Such were some of the dreadful horrors with which a warfare between two kindred peoples was waged; and such were some of the costly sacrifices with which the liberties of Canada were won. As from the vantage ground of these happier times we look back upon the stern experiences of those iron days, they inspire a blended feeling of pity and regret, not unmingled with a vague remorse, shot through and through our patriotic pride and exultation, like dark threads in a bright woof. Through the long centuries of carnage and strife through which the race has struggled up to freedom, how faint has seemed the echo of the angel's song, "Peace on earth, good will to men."
"I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus,
The cries of agony, the endless groan.
Which, through the ages that have gone before us,
In long reverberations reach our own.
"Is it, O man with such discordant noises,
With such accursed instruments as these,
Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices,
And jarrest the celestial harmonies.
* * * * *
"Down the dark future, through long generations,
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease;
And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations
I hear once more the voice of Christ say, 'Peace!'
"Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals
The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies!
But beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise."
The result of the battle of Queenston Heights was the unconditional surrender of Brigadier Wadsworth and nine hundred and fifty officers and privates as prisoners of war. But this victory, brilliant as it was, was dearly bought with the death of the loved and honored Brock, the brave young Macdonnell, and those of humbler rank, whose fall brought sorrow to many a Canadian home.
"Joy's bursting shout in whelming grief was drowned,
And victory's self unwilling audience found;
On every brow the cloud of sadness hung,—
"The sounds of triumph died on every tongue."
Three days later all that was mortal of General Brock and his gallant aide-de-camp was committed to the earth with mournful pageantry. With arms reversed and muffled drums and the wailing strains of the "Dead March," the sad procession passed, while the half-mast flags and minute guns of both the British and American forts attested the honour and esteem in which the dead soldiers were held by friends and foes alike. Amid the tears of war-bronzed soldiers and even of stoical Indians they were laid in one common grave in a bastion of Fort George. A grateful country has since erected on the scene of the victory—one of the grandest sites on earth—a noble monument to the memory of Brock, and beneath it, side by side, sleeps the dust of the heroic chief and his faithful aide-de-camp—united in their death and not severed in their burial.
As Neville and the squire and Zenas turned away from the solemn pageant of which they had been silent spectators, the latter remarked,