“Yes,” replied Tom, when Barry had finished, “both I and mine have felt the cruel fangs of the despoiler; but, sure, where is the use of singlin out ourselves, when the whole of the thrue native Irish—which manes the nineteenth twintieths of the kingdoms-are jist as badly off. The quarrel is not yours nor mine, nor the grievances naither. Both belong to every man, woman and child possessed of a pure dhrop of Irish blood in their veins; for all have suffered alike, as far as that is consarned. And, now, all that has to be done on the head of it, is jist to wait the nick of time that we are all expectin, and then, with one well directed and united blow, dash the tyrant to the ground on this side of the Atlantic, and thrust to Providence, the sympathy of the great American people and our own sthrong arms and hearts for the rest.”
“Quebec and the fort beyond there,” observed Burk, “may give us some trouble; but further than this, from what has been ascertained of the Province generally, there is little to be apprehended. The intimate business relations and the intermarriages between the Canadians and the people of the United States, will exercise a most powerful influence in the case, while the manner in which both the English and Canadian Governments fomented the recent civil war on the other side of the lines, cannot fail to have embittered the American people against the British Flag, wherever it is to be found. The treacherous attack of England upon the existance of the Republic, in subsidizing the South with arms and money, and in destroying, as she did for a considerable period, the American carrying trade, through the instrumentality of pirates built and fitted out in her own ship-yards and docks, will now afford the American government an opportunity of paying her off in kind, through permitting Fenianism to pursue its course without interruption, until the Provinces become part and parcel of the Union, when they have served as a basis of operation for the purpose of fitting out expeditions against the arch enemy of Ireland and of human freedom, and contributed to the final redemption of that oppressed country from the bonds in which it has so long lain. Surely, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; and if England, through the House of Commons, cheered the Alabama when her destructive qualities were described before that body by Mr. Laird, and, after having built the pirate, sent her out to make war upon the North when it was in sore trouble—surely, I say, America will not be over anxious to throw obstructions in the way of any party who may take in hand the chastisement of such an infamous power, no matter what the grounds of the quarrel. But when it comes to be understood that for the last ninety years, and up to a very recent period, England has been the deadly defamer and the secret or avowed enemy of America and American institutions—when it comes to be understood, that the statesmen, the business men and the wives and daughters of the citizens of the American Commonwealth, ever since the immortal Washington won the day for the oppressed of the whole world, have been subjected to the sneers and jibes of the English aristocracy and press, and held up to the ridicule of despotic Europe—when this comes to be understood, I repeat, in connection with the fact, that the cause of Ireland is the cause of human liberty and of republican institutions, there will be but little fear of America stepping out of her way to uphold the skull and cross-bones of St. George, either on this or on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, or, in fact, in any portion of the globe.”
“Nor will the clear-sighted children of the Republic be cajoled into a friendly attitude towards this blood-thirsty dastard, because that, in the feebleness and fear that have now overtaken her, she essays to gloze over the infamous acts of which she stands convicted before the nations, and assumes an air of friendship towards them. Had the Union fallen, through her infernal machinations, not a city throughout her dominions but would have blazed with joyful illuminations at the result; while her government would again introduce the impressments of 1812. Even when the slightest reverse was suffered by the arms of the North, the news was heralded throughout the whole of England with tokens of the most intense satisfaction; while both her people and statesmen took a fiendish delight in referring to the Commonwealth as “the late United States!” All this, I say, will influence, and ought to influence, America in favor of the independence of Ireland, and prevent the American people from regarding the present pusillanimous blandishments of John Bull as other than simply the result of cowardice, and an attempt to propitiate a great power that had survived his infernal machinations, and now looms up a just and mighty avenger before him. So long then, as England is permitted to hold Ireland, that is battling for her rights, in chains, or to taint permanently the pure atmosphere of this free continent, so long will the Stars and Stripes shine with subdued lustre, and the memory of the immortal heroes of ‘76 be but half honored, by those who are pledged to defend it to the death in the sight of both God and man.”
“As to Quebec and the other garrisons down this way,” observed Barry, “when Hamilton and Toronto are in the hands of the Army of the Irish Republic, they will be easily managed. None of the strongholds are proof against Irish sympathizers, in their vicinity. This I know to be true. Every genuine Irishman within easy hailing distance of the garrison at Quebec, has more than one tried friend within its walls; and so of the other strongholds along the St. Lawrence and lakes. But supposing, for argument’s sake, that any of those forts should take it into its head to stand a siege, where would it be when invested with such an army as Fenianism can now put into the field, composed of thousands upon thousands of veterans who are still grim with blood and smoke from the terrible fields of the South? What, too, would your militia do, with their holiday legs and maiden swords, against the men who fought at Cold Harbor, Gettysburg or Bull Run? Why the one-fourth of the force which it is said Fenianism has at its command, would sweep Canada like a tornado from Sanwich to Gaspe, and be recruited every yard of the road, besides; while the instant one signal victory was won by them, the government of the United States would at once acknowledge them as belligerants. This, I believe, is the true state of the case; and if the Fenian organization across the lines, and here amongst us, possess honest, brave and competent leaders, the overthrow of England in the Provinces cannot fail to be achieved; for, after all, she has no secure footing in the hearts of the masses, and enjoys nothing but a mere official existence here, under the protection of her guns, and through the instrumentality of a corrupt government and a hireling press. But as it is getting well up in the small hours, and as I feel I need some rest, I think I’ll take another tumbler, if you only join me, and then turn in.”
