passed, riding as if in
triumph over him, and something more like a curse than a prayer rose
to his lips.
"Why not shoot him?" Kawque whispered softly in the young sentry's
ear, "You hate, eh? for he took these"--he touched Ned's sleeve where
the sergeant's stripes had been--"they were to you as the scalps you
had taken with your hand from the enemy."
"Shooting's too good for the cur," said Ned fiercely, adding, angry
with himself, "Get out of here, Kawque, you've no business hanging
'round talking to me."
Kawque went off, thinking, "Shooting's too good, eh? he means he
wants to kill slowly."
Alone again, Ned repeated his fierce prayer for vindication.
In the morning of July fifth, the English drums beat to arms, and
soon after, twelve hundred regulars in three solid columns, with
Tweedsdale leading, crossed the Chippewa, strict orders being given
that the men must reserve their fire until command.
There was, however, a sharp rattle of musketry fire from both sides.
The Canadian militia were crouching behind stumps, and crawling
through the long grass in front of the English position, and as the
columns moved forward, Ned marching by Ferguson, recognized Archy
directing the movements of his men. Though Ned did not know it,
Edgar had also reached the camp the night before, and was now behind
with the Indians. The demands of war had not allowed him to seek his
son.
Suddenly Ferguson looked up, shouting joyously--"Glory to God, I am
saved."
Percy, walking a little in advance, looked back, and smiled. "What's
the matter now, Ferguson?"
"Glory to God," repeated the lively Methodist, "my soul is so happy."
"I suppose that means that you know you will be killed to-day and so
reach Heaven?"
"No, sir, I won't fall to-day, but I am assured I shall be wounded."
"Oh, you have it all arranged, I see. I hope it wasn't against your
conscience to ask that you might get a light one."
Archy kneeling by a log, looked up as they passed. "Guess that's why
you fellows don't think you need be afraid of anything," he shouted,
"seeing you've got a real live Methodist preacher in your ranks."
The three little columns were out in the open now, their close
formation, and the bright scarlet of their uniforms, making it almost
impossible for the enemy's marksmen to miss a shot. They had broken
into a run, with their bayonets flashing, when the Americans, loading
with buckshot and cartridges, swept their front ranks with a death
blast of fire.
Ned saw Percy stagger, and Ferguson spring to his side. For a moment
Percy leaned heavily on the soldier, then steadied himself, changing
his sword to his left hand, as he called to his men. None faltered;
they halted at the word of command, to fire, then dashed on again,
till only a hundred yards from the enemy, who were holding their
fire--till then.
Then again death flashed from the unseen rifles, and now the
invader's cannon spoke also, belching forth death. When the smoke
cleared the brave scarlet lines were gone, only scattered groups were
on the field, but not till the bugles behind them called "retreat",
did they turn to go back, and they carried most of their wounded with
them.
Amid the terrible fire that stopped them, Ned saw Ferguson's musket
fall from his hand, and his friend's right arm hang useless. Still
the Methodist kept his place till they all turned. He was nearly
fainting from loss of blood when they re-crossed the Chippewa, and
Ned was able to bandage his arm roughly with a silk handkerchief.
The bone was not broken, but badly grazed by a ball that had passed
through it just below the elbow, and it held possibilities of danger
if not dressed properly by a surgeon. But no surgeon had come with
the army, which was now in all the confusion of breaking camp.
Tweedsdale's reckless, foolish charge had cost five hundred out of
the twelve who made it, and Riall was afraid of the Americans
attacking his sorely diminished force. They did not, however, for
they had no idea of the smallness of his numbers, nor the extent of
his loss. The British were now in hurried retreat, to the heights of
Queenston, dragging their cannon, and with their wounded in wagons.
It was an excessively hot day. In the excitement of the fighting,
and the hurry of starting off, no one had time to think of thirst,
but now as they marched along, within sight and sound of an inland
ocean of fresh water roaring through the upper rapids, they, and
especially the wounded, suffered frightfully for water. And because
just above the rapids the enemy's gun boats were watching, the men
were ordered not to leave their ranks in the shelter of the woods.
"A curse on their orders," gasped a soldier by Ned, whose face was as
red as his coat. "I'm a going to have a drink if I die for it."
