CHAPTER VII.

How Ned Planned to Justify Bee's Faith in Him.

"I don't take prisoners at my table, Mr. Edgar," said Eli quietly, while the happy laughter died out of Bee's face and she looked bleakly at the two young men.

"But I thought the war was over," she cried. "Brother Eli, you said that when the Americans had York and Newark, Upper Canada would realize that she must change her flags, and the Canadian militia would all come in and give their paroles not to fight any more, and then they would go to their farms; and now they are all staying in the bush, and even Ned, who I thought had come in, says he hasn't. What are you going to do with him?"

"That is for you to say, Bee, you brought him in, and I presume you had better let him go out again. Some more coffee please, with lots of sugar."

Bee was very silent the rest of the meal, then she took Ned to see the baby, which Chloe was nursing. Betty asked Ned eagerly after her men; she was thinking too much of Percy, of whose whereabouts they knew nothing, to notice Ned's embarrassment as he answered her. Then Bee and Ned were out in the garden by themselves.

"What are you going to do?" Bee demanded.

"With your permission, Miss Bee, I will go to our men at Stony Creek, or near. They have no communication with Kingston, so I can join them, and hope for a chance to retrieve my good name."

"Yes, I understand, I suppose you must go on fighting," she answered with a wan smile. "Here is a bag of bread, and you have your gun. Good-bye."

Ned had a long lonely tramp along the lake shore, till one morning, it was June 6, he heard at dawn the roar of distant cannon, and knew the invaders had located, and were attacking Vincent. All that day he walked on steadily, feverishly eager to know how the fight had gone. The long summer day was ending, when he heard the sounds of many men near him in the gloom, though there was no smell of smoke or gleam of a camp-fire. Ned went on carefully, saw a redcoated sentry, was challenged by him, and was the next moment exuberantly greeted by Tim Kelly.

"Sure, and its the Swaddler's friend," Tim cried. "Are you asking if he's alive and well? Just swear a bit, me boy, and he'll be down on you immediate. No, we're not at Lake Champlain, we're here, breaking our hearts entirely marching through woods that last forever and ever. We left our women at Montreal, and have been getting through the forest ever since, talking in whispers and walking on our tiptoes. Barring the time we were at Kingston, we've never been able to light a fire, and my stomach's about dead with eating uncooked meat and things, and the Swaddler's real worried because he can't stop to wash his clothes; if he'd been a gentleman born, he couldn't hate being dirty more."

"Were you at Kingston long?" asked Ned with a great fear in his heart. He had meant to give an assumed name when he found the fighting force, but now this was impossible. And though Tim evidently knew nothing, his officers might.

"Just long enough for Ferguson to find a bunch of Swaddlers," said Tim carelessly. "Do you know, me boy, why the heathen here paint their faces?"

"I suppose it is their custom," Ned answered absently.

"It's because these woods are cruel hard on clothes, me boy, and when a man has only half of nothing left of his trousers he naturally paints to hide his blushes."

* * *

Ned was passed into the lines, where Percy met him, and the captain's greeting told him he was in no fear of discovery as yet. He was given food, and a large ration of whiskey, which he refused.

"Look here, young man," said the old sergeant severely, "do you know you're a fool? Going without drink's bad for a man's health, especially when like now he can't get proper cooked food. We don't want tee-total fanatics in the army, they'd break down on a hard march."

"Let him alone, Giles," said Percy's voice behind them in the dark. "Don't you know he is a Swaddler, like Ferguson? You know he never touches liquors, and he has not broken down through all this hard marching. I should imagine you would like more 'fanatics' like him, who never grumbles at anything, and stands the hardest work better than stronger looking men than himself."

"Stick to your Swaddling, Ned," Percy added, as the sergeant left them, "you'll have a lot of temptations here with us, but don't backslide--I think that is what you call it. You will do well for yourself if you keep steady, and you'll do that if you can keep to what you are now. Do you remember a man called Sells, on board the 'Lightfoot'? He had some education, but drink and wild living wrecked his life and he enlisted. He might have risen then, for he had the ability to lead men, but drink brought him into continual disgrace. He's at Kingston now, too degraded ever to rise again."

Ned was thankful it was too dark for Percy to see his face, and he was glad to be sent on to Ferguson, whose blanket he shared that night.

"It seems a long time since our first night in Canada," the Methodist said. "How is it with you? In all our hard marching I have seemed to be dwelling in the clefts of the Rock."

"You were at Kingston?" Ned asked, not knowing what to say. He longed to confide in Ferguson, yet dare not compromise him by letting him know his friend was legally an escaped criminal.

"Yes," Ferguson answered, "everything had a warlike appearance there--God and eternity forgotten. I asked if there were any Methodists in town, and a peddler told me of a militia captain who was also a class leader. The man spoke with a blush, for he had been one of our travelling preachers, but had backslidden, and taken up worldly work. Still he was very kind to me. He introduced me to the class leader captain, whose company was like 'a water brook to the panting hart'. I had been so long away from any who knew Canaan's language."

