Then placing the hook in her hand with a reverent respect, he raised her fingers to his lips. In a moment more he had vaulted on his steed, which stood champing its bit at the garden gate and was soon out of sight.
As, in the deepening twilight, Kate watched his retreating form, a feeling of vague apprehension, of she knew not what, filled her gentle breast. Was it a premonition of his impending doom?—a prescience that she should never behold him again.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE TRAGEDY OF WAR.
With the early dawn, Zenas rode off to join his militia company; which was summoned to repel the invasion. Loker and McKay were already in the field. They were all in the severe action at Chippewa. Captain Villiers distinguished himself by his heroic daring, and while heading a gallant charge, whereby he covered the retreat of the British, received a rather severe bayonet thrust in his leg. Binding his military scarf around the wound, he remained in his saddle till night, performing the arduous duties of commander of the rear-guard.
The three weeks following were weeks of toilsome marching and counter-marching beneath the burning July sun. More than once Zenas was within an hour's ride of home; but the pressing exigencies of a soldier's life prevented his making even a passing call on those whom he so much loved. He was forced to content himself with messages sent through Neville Trueman, whose sacred calling made him free of the lines of both armies. These messages were full of praise and admiration of the gallant Captain Villiers; and, accompanied by no stinted praise of his own, they were faithfully delivered by the young preacher.
"He will be Colonel before the war is over, I expect," said Neville, "and I am sure no man deserves it better. He is as gentle as he is brave. His treatment of the prisoners is kindness itself."
The Captain, although once at Fort George, commanding a re- enforcement of the garrison, was prevented by his military duties from riding the short three miles that lay between it and The Holms.
One day toward the latter part of July,—it was the twenty-fifth of the month, a day for ever memorable in the annals of Canada,— early in the morning a convoy of schooners and barges, filled with armed men, was seen by Katharine gliding up the Niagara River, their snowy sails gleaming beyond the fringe of chestnuts that bordered the stream. The Union Jack floating gaily at the peak, and the inspiring strains of "Britannia Rules the Waves" swelling on the breeze as the fleet approached, gave the assurance of welcome re-enforcements to the struggling army in the field. Running down to the bank, Katharine exultantly waved her handkerchief in welcome. The redcoats, who thronged the bulwarks, gave a rousing cheer in reply; and an officer in gold lace, with a white plume in his General's hat—who was no other than Sir George Gordon Drummond himself—gaily waved his handkerchief in return.
And right welcome those re-enforcements were that day. Disembarking at Queenston landing, and climbing the steep hill, they marched through smiling orchards and green country roads to the bloody field of Lundy's Lane, where many of them ended life's march for ever.