He made a dash for the river, a stone's throw. An officer called to
him angrily to come back instantly, but crazed with thirst, he only
yelled out an oath, knelt down to drink at the water's edge--and the
next moment was downed by an American bullet. No one else tried to
reach the river, though they stared at the water with tortured eyes,
as they trudged along in the heat.
Many of the wounded were raving in delirium. Ferguson, too weak to
walk, was suffering torments jolted along in the rough wagon.
"Water," he panted at last, half unconscious, "A mouthful of water!"
Percy, whose injured shoulder did not prevent him from riding on his
horse, came to the side of the wagon, as he heard him. "Take a
little rum from my flask," he urged, offering it, and the Methodist
took it--the only time in his military life when he tasted liquor.
At midnight the sullen army reached St. Davids. Percy took the
exhausted Ferguson to his wife, to stay, while he rode on to the
hospital at Fort George. The army passed St. Davids, and entrenched
itself at Queenston, where it waited, on very short rations, and
wondering why the enemy did not come on.
But the Americans did not wish to leave the support of the Lake Erie
gun boats until they were sure their Ontario fleet were in Niagara
River. Ned was at Queenston, while Edgar was still with the Indians,
who were acting as pickets in the woods near the Falls.
Two days after the battle, Vere rode to St. Davids, and as he spoke
to Betty, Indian scouts ran through the village, calling that the
Americans were coming, destroying the country as they came. Cattle
and poultry were killed and burnt, fields and gardens trampled down.
Only dwelling houses with women and children in them were untouched.
Ferguson was in no condition to travel, but as to stay meant the
prison-hulks at Sackett's Harbour, he went off through the woods,
guided by Kawque. Vere had his horse, but leaving it with Chloe for
a minute he ran up to the room the Fergusons used. From its window
he saw an American patrol riding in, and picking up a rifle he fired
at them, emptying a saddle. Then leaping downstairs, he mounted and
tore down the road.
Ten minutes later, the house was surrounded, and its occupants
questioned by an angry American officer. "I can see there have been
men in this house," he said to Betty. "Now unless you will tell me
which roads they took through the woods, I shall hold you guilty of
firing on my men."
"You must know," Betty answered calmly, "that as a loyal Englishwoman
I cannot give you any correct information, and as a Christian I
cannot tell you anything false."
To the credit of their blood, there is no instance of women being
mishandled by the men of either side during the war in Canada, and
the officer answered shortly, "In five minutes, if you do not speak I
shall fire your house."
"It is only what I must expect," said Betty, "but I pray you, sir,
watch that the fire does not spread. Everything is so hot and dry."
With nothing saved but the clothes they had on, Bee and Chloe with
Betty and Mrs. Ferguson, who both held their children, stood on the
road, not knowing which way to go, for the fire did spread, and every
house in pretty St. Davids went down.
Meanwhile of the two men who left St. Davids, Ferguson had been taken
by Kawque safely to the Queenston lines, and Ned drove him to Fort
George. Evidently a bit of lead was still in his arm, for it was
terribly swollen and painful, and almost black. Ned had to go back
at once, so he left Ferguson at the hospital--a horror of war.
"You inexpressible idiot," roared the doctor. "Why didn't you ask
for me at once? Thought others were worse than you, eh? Well if you
had not always lived as you have, this arm would have to come off at
once, but now there's a chance."
Meanwhile as Ferguson lay on his fevered bed, and the men at
Queenston saw the smoke of St. Davids go up, Kawque going towards the
Americans to scout, came across a trail which showed him that Vere in
his hasty flight from St. Davids, had taken a wrong turning and gone
into the deep bush. A moment Kawque thought, then went swiftly after
Ned's enemy, until a mêleé of horse and foot marks, and broken
underbrush told him a struggle had taken place in the woods. Vere
had been captured, so much Kawque guessed, but his captors were not
any Indians, the Mohawk knew, and yet he was sure the Americans had
not advanced that far.
Silently now as a snake, Kawque glided through the underbrush until
he came to a hut, where men whom he recognized as Sell's gang,
deserters from both armies, were standing round Vere, who with his
hands tied behind him, was foaming with rage.
