CHAPTER VIII.

How Ned Had Many Adventures, and Bee Becomes a Woman.

Ned thought a man would have to be mad or very drunk before he could be saucy to such a lady, and he answered in his meekest voice, "We wanted to hold a prayer meeting, madam, and hoped you might be so good as to give us some candles."

"For the land's sake, a prayer meeting! Not but what you need them badly. But whoever is going to hold a prayer meeting? There isn't a chaplain of any sort here."

"We have a soldier preacher, madam, a Mr. Ferguson."

"What, not one of those soldiers?" Astonishment and unbelief were in the lady's tones.

"Yes, madam, he preaches very well too, and I hope you will come to hear him. He never steals apples or anything, for he is a Methodist. And while I admit he is a private in the ranks, still it doesn't do always to say 'Can any good come out of Nazareth?'"

She looked at him. His manner was certainly not what she would have looked for in a private soldier, and changing her attitude with feminine quickness, she said--"Come right in and sit down. Here's a pie right out of the oven and you must try it. Not hungry? Nonsense; men, especially soldiers, always are. Now, tell your Mr. Ferguson to call on me. If it isn't some trick of you boys I'll keep you in candles. I'm a Methodist myself, but its hard not to grow cold in religion when there's no church, and war's making everybody wild. My husband and three boys are all out with the militia--and they won't quit fighting while there's a Yankee in Canada. But it's hard on flesh and blood to see a farm like the one we had here going to wrack and ruin, without a man to do a hand's turn. But I shouldn't complain, my house is filled with officers, and they pay me well. And the cows, and the stuff the girls and me did get in, are doing splendid."

From the farm Ned went at once to Archy, to see if he couldn't be sent out again at once--to avoid meeting Ferguson--and found Percy there before him. "How'd you like to change into the regulars, Ned?" said Archy briskly. "I hate to lose you, for you're a kind of reliable--from that first hour when you were under fire at Humber Bay, you've been to be depended upon. But Captain Haslem's going with his company to try and steal some Yankee flour up Niagara way, and he'll take you, if you're willing, and its a good chance for you."

"You would have the rank of sergeant," said Percy, "and the position of 'Talk Man', as you call an Indian interpreter; for your captain says you studied the Indian dialects with your father last winter in York. Then we shall have no surgeon with us, and as Dr. Tam recommends you highly as an emergency one, I think you can be sure of getting a commission before six months are out."

Ned knew Ferguson had been assigned by Percy to duty with the commissariat and transport, which would keep him in Stoney Creek, so he thanked his friends and accepted. He set off that same day, one of seventy-five white men, with a dozen Indian scouts.

They reached the Niagara district, and lay low in the great forest that filled the back of the fertile peninsula between the lakes Erie and Ontario. Before them was the garden land of Canada, guarded by forts Erie and George, on the upper and lower lakes--and both alas held by the triumphant enemy--fronted by the deep gorge of the wild Niagara River. For the first time Ned heard the far-off awful roar of the great falls, and in a sense he was afraid, for he understood why the Indians said it was the voice of God.

But he had little time to think of the mysterious poetry of the Great Waters. The party were marching silently across Niagara in the night. Tiny lights, placed by brave women in farmhouse windows, told Percy all he needed to know, and so they crept down to the shore by Fort Erie, and seizing boats, put out, as a sentry challenged them.

"Provision boats from Buffalo," Percy answered instantly, and so they passed.

Across Niagara River twinkled the lights of Buffalo and Black Rock, and before them three ships laden with stores, loomed up dark as they lay at anchor. The first was boarded with a savage rush of excited men. In five minutes she was mastered, and scudding out into Erie, keeping the other ships between her and the guns of the fort till she was out of range.

At dawn the prize was lying in a little bay. She had landed part of the men, including Ned and the Indians, with a good portion of her cargo of flour, when the 10-gun "Hunter", one of the British war-fleet on Erie, came up. She was to take the boat and part of the stores to Detroit, that one bit of American soil to which Canada was clinging. She felt that she was not quite conquered while she held it, though her garrison there were very short of food.

So the war went on that summer, until it was September; and on Friday, the tenth of that month--a day to be marked in American histories--Betty sat in Susie's best room, feeling depressed. Susie was with her, but both women were silent, thinking of their husbands. Susie knew that Edgar had escaped, had got to Detroit, and then had heard no more, and so she worked and suffered as thousands of brave women did in that olden war. She had herself and her children to keep on what she could get from her garden and cows and poultry, for there was no possibility of getting food from outside. The Americans, honourable invaders all, though they knew the women in the country they occupied must be continually sending information to the men in the bush, yet would not punish the captive but unconquered, towns and villages. They had only burnt and plundered buildings owned by the government. But to Susie and Bettie, and many other women, the worst was the impossibility of knowing even if their men folk were living or dead.

* * *

One day Chloe was at the door beaming on them; a small ship had managed to run in from Kingston; her lading was ammunition for the men at the west end of the lake, but she had left a bundle of mail, and a woman in Quaker-like dress, at York. It was Mrs. Ferguson, who had just made the risky journey from Montreal, and she brought a note from Percy to his wife, asking Betty to keep her with herself, till his commanders would allow women to come where he and the others were fighting.