"I can't understand why our lives should be so hard to live some times," Ned spoke with a bitterness that surprised his friend.

"In the secret of His tabernacle did He hide me," said Ferguson quietly. "My great trouble on this march is the injury this army has done to the farmers on our way. We have plenty of meat, but not much else to eat, and the men will steal handfuls of garden stuff, or slip out and milk a cow. I have kept from touching anything that was not paid for, and God has given me favor in the sight of all. My comrades will not swear or steal in my presence, and any privilege I ask of my officers is readily granted."

Ned slept then till he was awakened by Ferguson's touch. All round tired men were sleeping heavily, but a wonderful dawn was flushing the sky above Lake Ontario, which was turning from dull gray to the tints of a pearl shell. Overhead the birds were calling, and Ferguson had risen in accordance with the discipline of his church, which bade a man rise an hour before his work compelled him to, to read the Bible on his knees, and pray. Ned had forgotten to pray since his life had been blasted by a traitor's lie, but now he knelt by Ferguson, thanking God for the young girl's kiss that had given him courage to face his world again.

And now for the chance to clear his name. At present communication with Kingston was almost impossible, and if he could win a name for bravery with Vincent, or with this column that was marching to his relief, it might influence the judges who had misjudged him so.

There was plenty of excitement in their marching the next few days. The Americans had discovered the column by now, and knew that they were going to join Vincent, so the ships constantly landed parties who lay in ambush. The regiment never saw its enemies, there would be a quick spatter of shot from the green cover, a man or two would fall, but the angry bayonet charge that was the prompt answer of the British found nothing but leaves to use their steel upon; the woodsmen from Kentucky were too quick to be caught by these heavy footed new-comers to the world of lake and bush.

So they came to the bay where to-day our city of Hamilton stands. Near by, in June, 1813, was the village of Stoney Creek, a straggling street, outlined by orchards. Beyond rose Burlington Heights, with the raw earthworks and log ramparts of Vincent's entrenchments, and the battle-frayed flag of England floating above them.

Stoney Creek had a little Methodist church, the first Ferguson or Ned had seen in the new world. The needs of war had pressed it for a hospital, and from its doors a joyful crowd of bandaged men, Archy among them, greeted the relief force.

"We're glad to see you all right," said Archy. "Though we wasn't in no hurry to get relieved. We beat the Yankees sure on June sixth, and fought some too. Them trees show that, I guess."

The trees did, to the men who were now among the orchards--great branches broken and trunks scarred everywhere by bullets. On June sixth the enemy had located Vincent, and knowing he was without artillery and almost out of powder, they landed three thousand men, who camped that night in the orchards of Stoney Creek. In the morning they meant to attack, and with the help of their ship's guns, capture Vincent's army before the relief column with abundance of ammunition arrived.

"Blamed foolish of them Yankees," said Archy. "They oughter have piled everything they've got on Kingston, and picked us up any old time. Chasing after us like they are, makes me think of a man trying to cut a tree down by taking an axe to its branches. Kingston's the trunk. If it fell it would mean Upper Canada was cut off totally."

"We had fourteen hundred men," put in another man, "and Colonel Harvey who did some fighting in Egypt with Bonaparte--and learned to know how to do a few things too--wanted a night attack, as we had no powder. He led it, and it was hot and heavy while it lasted, but cold steel made the enemy glad to get back to their ships. They started banging away, but Harvey and his men were back on the Heights, and the enemy went back to get reinforcements."

Then Archy saw Ned, and called to him to know how he came there. "I was lost in the bush several times, sir," Ned answered, hoping he did not look as guilty as he felt. "At last I fell in with the relief column. I tried to find you when I left York."

"Awful bad habit, Ned, this getting lost in the bush. When I got in here and reported myself to General Vincent, he asked me why I hadn't stayed with Sheaffe and gone to Kingston. I says, 'My memory's awful bad, General, I couldn't for the life of me remember if Kingston was east or west, so I got here; I guess some folks can't just help forgetting things.' And he laughed, 'cause I'd come in with the Indian who brought the note from Sheaffe saying he was to go to Kingston, and so he knew I knew that he meant to 'forget' to obey it."

So Ned slipped back to his old place in Archy's company, and was rather startled to find himself raised to sergeant. He worked hard at his duties, but he was oddly silent, and seemed to shrink away from his friends--so the men who knew him best, Ferguson, Archy, and the keen-eyed Percy, thought.

It was a long summer of guerilla warfare rather than battle. The enemy, with somewhat unwise generalship, wasted their forces trying to crush the elusive British army at the Burlington end of the lake; it dividing, uniting, and disappearing, trying to give the enemy the impression at least treble its numbers.