CHAPTER III.
When young Barry spoke of the girl of his love, he referred to Kate McCarthy, now in her twentieth year, and certainly one of the most beautiful Irish girls that had emigrated to America for many a long day. Kate and he had been schoolfellows and neighbors from their infancy, and, as they grew up, were regarded as a sort of “matter of course match,” from the fact, that they were always together, and apparently cut out for each other. They were both natives of the county Leitrim, and born on the banks of the Shannon, in the sweet little town of Drumsna. It was by the beautiful waters of this noble river that they first felt that impassioned glow that colors all the after life of man or woman, and which is as different from the feelings that characterize early boy or girlhood, as the noon-day solar blaze is from the cold and placid beams of the pale new moon. There is one point at which the true passion of love, in all great hearts, leaps into fierce and instantaneous existence. There may be many imperceptible approaches to it in some cases, we know, but out of these it is possible to turn aside. When the hour arrives, however, in a single moment the storming party, under one wild impulse, unknown before, mounts the ramparts of the heart, and, after a moment’s sweet confusion, the garrison falls and is surrendered forever into the hands of the enemy. And thus it was with our hero and heroine. Although they had long been the dearest of friends and constant companions—although they had long felt that the happiness of the one was necessary to that of the other, the great secret of their existence was never fully revealed to them, until they felt they were about to be separated from each other for an indefinite period; Kate to accompany her only relatives to America and poor Barry to enter the British army, under a pressure of poverty too dreadful to relate. As already intimated, the prospects of both had been blighted through oppression and villainy, brought to bear upon them by distant relatives, who were the infamous agents of a still more infamous government. The case of Nick, although sore enough in its way, was not so heartrending as that of Kate. He was of a sex fitted to wrestle with the storms of life, but she, proud and brave as she was, occupied a different position. Fortunately for both, however, through the instrumentality of a small pittance set aside by the Courts in her case, and a kind relation in that of Barry, their education was far above their pecuniary pretensions, so that at the age of twenty Kate was really an accomplished and refined girl, while her lover, at that of twenty-five, was a dashing young fellow, with a well stored mind and quite as capable of acquitting himself agreeably in society as any man, no matter what his rank, in the regiment to which he belonged. It was, then, in consequence of his education that he was looked up to by his comrades; although neglected and studiously kept in the back grounds by some of the officers of his company, who, viewing his attainments through the medium of their English spectacles, closed the door of preferment against him, and never suffered a single stripe to appear on his jacket. With as good blood in his veins as the best of them, and with a sense of the wrongs inflicted upon his country by the government whose abettors they were, he could never bring himself to stoop to the fawning and servility through which the lower grades of rank are attainable, only in the service; and thus, it was that, from first to last, he was viewed with an eye of suspicion by his superiors, who regarded him as an incorrigible young Irishman, who, notwithstanding that he wore the uniform of a British soldier, had no love for the service or the interests it represented.
Barry entered the army under the most terrific pressure only. He found that Kate and her friends were destined for America, and being himself, at the period, totally destitute of funds and without the means of realizing them speedily, in a moment of desperation he enlisted in a regiment that was under sailing orders for that country, in the hope of being stationed somewhere near the being he loved, and of being able, at least, to keep up a constant and unbroken correspondence with her until fortune should turn the wheel in his favor. And so he enlisted and parted from Kate and her friends, to follow her in a short period across the Atlantic, and renew his vows of love and affection upon another shore.
The ship that had borne her away from his view had been scarcely two days at sea, when the deadly intelligence reached his ear that the sailing orders of his regiment had been countermanded, and that instead of proceeding to Quebec, it was to sail for Malta, where it was likely to remain for perhaps a couple of years. This dreadful news almost annihilated him. He had made a sacrifice to no purpose, and was now bound hand and foot beyond the hope of redemption. Before Kate and he parted, he had agreed to write her to Quebec, in care of a friend, if anything should occur that might postpone the sailing of his regiment, or that portion of it that was for foreign service; and now the dreadful opportunity arrived, when he found himself called upon to convey to her the intelligence, that not only was the sailing of the regiment postponed, but its destination altered. In due course the fatal disclosure reached her, and almost deprived her of life and reason. In the space of one brief hour she passed through the agony of years. The being she loved, in the burning ardor of his young soul, had hastily—thoughtlessly sacrificed his freedom; and all for her! It had been a sufficient dagger to her soul to see him attired in the blood-stained uniform of the enemies of her country, yet she knew that he had been driven by the most inexorable circumstances to assume the hated garb. But now he was overtaken with twofold desolation—he was a slave, and beyond the reach of one kind word of solace from her, for whom he had sacrificed all, save and except that which might be borne to him, through the ordinary channels, across the trackless deep.