Then a man in a ragged red coat--Sells himself--stepped forward, and
laughed in his face--"I too was a gentleman once, until your damned
grandfather had me flogged, at Kingston; I'd kill you now in revenge,
only the Yankees are hotfoot after us--we did a bit of plundering
among the Canucks--and the last man of us will be hanged if we can't
give them the slip. See here, the Yankee leader is Eli Goode; we
know his sister's at St. Davids, with a nigger woman, and two of us
are going there disguised as Indians to get her, and then I guess her
brother will sing another tune. It's up to you to tell us where she
is."
Vere had plenty of animal courage in the excitement of battle, but
when he saw the preparations for his torture by the miscreants, his
soul was afraid, yet he had enough English instinct to answer Sells
bravely, with a curse, though the degenerate within him whispered,
"Why suffer for a Yankee girl?"
CHAPTER XII.
How Bee was Abducted--and the End.
A tornado of flame was sweeping over St. Davids, and women with their
children stumbled through the burning, choking fog of smoke. Betty's
little household were still standing helplessly together by the ruins
of their cottage, when two men, in the war-paint of the Mohawks,
leaped out of the smoke, seized Bee, and vanished with her in the
fog. Chloe rushed after them screaming, while the other two women,
cumbered with the babies they carried, could do nothing.
Then more men, in Indian dress and paint, were round them, roughly
demanding their names. They were gone too, in the smoke and
confusion, as some Americans rode up, and Betty implored them to
rescue Bee.
"Madam," said their officer coldly, "our Indians are still the other
side of the river. The Mohawk devils are in your pay, not ours. You
had better look among the British lines for the girl."
For endless miles now, it seemed, Betty and Mrs. Ferguson tramped the
hot roads, with the other refugees of St. Davids. At last they
reached Queenston, and Percy. He himself had been about to set out
for St. Davids with Dr. Tam, a wagon, and two men--Ned and Tim Kelly.
The Americans had told them to send, under a flag of truce, and fetch
the sick and injured from the burnt village.
So they rode off, Ned stunned to think that Bee was abducted, and
probably by men worse than any savages--Sells' gang of deserters.
They heard nothing of Bee at St. Davids, though some of Sells' men
had been seen near disguised as Indians, and an American company,
with Eli Goode in command, was out searching for them.
They were returning when Kawque met them; he first whispered to
Ned--"Come and mock your enemy. He is a prisoner in the woods, and
you can taunt him, telling him he can never ride with the British
soldiers again, for he whined when he thought Sells would torture
him, and he told where Bee Goode was, that they might steal her."
With his black eyes glittering, the Mohawk repeated his story to
Percy, and without a word the four men left the wagon, and followed
the Indian to the hut. It was empty except for a man who lay bound
face down on a bench, the upper part of his body covered with a
blanket. He did not seem conscious, but groaned deeply as Tim cut
the ropes, and brought water. Ned did nothing but look with loathing
upon his enemy's disgrace.
Percy took hold of the blanket to lift it, but Vere, speaking for the
first time, though he kept his face hidden, cried, "Don't touch it.
Don't touch me. I can't bear it."
"Dr. Tam is just behind us," said Percy. Then signing the others to
go out, he added fiercely, "and you betrayed Bee, to save your skin?"
Vere cringed at the savagery in his tone. "They burnt me for hours,"
he whispered faintly. "At last I did not know what I said."
Percy moved back quickly to keep himself from striking a wounded man,
then as Dr. Tam came in, he went out. Ned was waiting to speak to
him. "We are wasting time, sir," he said crisply, "Kawque says he
can follow Sells' trail, but he is afraid of being killed by the
American soldiers if he goes alone and they capture him. Will you
let me go with him? We can leave plenty of marks for Captain Goode
to follow, and as she was only stolen this morning we might even be
able to rescue her, before she is harmed."
"Go certainly," said Percy in an unsteady voice, for his soul was
sick at the thought of Vere's cowardice.
With a gesture of farewell Ned turned from him, and followed Kawque
into the bush. Knowing that the only way to keep himself quiet and
sane was to work hard, he set the pace through the brush at a rate
that made Kawque look at him admiringly. The Mohawk was a primitive
man, he understood strength, but not weakness.
