On reaching the Canadian shore, both these worthies, who had but a few nights previously conveyed Kate across the Niagara, set out for the village of Fort Erie, which lay about four miles up the river, and which they did not wish to approach directly from the American side, but creep towards in the rear of the moving mass.
Under no circumstances does the human wolf exhibit itself to such monstrous intensity as under those of war. Not the wolf in the uniform of the soldier, for, let him be as blood-thirsty as he may, he buys, on the field, to some extent at least, the right to be savage. The current coin in which he deals is human gore; and in this relation he freely exchanges with his antagonist the circulating medium, and gives or takes, as the necessities of the moment may demand. He stands a nine-pin on the great bowling-alley of the field, and takes his chance of being knocked down in common with his opponent, who occupies a precisely similar position. He offers life for life; and, lamentable as the doctrine may be, he seems licensed to plunder, and, if needs be, kill. Here, of course, we speak of the mere hireling, who has no higher object before him than that of simple gain—who is actuated solely by a sordid love of gold—whose soul and body are as purchasable as a pound of beef in the shambles, and who is moved by the wretched pulses of mammon only. Such an one, although low in the scale of humanity, and unworthy of being mentioned in the same breath with the glorious patriot who unsheathes his sword for Father-land, Liberty and Heaven, is an angel of light compared with the lynx-eyed, dastardly prowler, who, when the heart of his quarry has been stilled by some other hand, gropes, gloved with clotted sore, among the mangled remains for the booty he never earned; or who, when the thunder of the field, or the onward course of a victorious army lays waste the fair land, takes advantage of the dread and confusion of the inhabitants, and gorges himself with plunder, as though he were a victor to whom should belong the spoils. Such wreckers of the dead are the ghouls of our race; and never had they more faithful representatives than the two villains who, in due course, mingled with the invaders in the village, anxious to commence their depredations before even a single shot was fired.
Barry, as already intimated, joined the expedition, and was now numbered among the invaders. Of course he perceived that with such a mere handful of men, nothing could be effected in the Province; but, then, he never supposed for a moment, that they were other than the simple advance-guard of a numerous following close upon their rear. In addition, it was anticipated that the landing of troops upon the Canadian shore would be effected simultaneously along the frontier at different points. This was the settled conviction of O’Neill, and of his officers also, as the scheme formed a leading feature of the programme of the campaign. But here the fates were against them; for transportation, as we are led to believe, was not secured effectively at any point save Buffalo. In fact, this city appears to have acquitted itself with regard to the invasion, in a manner that reflects the highest credit upon the Fenian authorities of the district; for even when the expedition, on finding that the American Government had interfered with the transport of reinforcements, had considered it prudent to return, the means of reaching the American shore were placed at its command by the patriotic gentlemen already alluded to; while, farther still, when the United States authorities were seizing the arms of the Brotherhood in every direction, Buffalo, through the admirable management of these persons, contrived to keep its quota intact.
During the morning of the landing, Nicholas happened to get a glimpse of the Kid and big dark companion in the village; and the circumstance awoke strong hopes in his bosom in relation to gaining some intelligence of Kate. From all he had heard, and from having found the trinket in their boat, he felt convinced that either one or the other of these scoundrels knew something of her. He, therefore, kept track of them until a fitting opportunity, when he accosted the Kid, as a sort of half acquaintance, and, by way of attempting to surprise him into a confession of some knowledge of Kate, produced the silver chased button already referred to, and asked him if he knew the name of the lady that had recently dropped it in his boat. For a moment the villain, who was, of course, none other than the Stephen Smith that was in the habit of visiting the Wilsons, seemed taken aback; but instantly recovering himself, replied, that his boat was so often hired by fishing parties, it would be difficult to tell the name of the lady from whose dress it might have dropped—that was, “provided it had dropped from a lady’s dress, at all.”
