When Philip Greaves received the note from Barry, to the deserter who was secreted in the suburbs of the city, he proceeded, towards evening, to the point where the soldier lay concealed, and to which he had been directed with unerring accuracy. On reaching the house in which the fugitive was said to be hidden, he found but an old woman, who seemed neither alarmed nor surprised at his arrival. Upon whispering a word in her ear, however, a look of intelligence stole into her eyes, and putting on her bonnet and cloak, in the deep dusk, she motioned him to follow her, having closed and locked to door behind her. After leading him but a short distance, among a number of small though clean huts, she gained one in which the family were seated at their plain evening repast. As they entered the dwelling, he perceived that there was one vacant seat at the table, from which some person had evidently arisen hastily and disappeared from the apartment In the course of a few moments, however, and on the head of the family having been called aside by the old woman, Philip was greeted with a hearty welcome, and instantly led into a little back room, where he found the person whom he sought, gazing about him with a distrustful if not an alarmed air. To this individual he showed Barry’s note, which he had previously abstracted from the envelope, requesting him, as he perused it, to return it to him again, as he wished to destroy it himself, lest, by accident, it should fall into other hands, and as he desired to say to Nicholas that he was personally cognizant of the fact of its being put out of the way. To this request the deserter readily acceded, as he would have to any other of a reasonable character, so delighted was he to receive the assurance that the hour of his deliverance drew nigh. Here, then, were the particulars of the plan of his escape settled upon. He was to remain still concealed, until Greaves called for him with a cab, but was to hold himself ready to quit his hiding place at a moment’s notice.
These preliminaries being arranged, Philip left the house and speedily proceeded to a neighboring hotel, where he procured a private room, and, calling for pen, ink and paper, at once addressed himself to writing a letter. Various were the rubbings of hands and sinister smiles which punctuated this epistle, until at last, on its being finished, he carefully folded it, and taking from his pocket-book a sealed envelope, one end of which had been previously opened with great care, and the superscription completely removed by a cunning process, he took from another compartment of his book a small note and introduced it into the envelope, adroitly closing the apperture with a little mucilage, so as to completely conceal the incision that had been made, and obliterate every evidence of the envelope’s having been tampered with. This done, he slowly, and with apparent great caution as to the conformation of the letters, directed it, and when he found the ink to be completely dried, enclosed the whole in the letter that he had just written; placing it, in turn, in a larger envelope which he hastily directed to some party, from whom he apparently cared but little to conceal his hand-writing. This accomplished, he called for some brandy, and after paying liberally for it and the use of the room, directed his steps towards a stationer’s shop where he purchased a postage stamp which he attached to his letter. Here, also, he heard the subject of the threatened invasion of the Province discussed in all its bearings and probable results; and here, too, the bitter murmurs of discontent regarding the criminal conduct of the individual to whom the whole interests of the country were entrusted by the people and the Crown, and who was said to have been already for weeks in a condition of mind and body absolutely loathsome. Not wishing, however, to delay the mailing of his letter, he soon found himself wending his way to the Post-office, where, with his own hand, he consigned the missive to the care of her Majesty the Queen, by putting it in the apperture that opened into the letter-box from the street—the office being already closed. On this, he retraced his steps towards The Harp, where he so managed to thrust himself in among the struggling suspicions of O’Brien, as to almost gain the full confidence of that generous patriot and banish the last doubt from his breast.
“Well,” said Tom, when he found a fitting opportunity, “how did you find the poor fellow?”
“Willing enough to leave the Province,” whispered Philip, “if he could only manage to get away; but I think that will be easily arranged now, as the storm about his desertion has blown over.”.
“On the night after that of to-morrow, then,” returned Tom, “they will make the attimpt; and as I can get a man to help them who knows every turn and crank of the river, I have hopes of their success; besides it will be Nick’s night for guard, and there’s somethin in that, you know; as they can get out at the point where he stands, without much throuble to themselves or anyone else. However,” he observed farther, “I hope no one will let the cat out of the bag, as it would be a cryin sin to have the poor fellows ‘nabbed’ at the very moment when they fancied themselves about to brathe the purest air that ever floated benathe the canopy of heaven.”