Dr. Tam came out, and Percy asked--"Are his injuries likely to be
fatal, doctor?"
Dr. Tam smiled grimly. "When I was a lad at college, Major Haslem,
we had an awful way of initiating freshmen. We ought to have been
expelled for it. We stripped the victim to his waist, and tied him,
while we heated irons red-hot before his eyes, and told him we were
going to do some fancy marking on his back with them. Then we
blindfolded him, and brought out some raw meat and sealing wax. We
dug the iron into the meat holding it at his back, for him to smell,
and hear too, the flesh scorching under them, while we touched his
skin with the hot wax--and I've known strong lads to faint away.
Suggestion, just suggestion."
"Doctor," cried Percy, irritably, "what are you telling me this for?"
"Because Sells must have learnt some college hazing tricks. That's
what he did to our man in there. Vere Haslem has a couple of skin
burns that usually he wouldn't have sworn at for more than a minute.
I kicked him, and told him to get up and put on his clothes."
Vere was on his feet, dressed, and just fastening on his sword when
Percy came in. "Give that to me," the older man said.
"When it is known you were not captured by the enemy," he continued,
"you will be marked 'missing', and inquiries will be made. You must
stop here, and I will bring you plain clothes and money. Then you
can cross the river, and get to France as soon as you can. You must
take another name there, and I will see you are provided with funds.
Kawque and Dr. Tam will tell all that happened here, and I will ask
that the Court which condemned Ned Edgar at Kingston re-open the
case, and consider what your word as a witness is worth."
So the cup Vere had filled once for another, came back to him.
Leaning against the side of the hut he saw the world of military
trappings and music that his soul loved, slip away from him forever.
* * *
That evening, Edgar with Tahata, the Mohawk chief, and a dozen
Indians, went recklessly out to seek for his son, and his one-time
ward, Bee Goode. At midnight they were challenged by an American
picket, and Edgar went forward with a white handkerchief tied on his
sword. "I am looking for a girl whom Sells' gang has stolen," he
said. "If you will let us pass, I give you my word, to return and
surrender as your prisoner, as soon as I have found her--Bee Goode."
"Major Edgar," said Eli's voice in the darkness, "I think we can both
forget the war for a little while--till we find Bee Goode. I shall
be very glad of your help, and we can go on together."
For a week they pressed after the gang, wondering that they never saw
a trace of the marks Ned and Kawque were to leave for them to follow.
Edgar and Eli were afraid to put what they feared into words, but
Tahata said bluntly--"We are on the Sells' gang trail, getting near
him, yes; but Kawque never passed here; maybe him and Ned find Sells'
camp first night, and creep in to get the girl, and--", Tahata
finished his sentence with a significant gesture of his tomahawk.
Edgar thought he would never see his son again, and an agony of
remorse and sorrow swept over him.
* * *
It was a hot, dark night in the vast unexplored forest that covered
all the country back of the lake fronts. The allies, united to save
Bee, Canadian, American, and Mohawk, were camped round their fire,
and their chiefs, Edgar, Eli, and Tahata, sat apart in council. Said
Edgar--"We have found the man's stronghold, and he knows we are here,
yet he does not send any word--evidently he does not hold Bee."
"In other words," said Eli hoarsely, "she is dead in his hands before
this, either by the mercy of God, or the--the handling of men."
"We live, we are men, we can attack and do justice upon him," said
Tahata the Mohawk, sententiously.
[Illustration: "Then on the other side of the tree they saw her--or
her spirit."]
Then on the other side of the fire they saw her--or her spirit. In
the beaded buckskin bravery of an Indian belle, with white feathers
in her hair, she smiled at them, still the light-hearted girl who had
never received anything but knightly treatment from any man. And
behind her in the shadows they saw the faces of Ned, Chloe, and
Kawque.
