To Nicholas this was more perplexing than ever; although he now arrived at the conclusion, that Kate was the victim of some infamous and deep-laid plot, and that Lauder was at the bottom of it. But here again he was embarrassed by the circumstance, that he had never, so far as he knew, seen her rejected suitor, nor was he known to any of his friends at the Rock; from the fact that they had left Toronto before his arrival there, and that, notwithstanding his visits to Buffalo, he had never crossed their path. All, then, that Nicholas had to stand upon was the circumstance that she had actually been seen in conversation with the Kid, and that that worthy had evidently misrepresented the tenor of that conversation, whatever it might have been.
The next day after his arrival, Barry, with a heart sore and dark enough, went in search of his comrades, informing such of them as he thought proper to admit to his confidence, of the dreadful condition of his affairs and mind. While sympathising with him sincerely, however, and offering him all the assistance in their power, they seemed absorbed with some new subject of importance which appeared to engross no ordinary share of their attention. Since their arrival, they had learned that it was a fact and beyond all doubt, that the Fenians were gathering along the frontier for the purpose of making a descent upon Canada and securing a foothold upon its shores, with a view to making it the basis of operations against England in their attempt to secure the independence of Ireland. One and all they had determined to join the expedition as volunteers, and Nicholas, who entertained a lurking suspicion that Kate had crossed the American frontier under some mysterious impulse or influence, half made up his mind to make one of the invading army also. This suspicion was based upon the fact of Kate’s having no friends or relatives in the States, save those at the Rock, while she had several in Canada in the direction of which she might have been attracted by letters or representations now a mystery to him. However, he felt assured that, under any circumstance, she was not to be found in Buffalo or its vicinity; so, moved by both love and patriotism, before the evening had set in, he came to the conclusion to join his comrades in the approaching struggle.
This resolution once taken, he made instant application to some of the Fenian authorities of the city, stating the circumstance of his recent arrival, and quickly found himself surrounded by a host of friends who were ready to share their last mouthful or dollar with him. During this juncture, the Irish spirit of Buffalo, strongly impregnated with the generous national sentiment of America, was discernible upon every side. The groups of patriots quietly at first arriving from almost every point of the compass, were received with open arms and the sincerest hospitality by those who had an interest in the cause of freedom and the humiliation of the tyrant England. There were, of course, a few British sympathisers among the people and press who, ignoring their allegiance to the Union, or the principles for which the heroes of the Revolution laid down their lives, threw their voice and influence into the scale on the side of England, but they were in a hopeless minority; as the great heart of the nation beat steadily in the interests of liberty, and inspired its sons with all the confidence necessary to the most complete success.
To decide, with Barry, was to act. Consequently, now that he had made up his mind to join the expedition, he at once acquainted his friends at the Rock, and gave them such information and instructions relative to Kate as he thought desirable; intimating to them, at the same time, that he was of the fixed impression that she had, by some means or other, been lured into Canada; although a telegram, in reply to one dispatched to Toronto, informed his friends that she had not visited that city since she left it. Upon further inquiry, however, regarding the Kid, he learned that that respectable personage, together with his worthy coadjutor, Black Jack, were in the habit of paying frequent visits to Canada on the sly; it being thought that they were employed by persons who were engaged in smuggling. This information he gained while walking near the breakwater with a new acquaintance well versed in city notorieties, and who, at the moment, happened to espy a boat known to belong to the doubtful firm of Jack and the Kid, lying drawn up on the shore.
This craft, of course, engaged the attention of our hero, as belonging, in part, to the individual who seemed to be mixed up in some mysterious manner with the fate of his beloved. Consequently, he stepped over to it and casting a glance of scrutiny at the interior, saw something sparkle among a little sand, that had accumulated at the bottom near one of the stretchers. Picking it up, he found that it was a handsome button that had apparently dropped from the dress of some lady. This he examined with the most intense eagerness; when the thought struck him that it was very like some buttons that belonged to a dress occasionally worn by Kate. Of this, however, he was not sufficiently certain; so, thrusting it into his pocket, he turned away, more perplexed than ever with the mystery that surrounded him. Hurrying to the Rock with the waif as soon as he could, he submitted it to his friends, when it was at once recognized as being similar to a set of buttons worn by Kate, and which belonged to a dress that, it was believed, she wore on the night of her disappearance. Corroborative as this evidence was, it availed him but little for the time being; although it strengthened his resolve to move with the army of invasion; being convinced that his betrothed had, by some foul means, been spirited across the borders, and all through the machinations of her rejected suitor, Lauder.