“There’s no fear of that,” replied Greaves, “for you and I only know of their intentions; although I feel that you are not exactly at home with me yet, for all your friendly conduct and information; but recollect, that I’ll perform my part of the contract, and it is for you and them to do the rest.”
This speech made Tom feel a little awkward; and he was about to make a suitable reply, when he was happily relieved by some parties who dropped in, to command the attention he so willingly accorded at the moment.
That Greaves puzzled and perplexed him there could be no doubt; but at no period could that individual elicit from him any information, if he possessed such, in relation to Fenianism. He, of course, knew that Philip learned from Barry that there were many soldiers in the Fort who sympathised warmly with Ireland; but this was as far as he was informed in the matter. It was obvious, however, that for some reason or other, he was anxious to fathom the depths of the actual Organization, if such existed in or about the city; but in every attempt he was foiled; for, notwithstanding his most subtle attacks, he was met at each turn by a spirit of reticence which baffled all his ingenuity and led him to the conclusion that, after all, there were perhaps but slight grounds for believing that the Brotherhood had any very extensive footing in the colony.
Tom sometimes reasoned, that his solicitude on this head was prompted by patriotic motives; and then, again, the idea used to creep in upon him that he sought this information for sinister purposes; and thus the worthy host, trembling in the balance between the two impressions, kicked the beam on the side of prudence, and if he knew anything of the movements and intentions of the Organization, kept it to himself; although the letter in the possession of Greaves might, were he less cautious, have drawn from him some serious information; for Tom O’Brien was, at that moment, the Centre of a Fenian Circle, with three hundred armed men at his command, ready to join the invaders the instant they entered the Province and planted their standard near him upon British soil. This being the case, he was well aware of the intentions of the Brotherhood in the United States; and thus it was, that when he found Barry could not procure his discharge before the invaders were upon them, he instantly endorsed the project of his desertion; well knowing that, should he fail to escape before the hour of the movement arrived, he should be called to take the field against his countrymen and against Ireland; and, perhaps, under circumstances that might preclude the possibility of his acting otherwise than as their enemy. Nor did he relax in his watchfulness and caution when Greaves even brought the deserter to The Harp in redemption of his word, or, more remarkable still, when he learned, on the morning succeeding the night of their escape from the Fort, that seven soldiers of the Regiment had bid their commanding officer an unexpected and unceremonious adieu; and notwithstanding that the garrison was all but alive with sentries and guards patroling every avenue which led from it, made good their escape to the American shore, where they were now beyond the reach of the Canadian or Imperial authorities.
No sooner had Philip ascertained that the party had made good their escape, than he himself prepared to bid good-bye to The Harp. O’Brien was not at all surprised at this sudden resolution, as Greaves had professed to be daily transacting business; which he asserted might be brought to a close at any moment. And so he had been transacting business; for he might have been seen occasionally entering, by stealth, a certain dwelling in the outskirts of the city where Fenianism and all Irish Nationalists had their deadliest enemy; but, as already intimated, this enemy had been rendered powerless by the wine cup for some time past, so that if there had been any matter of importance to transact between them, it would have been useless to have even approached it. Still Philip called and called, but to no purpose; so finding that he had pressing matters in another direction to claim his immediate attention, he left the mystified functionary in disgust, casting a glance at the numerous unopened dispatches on his table, and congratulating Canada on the possession of such a creditable and efficient, leading officer.
Shaking hands with Tom, then, after having honestly liquidated his bill, our mysterious friend soon found himself on board a train bound direct for Toronto, where he arrived in due course, amid hosts of rumors, and military movements which were being accomplished in that reckless and inefficient haste, that went to prove a screw loose somewhere. Here he found himself on the evening of the 29th, and being obliged to remain in the city all the next day, he started the following morning for the West, when he learned, while journeying onwards, that the Fenian forces were massed at Buffalo and along the American frontier, and that a descent upon Fort Erie was sure to take place within a very few hours. Although he had intended to reach his destination before night, he was delayed at the various stations, by rumors which tended to make it important for the train not to proceed in haste, it having been alleged, more than once, that the Fenian army was already in the Province, and burning and destroying all before it, In turn, however, each of these rumors was contradicted; and so the cars proceeded until another was encountered. In this way the morning of the first of June overtook him before he had yet reached the point for which he was bound. Now, however, he ascertained that the Province was, without any manner of doubt, invaded by the army of the Irish Republic, and that even then the “Sunburst” was flying over the village of Fort Erie.