Although the thrust was adroitly parried, Nicholas, who was on the qui vive, noticed his momentary confusion, and determined to keep his eye upon him, in the hope that something might soon turn up that would throw the villain more completely into his power, and enable him to extract from him the intelligence which he still felt satisfied was in his possession. With this end in view, he set one of his comrades, who had escaped from the Fort with him, to watch with the utmost caution and secrecy every manoeuvre of the wretch and his companion; fully satisfied, as he was, that both the rascals were determined to follow in the wake of the army, for purposes already mentioned.
The conduct of the Invaders at Fort Erie was of such general excellence, that the inhabitants of that place speak of them, up to the present hour, in terms of such admiration as to excite the jealous animadversions of many of the Canadian people themselves. Notwithstanding that the village and its vicinity lay helplessly at their disposal, and was, for the moment, theirs by right of conquest, they entered it rather in the character of guests than in that of masters. Although the usages of war placed all that it contained at their feet, they never appropriated to their use even one solitary loaf of bread or glass of ale without having first paid for it. As to their generosity and chivalry in this connection, let us quote from the work of Major George T. Denison, Jun’r, commanding “the Governor General’s Body Guard,” Upper Canada; author of “Manual and Outpost Duties,” “Observations on the best Defensive Force for Canada, &c.”—an officer who took part in the campaign against the Fenians, and who cannot be charged with partiality to the invaders. In this work, published in June, 1866, by Rollo & Adam, Toronto, and entitled “The Fenian Raid on Fort Erie, with an account of the Battle of Ridgeway,” the author, page 62, observes, first, as to the disastrous result of the collision between both armies, to the Canadians:—
“The loss of this fight was the loss of the whole expedition. The two Commanding Officers were wandering about the country, the main body of the men captured or lying wounded about the village; the Captain of the Artillery struck down with the loss of a leg, and the Tug almost denuded of men, and the few left so hampered with a lot of useless prisoners, as to be unable to undertake anything.”
And again, after having complimented the invaders on some instances of personal bravery, he remarks, page 69:
“Before closing this chapter, I must mention that, from all accounts, the Fenians, except in so far as they were wrong in invading a peaceful country, in carrying on an unjustifiable war, behaved remarkably well to the inhabitants. I spent three weeks in Fort Erie, and conversed with dozens of the people of the place, and was astonished at the universal testimony borne by them to their unvarying good conduct. They have been called plunderers, robbers and marauders; yet, no matter how unwilling we may be to admit it, the positive fact remains, that THEY STOLE BUT FEW VALUABLES; THAT THEY DESTROYED, COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING, LITTLE OR NOTHING, AND THAT THEY COMMITTED NO OUTRAGES UPON THE INHABITANTS, BUT TREATED EVERYONE WITH UNVARYING COURTESY. On taking a number of the Welland Battery and the Naval Company prisoners, THEY TREATED THEM WITH THE GREATEST KINDNESS, putting the officers under their parole and RETURNING TO THEM THEIR SIDE ARMS; taking them down to the wharf on their departure, and releasing them, bidding them adieu with EXPRESSIONS OF GOOD WILL.”
“Another incident,” he goes on to say, same page, “occurred, worth mentioning: A number of them went to a widow lady’s house, near Fort Erie, and asked her for something to eat. They were about going into the kitchen to sit down, and she told them she would not let them in,—they laughingly replied, ‘very well, ma’am, we’ll do here very well, it is a very nice yard;’ and accordingly they sat down on the grass and ate the bread and butter and milk she gave them. Another squad in the same way took breakfast there. In the evening a man came, ragged and tired, looking for something to eat. Seeing a loaf of bread on the table he took it up. The lady said: ‘That is the last loaf I have.’ The man looked at her and said slowly: ‘Is that the last loaf of bread that you have? then I’ll not take it,’ and laid it on the window-sill. Seeing this, she asked him to take half. After pressing it upon him, he at length took a portion of it. This story is undoubtly true, as I obtained it from the lady herself, with whom I am intimately acquainted.”