And now how he cursed the procrastination that had kept him from applying for his discharge long since, when he might have procured it without any difficulty, and have placed her he loved beyond the power of any villain. Again, he was no longer free to search for her in the Province; for he was under the ban of military law there, and, unless supported by a sufficient number of bayonets, could not stem the torrent that should soon overwhelm him if he re-entered the territories of the Queen and was discovered. Yet, even death were preferable to the state of mind in which he now found himself; he therefore at once set to work to prepare himself for the coming contest, in the hope that when once across the borders, if even amid the din of war, he might gain some clue to the fate of all that he now cared to live for.
As may be supposed, the service of such men as Nicholas and his comrades were, at a moment so critical, accepted with alacrity by the military authorities of the Fenian organization of the city. Amongst the various sterling patriots in power here, both he and his comrades were instantly taken by the hand and placed in positions where their knowledge of arms could be made most serviceable to the grand cause in which they had resolved to embark. They were all Irish, and of that stamp that never loses color, how fierce soever the scorching fires to which they might be subjected. Under a special provision, and at Barry’s request, they were attached to the same company; while he, from his evident superiority in education and address, as well as from his thorough knowledge of drill and military tactics, was presented, upon joining the organization, with a captain’s commission. In the hurry and bustle attending the note of preparation, he found some slight relief from the great and overshadowing trouble that darkened all around him; and finding how necessary it was to keep both mind and body employed, if he was to retain either health or energy to aid him in any of the important projects that now loomed before him, he gave no place to useless repinings, but busily engaged with the necessities of his new avocation, found the hours slipping by which intervened between the period when he swore the true fealty of his soul to the flag of his love, and that which was to see him a hostile invader upon the shores he had so recently left.
As the men steadily poured into the city for a short period before the invasion, and filled the streets and suburbs in groups of various sizes, it became a matter of general conversation and surprise that, in bodies so peculiarly situated, and under such seemingly slight restraint, many of them being far distant from their homes, not a single individual was to be found who suffered in the slightest degree from even the appearance of intoxication. Look where you might, there was nothing but the utmost sobriety and good behaviour. Although the men were, for the most part, young, and many of them just from the bloodiest fields of the South, there hung about them an air of serious decorum that argued well for the mission in which they were about to engage. In addition, notwithstanding that, in some cases, they were badly housed and provisioned, a murmur never escaped their lips; nor could the most bitter of their enemies point to a single act where the law was violated by any of them, or show that even to the value of one mouthful of bread had been appropriated to their use without being paid for honestly, or given to them freely by those who felt for their position. This is so well known that, even at the period at which we write, upwards of two years after the occurrence of these scenes, not a solitary fact has come to light reflecting in any degree upon the honesty, sobriety and good conduct of these noble patriots, many of whom had left home penniless, to wage war against a power that had almost every resource at its command, and which they knew they should meet under circumstances that could not fail to be disadvantageous to them.
And here we may observe, history does not record a more daring or chivalrous project than that entertained by the brave fellows who made the night of Thursday the 31st of May, 1866, memorable in the annals of this continent, as well as in those of Ireland. Although laboring under embarrassments from the most fearful mistakes and criminal neglect of an individual to whom the grand project of the redemption of Ireland from the yoke of the oppressor was, in its strictly military aspect, entrusted in this country—although badly provisioned, uniformed and equipped—although perplexed with mysterious, contradictory and imperfect orders, and although, at the very moment of their destiny, left without the leader whom they were led to expect should command them, they never lost heart for a moment; feeling that heaven would raise up amongst them a chief not only competent to meet the emergency of the moment, but one in whom they should be able to place the fullest and most enthusiastic confidence.
And heaven did not disappoint their noble and confiding aspirations; for, when all looked dark and dreary to the more uneasy of their numbers, the gallant O’Neill, crowned with the laurels which he had so nobly won during the war that had then just closed, and true to the genius of his ancient name and house, stepped in upon the stage, and grasping the drooping standard of the Irish Republic, held it aloft; and, fired with the spirit of the “Red Hand” of yore, raised the war-cry of his race, before which many a Saxon tyrant and slave had trembled in the days long past.