This intelligence seemed to confound him, and to have exceeded anything that he could have anticipated. He hod fancied that, notwithstanding all the rumors he had heard within the last few months, there was no real intention on the part of the Irish Nationalists of the United States to actually invade the Province; and believed the reports of their having congregated upon the American frontier as either unfounded or tremendously exaggerated. Now, nevertheless, they were within a very few miles of him, and might be upon him and the neighborhood he was approaching, at any moment.
There was something in this latter conviction that appeared to move him greatly as he stepped off the train at Port Colborne, where he found the inhabitants in a state of the direst alarm. Being a stranger, and unable or unwilling to account very clearly for his sudden presence here, and at a juncture when suspicion was so rife and every new comer subjected to the closest scrutiny, he was put under surveillance and not permitted to leave the village, as he was about to do, until he had explained his business to the authorities. Chafing with disappointment and anger, he was taken into custody and confined in one of the rooms of his hotel, until a magistrate could be found to look into his case. Here, notwithstanding his protestations and willingness to prove that he was a loyal British subject and one of importance too, he was detained nearly the whole day; tormented by the uncomfortable misgiving that perhaps, after all his generalship, Nicholas Barry might again be in the Province and at a point, too, where he should be able to frustrate all the plans he had laid so deeply and executed for so far with the utmost secrecy and success. At last, however, a magistrate was found and a private investigation of his case granted. The examination was brief; for scarcely had that functionary been closeted five minutes with him, before he was set at liberty and again stepped forth a free man.
So utterly helpless were the people of the section of the country in which he now was, that they must have fallen before any considerable force of the invaders, had such entered the Province. The greatest distrust obtained among themselves; there being a strong body of Irish and Irish sympathisers in their midst, who scarcely cared to hide their sentiments. And although there was an element in the little town that was truly loyal to the Crown, yet it is still a matter of doubt as to its having been in the ascendant, in so far as numbers were concerned. True, that if the census of the place had been taken at the moment, and the tendencies of every man registered according to a public statement, extracted from his own lips, England should have carried the day by an overwhelming majority, as, on the same basis, she should at this present hour throughout the whole of the New Dominion. But had one glimpse of a victorious Irish army been caught in the distance, the case would have been widely different, indeed; and those who were constrained, through the force of circumstances, to fall into line with the paid, official squad who ruled the roast for the time being, would soon hoist their true colors and step out beneath the folds of that glorious banner of green and gold before which, with all her boasting armaments, the tyrant power of England now trembles to its very base. And so it will be throughout the Colony at large, whenever the Irish Nationalists, or any other people inimical to England, enter it with a view to tearing down the skull and cross-bones of St. George, and ultimately replacing it with the proud and invincible banner of the United States of America. Not a single doubt obtains in well informed quarters on this head; so that the tyrant England cannot fail to be swept ultimately from this continent, never to lift her dishonored head upon its free, historic shores again.