"Papa Edgar, and Brother Eli, don't you know me?" she cried; and
coming round the fire, she touched them with warm human hands,
talking quickly as she told how after hearing Vere betray her, Kawque
with a friend had rushed off to St. Davids. The place was on fire,
Sells was close behind and the Americans coming. Kawque had no time
to explain, he snatched the girl away, telling her who he was as
Chloe caught up to them. Then because they were cut off from getting
to the English lines, the other Indian took Bee to the Mohawk village
deep in the forest, leaving Kawque to tell Bee's friends; but wishing
the unhappy Vere to bear the full weight of Percy's anger, the scout
said nothing of Bee till he was alone in the bush with Ned. Then
they had gone to fetch the girl, and brought her after her brother's
party.
In silent thanksgiving Eli kissed his sister, and Edgar looked at
Ned, standing up very straight in the fire-glow--"Will you--can you,
shake hands?" he said huskily, holding out his own.
Ned clasped it instantly, knowing that his honour among men was
restored.
Leaving Bee and Chloe carefully hidden, the men then went on to
attack, capture--and dispose of Sells' gang, with the rough justice
of the wild.
It was Sir John of whom Bee was thinking when Eli came to tell her
that he was about to start for the American lines. Would she come
with him, or stay, to be a Canadian, among Canadians?
"Must you go," she said brokenly, "to fight Ned--and Papa Edgar?"
There was white pain in her face, for like many another woman on the
Canadian-American border, her heart was torn by the horror of this
almost civil war. She clung to him pathetically, as though afraid to
let him go.
"I must go to my grandfather," she half whispered. "I know no one
can comfort him now, still he did love me, and I must go to him."
"Take care of her," said Eli briefly, as he left, and he looked at
Ned, not Edgar.
For a week Bee and her friends travelled through the thick bush, and
then on Sunday, July twenty-fourth, they rested, hearing far-off the
thunder of Niagara. It was here that to the keen hearing of the
Indians came the sound of church bells ringing a frantic alarm, and
hastily they broke camp, to push on, guessing their meaning--a fresh
advance of the invader.
And away in Niagara Sir John was still in ignorance of his shame,
although it was three weeks since Vere had disappeared. Believing
him to be a prisoner and comparatively safe, his whole anxiety was
for his little grand-daughter.
That torridly hot Monday afternoon, July twenty-fifth, Sir John sat
on his horse, stiffly correct, in a little graveyard near the Falls.
Behind was a gray church, and all round the cemetery ran a stone wall
where berry bushes grew thick. In front, the ground sloped down to a
road--Lundy's Lane--with thick orchards of apple and peach on either
side.
The previous Sunday had been one of alarm in Niagara. A week before
the enemy had fallen back on Chippewa, and the British had followed
as far as the Falls. Then Winfield Scott managed to deceive them so
completely as to his intentions, that Riall sent twelve hundred men
under Drummond to Fort George. Only sixteen hundred were still with
him at Lundy's Lane; Sir John was watching as his little battery
clattered in among the gravestones, and the guns took position where
they could sweep the road.
Then in came Fitzgibbons' men with their famous bush-fighting leader,
and news--five thousand Americans were marching from Chippewa. Riall
ordered a retreat to Queenston, and half his force had started when
the enemy came down Lundy's Lane. It was an unpremeditated battle on
both sides. The British were trying to get away, and the enemy
thought they were at Queenston. Scott, however, attacked instantly,
afraid they might escape into the bush, hurling his men up the hill
to where the battle flag of England waved over the church, and the
guns vomited death above the graves of the quiet dead.
For half an hour the battery had the battle to itself. The
blue-coated men dashed forward, crouching behind the cemetery wall to
fire a volley through the bushes, then springing across, rushed on
the gunners. Now the rest of the army were back in position, and the
battle raged. Men fired at men a stone's throw off their musket
muzzles, or fought savagely hand to hand with clubbed guns and the
deadly bayonet.
Sir John was wounded. Half-stunned, he was pulled from under his
dead horse, and saw Percy. "How goes it?" he murmured with faint
eagerness.
"Drummond is back with his twelve hundred, sir. Marched to Fort
George and back without stopping; did the last mile on a run too, in
this heat. The enemy has brought his guns into action, you can hear
them. Our left is smashed up, and General Riall is captured. But I
guess we can stick it out. Can I do anything for you? We have no
water."
"No, I can hear it all going over the Falls," said Sir John,
wandering a little. "I would like to know that Bee was safe."