"Play a waiting game," said Harvey, who with Fitzgibbons, was the most daring and popular of the leaders. "Keep the enemy in complete ignorance of your numbers and movements, and know everything about him." It was possible to do this because the men who defended, had the woods to fall back on. When attacked they retreated, while their Indians hung on the enemy's flanks if they tried to follow, keeping his men awake all night with war-whoops, and playing on their nerves. Then the invader would fall back on the settlements, where the few men, and every woman and child was a spy for their men in the bush. The Americans came and went in sulky desolate York. They held full possession of the Niagara district, the oldest settled and richest part of Upper Canada. There they kept their men in strict order hoping to make these obstinate Canadians realize they were friends, but not even a child could be coaxed to give a "Yankee" any information, even of the most harmless kind.

Laura Secord, in the Niagara village of St. Davids, whose militia husband was a prisoner of war, cooked in her kitchen for the American officers who had quartered themselves in her house, and overheard their plans to trap Fitzgibbons. She passed the sentry at her door with a pail to milk her cow--and instead plunged into the bush, and walked twenty miles, reaching the men she sought utterly exhausted, but with the news that made them able to ambush the enemy, and win the little battle of Beaver Dam, on June twenty-fourth.

And because Laura Secord did only what almost every woman in Upper Canada would have done in her place, the United States did not conquer Canada.

A month after Beaver Dam, a party of officers were dining at Stoney Creek, which was still Vincent's headquarters. They were the guests of Archy, who had risen in rank in the bush fighting, but had not improved in grammar. The men were unkempt-looking after their rough living, and lack of many of the appendages of civilization. Only Percy wore his patched and shabby garments with an uneradicable air of neatness. He and Archy were close friends now, probably because in all outside matters they were entirely unlike. The party ate from silver plate, and tin dishes, at a table formed by setting two shutters on three barrels. Their fare was roast beef and venison in abundance, with a little dark bread, and a mess of mixed greens. War was pinching Upper Canada hard, her crops would be very scanty, and the government had already bought all the flour to be found, paying the sometimes unwilling settlers twenty dollars a barrel, which was considerably above the market price. Bread was selling at forty cents a large loaf, and scanty rations of flour were doled out to the army, who had to live mainly on meat, the farmers naturally refusing to sell vegetables, fruit, or butter at any price, for they had the winter to look forward to. The Indians brought in berries and edible greens, and nobody starved.

Archy was looking doubtfully at the brew his servant was pouring into cups. "This here, gentlemen," he said, "is birch bark tea. I don't think its poison, and I was so sick of those herb drinks that I thought I'd try it. If you don't like it, call it a horror of war."

Desert--a pot of cooked fruit, small peaches and apples, was on the table, with a jug of whiskey, and Percy said to the host. "I trust you came by that fruit honestly. Ferguson is wearing himself out trying to head off three thousand irresponsible vagabonds from picking up green fruit that doesn't belong to them. I often feel I am the most virtuous man in the camp, for except when I dine out, I know I get nothing to eat but what is paid for."

"It's starch you mean to steal, if you hear of any," said Archy, laughing.

Percy sighed as he looked at the limp frills of his shirt. "That is the worst thing I have to endure," he said. "If I hear of starch I shall certainly wait till Ferguson is intent on some other criminal and go out and steal it myself. Isn't that Ned Edgar over there? He is certainly making a good record for himself, though he always looks to me as if he had something on his mind."

Ferguson thought the same, and bewildered that Ned seemed avoiding him, he met him that afternoon by the desecrated chapel, and Ned could not escape speaking to him. Ferguson looked sadly into the building, for the bunks for the sick round its walls had been made of broken up pulpit, seats, and communion table. So war had ordered.

"I feel with Habakkuk," Ferguson remarked, "grieved for the Church lest when her carved work and hedges are broken down she should suffer loss. But the breaking up of a church building like this does not matter if the members are strong in the faith. We are to have a meeting to-night in Father Williams' barn. He is that aged saint who leans on his staff and worships. We also need some candles, and though the good sister who owns this orchard has plenty, she is prejudiced against soldiers, so I want you to go to see her, and--"

"I will ask the lady for the candles," said Ned in a constrained voice, "but I may not be at your meeting, I may have duties."

He was off then, before the astonished Ferguson could answer him. Four years in the army had given the Methodist a thorough knowledge of the things that lead many young men astray, but Ned avoided the reckless set among his comrades, as much as he was now keeping away from his Methodist friends; and the little soldier felt utterly at a loss.

Meanwhile Ned had gone to the big farm house belonging to the lady who owned the candles. She was middle-aged and militant looking and she regarded Ned coldly. "The regulars are stealing my fruit whenever my back is turned," she said, "and the militia have taken eighty fence rails for firewood. Pray what do you want here? Tell me at once, and don't be saucy."