And what wonder that the thinking portion of the people of Canada—men who have its material prosperity and its happiness at heart—should long for a union with this Republic, with which their interests are so intimately identified, and upon which they are almost solely dependant for a market and that good will that is not only necessary to their peace, but to their very existence? Shut out from the ocean, that great highway of nations, for six months of the year, they are, almost daily, at the mercy of the United States for any description of commercial intercourse, or exchange of thought, in relation to the material condition of the continent or their own probable future. Lying a frozen strip against the North pole, with all their available lands settled, if we are to credit the assertions made by their own statesmen, were this great Republic to close its doors against them, they should be obviously cut off, in a measure, from all civilization, and dwarfed both mentally and physically into the most contemptible dimensions. As it is, they are depending upon America for every refining and practical influence that warms their partial life, or gives any value whatever to their social status. American literature, tastes, habits, inventions and even foibles color all their internal intercourse; although the fact does not seem apparent to those who are interested in perpetuating British rule amongst them, and is denied by others from motives of envy or vanity. Add to this the circumstance that their government is the most wretched that could possibly be found among a people professing to be free. Scarce a single department of it but is stained with fraud of the vilest description to the very lips, and neither more nor less than an instrument of public plunder in the hands of corrupt officials. Even while we write, and for years back, a charge lies in the department of the Minister of Finance, against the present Premier of the Dominion, accusing that unscrupulous individual of conspiring with a whisky dealer, while he himself was First Minister of the Crown, to defraud the revenue—a charge made by the present Assistant Commissioner of Customs and Excise, whom this same Premier has been obliged to retain in office to the present hour, with a view to saving himself from disclosures calculated to drive him from office in disgrace. So dreadful have been the circumstances of this case, that when an offer was made subsequently, through the public press, to produce bank, official and mercantile evidence that the government functionary who preferred this frightful accusation was dishonest and incompetent, and that he had purloined public documents and destroyed them with a view to concealing his crimes, still this Premier dared not summon him to trial, although, times without number, he gave assurances, as did the then Inspector General, that the culprit should be brought before the proper tribunal, and justice done in the premises. But why need we complain, when Canada takes the matter so coolly; for will it be believed, that these two worthies—both the accused and the accuser—both disfigured by the most damning accusations, are still in the pay of the Canadian people, and have been so ever since the circumstances of their official character were laid through the daily press before the world. Not a single move has yet been made in the direction of justice, nor an inquiry instituted as to the truth or falsehood of these frightful charges. The Premier still carries the filthy load upon his shoulders, while his subordinate, of the stolen bank receipts and false report, laughs in his sleeve at the rod that he holds over his naked shoulders.
Nor is this more than an individual case amongst others of a similar class. What of the tens of thousands of the people’s money given, without the sanction of Parliament, to the Grand Trunk Railway in the interest of English stockholders; and the postal subsidies handed over to the same line, in excess of the tender made by the Managing Director for the carrying of her Majesty’s mails? Was not the government liberal with the hard earnings of their poor dupes throughout the land, when they virtually informed the authorities of the Grand Trunk that they were altogether too modest in their estimates, and that the country ought not to take advantage of such nice young men, but give them more than they asked for performing the service mentioned? Glorious! wasn’t it? We might also allude to the manner in which Sir John A. taxed the struggling industry of the Province, millions to build up his pet Parliament Houses at the back of God speed—buildings that almost rival those of England—and refer also to the delightful manner in which the Crown Lands were dealt with by another member of this happy family: citing the case of the Wallace Mine Claim, in which the Commissioner managed to dispose, at a mere nominal figure, of a portion of the public domain by private sale among a few of his friends, including a gentleman presumed to be his own agent, and that, too, in the face of a law which made it imperative upon the government to advertise all lands in the Canada Gazette before they were put upon the market. For appearance sake, the lands were advertised in the Gazette; but when a purchaser dropped in to make inquiries, it leaked out that they had been all disposed of previously. In this way the business of the people has been conducted for years; and what is the result? To-day they are without immigration, trade or commerce—to-day there is no public confidence existing in any portion of the Dominion; for the government seem to grasp the purse-strings with one hand while they hold a drawn sword in the other. There is no security to be found in any corner of the State; and no projects, formed for the future of its people. To be sure, certain parties prate and jabber about the Volunteer Service and national defenses; but what have they to defend? If their frontier were bristling to-morrow with forts and bayonets, all they could hope to accomplish would be the shutting out of American liberty and national prosperity from the people. This must be self-evident to any individual who is at all conversant with the true nature of the case, or cognizant of the fact, that there cannot possibly be any hope for Canada so long as she holds herself aloof from the great social and political compact of this Union, upon the pulses of which, in her present helpless and isolated position, she will always have to dance attendance and pay the piper besides. Either the sunlight or the shadow of the Republic must fall on her without intermission. If she choose the former, well and good; let her cut herself free of the despotic tyrant that now holds her in cunning thrall, and step into the broad effulgence of American freedom, or if she will it, until circumstances of themselves precipitate her into the arms of the Commonwealth with less grace than she might otherwise have fallen into them, let her feel the blighting influence of the cold clouds that cannot fail to envelope her and paralyze all her energies in the interim. There is no need of mincing the matter—Canada beneath the skull and cross-bones of St. George, must ever remain a poor, puny starveling; while under the proud and ample folds of the glorious flag of this mighty Republic, she should at once become great, powerful and prosperous, as yet noontide of nations.
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