Percy left him in the church and went out. There was a lull in the
fighting. It was now nine o'clock at night, and the battle had
lasted since six. The moon had risen, throwing a pale light on the
dead and wounded heaped among the graves and down the hill, and all
along the road between the orchards. The heat was terrific, no
coolness having come with the night, and neither army had a drop of
water. The fighting men, many of whom had been marching all day,
suffered intolerably with thirst, and the wounded, torn with the
frightful bayonet and scorching in an inferno of heat and pain, soon
grew delirious.
The moon was hidden by clouds, and in the black darkness out flashed
the enemy's guns into the orchards. From both sides came charging
crowds of wildly yelling men upon the British centre, where their
guns sent back a flaming answer. Men fired wherever they saw fire,
then closed into the dark with their foes. All order was lost.
Lundy's Lane and the graveyard hill, were covered with men fighting
with sword and pistol, stabbing with shortened bayonet, and clenching
like wild beasts.
The British guns were captured, but the Americans could neither fire
nor move them, such was the fury of the mob of men that threw
themselves upon them. And above all, the crash of musketry, and the
yells and whoops of the fighting men, rose the screaming of the
wounded.
* * *
Almost under the feet of plunging, crazy horses; knocked down more
than once by excited men; with bullets whistling round her, Bee
stumbled through the dark with a pail of water. Other women were
there too, on the same attempt at mercy. The few men who had seen
them ordered them back instantly, but being women they did not obey.
A fitful gleam of moonlight showed men twisting on the ground before
her, and she knelt to put water to the pitiful lips. Then she had a
glimpse of Ned, fighting furiously with his clubbed musket. Someone
pushed her into the wreck of the church, and there she found her
grandfather.
"Thank God, you are safe, little Bee," he said, roused to a last
flash of consciousness by her voice.
"Happy man," murmured Percy, as they laid him, bleeding with a dozen
wounds, by the dead baronet, "he need never know of Vere now."
The battle of Lundy's Lane had ended, as suddenly as it began.
* * *
Scott, with the captured British general and guns, retreated back to
Buffalo, where he reported that he had won the battle, but that to
follow up his victory, he must have a far larger army, to overcome
the savage resistance of the Canadians.
But there were no more invasions of Canada, for the battleships of
England were off the American coast. In vain the Tzar of Russia
offered to arbitrate; Washington was burnt on August twenty-fourth.
The English were driven back from Baltimore, but made raids on the
shores of the Democrat States, who were blamed for the invasion of
Canada.
At last, on December twenty-fourth, 1814, peace was signed at Ghent,
no word being said in its articles about the "Right to Search," which
had been used as a cry to incite the American people to war, but
without steamer or telegraph it was weeks before the news could cross
the Atlantic, and the bloody battle of New Orleans, an English
defeat, was fought in the January after peace was signed.
York raised her flags in joyful thanksgiving, and Percy saw them as
he sat up for the first time. Haslem Towers stood empty, in England,
and men talked of the "wicked baronet" somewhere abroad. Percy
intended to make his home in Canada, and he was very disappointed
that Ferguson would not stay with him. Instead of remaining as the
trusted servant of a man he had always liked with high wages and sure
provision for his old age, the Methodist had heard the call of the
nation that was being born in Canada. He longed to be a preacher to
the men who had fought so well for an earthly country at Lundy's Lane
and many a fight before. So he applied to Conference, and they were
about to advance the money to buy his discharge, and then accept him
as one of their itinerant preachers.
Ned was in the old pasture, tramping through the snow, and thinking
of the summer morning when he had crept there, with his spirit
broken, and a girl had healed him by her kiss of faith. Eli was with
him, he had returned to take his sister back to Boston, if she would
come.
"But I am not surprised that she refuses," Eli was saying. "She was
so young when she went to Canada to live, and Canada is so loyal to
the British flag. If we had only known your real feelings we would
never have fought you. May the peace between us endure."
Then Ned spoke, but not of politics, and Eli smiled--"My father
trusted your father with my sister, so I cannot do less than trust
her to you. The Haslems are willing, so the only person whose
consent you need is--Bee Goode."
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