Betty welcomed her warmly, overjoyed to hear from her husband, and know him alive somewhere--though his letter had run the blockade to Montreal, and back again as far as York, before it reached her. She had sent letters by the same boat, hoping he would get them.

Then Betty read the letter from Sir John at Kingston. He did not mention Ned, so Bee was still the only one above Kingston who knew of the boy's disgrace. Sir John wrote--"Vere is steadying to his work like the Haslem and gentleman-born that he is. He is expecting promotion, and may be sent to Montreal. I have spoken to him of Bee, and like his spirit very much, for he is quite willing to overlook that she is penniless, and that her mother made a disgraceful marriage with an American. So I am hoping to arrange for you and Bee to travel to Kingston under a flag of truce. The enemy, in spite of their Infernal and Thrice Damnable Republicanism, seem to act like gentlemen whenever our women are concerned. So you can prepare Bee for her marriage soon. She is a wilful minx sometimes, but I am sure she will be overjoyed at the prospect of being Lady Haslem some day."

Betty was not so sure. She looked out into the fine rain that had begun to fall, while a south wind blew, and saw Bee racing home with the three Edgar boys. Then Bee was in the room, flushed and laughing, her eyes shining like stars, and her coarse homespun frock showing her strong young figure. That dress had been made from wool off Susie's sheep, spun and woven in York, for the women who made the holding of Canada possible in 1812, had to depend on themselves for clothing as well as food.

"You do look quite grown-up, Bee," said Betty. "Next thing you will be thinking of getting an establishment."

Bee knew that her world had no room for an unmarried woman, but she said nothing as Betty went on. "You could be very happy living with me--and I would love to keep you--while you are young and handsome--oh, yes, dear, you are that now--but when you grew old and faded and sour-tempered, like all unmarried women do, you would blame me for not helping you to get established while you were young enough."

"But nobody wants to marry me," murmured poor Bee, heartily wishing that girls did not have to grow up.

"Someone does, Bee, I know there has been a little against him, but I have just heard that he is retrieving himself splendidly. We women have to overlook very much in men, as long as they are not cowards."

Betty did not mention Vere's name, and Bee suddenly thought of Ned, poor Ned!--yet not so poor if a woman like Betty believed in his innocence. Knowing as she did what Sir John thought of her mother's marriage, she never dreamed that he thought of her (with an American father) as a future Lady Haslem, but confused at the idea of an establishment, even with Ned, she turned to ask Betty what she had heard of him. Then through the open window the damp wind brought the terrible sounds of far-off cannon, and they both forgot marrying and giving in marriage, as all that day, they and the other women in York listened with straining ears to catch the faint sounds that meant the men they loved might even then be dying among those thundering guns.

That day the most spectacular, if not the most important battle of the war was fought. In a last attempt to break the American hold on Lake Erie, and save Detroit from starvation, Barclay, one of Nelson's captains, with six ships and carrying light guns, put out against Perry, the young and daring American, with his nine ships, and doubly heavy cannon.

The American Lawrence, with her flag inscribed "Don't give up the ship," led into battle. It was a battle of seamanship. Barclay wished to fight at long range where the better marksmanship of his men might offset the heavier guns of his enemy, and Perry meant to come to close quarters. The Lawrence was soon a wreck, with only twenty men on board unhurt, and Perry transferring himself and his flag to the Niagara, through a storm of shot. Then with consummate seamanship he brought his fleet to where their broadsides "tore hulls clean of masts and decks," and Barclay surrendered the tiny British fleet--a drove of shattered, blood-drenched wrecks, laden with the mangled bodies of one-third of their crews.

"We have met the enemy, and they are ours," Perry wrote laconically to Congress, while the United States went wild with joy, and Washington Irving writing what his countrymen believed, said, "The last roar of the cannon that died along Lake Erie's shore was the expiring note of British domination on this continent."

But Canada didn't see it that way. Her people were sorry for the loss of the fleet, with the guns they could not possibly replace--and more sorry when Detroit fell, and two thousand more were added to the British prisoners of war in the States; but they thought it no reason for them to "give up the ship." So, while American newspapers raged against their stubbornness, they went on fighting as if nothing had happened.

Perhaps the results of the battle were more felt in England than Canada. There men realized that Perry's victory was really the victory of the best seaman, and it made them inclined to consider the wisdom of coming some day to an understanding with this arrogant young Republic, who seemed willing--and perhaps was able--to meet them on the seas they looked on as their own.

An American letter brought the news at last to York. It was to Bee, and told of Edgar being again a prisoner of war, and that Eli, seriously wounded in the lake fight, had been brought to Newark, and wanted his sister to come to him. So Bee and Betty, with the baby, and Chloe, and Mrs. Ferguson, sailed across Ontario. Betty was glad that it was not to Kingston; she was relieved at Bee's quiet acceptance of the plan to marry her cousin (as she supposed) but she did not want to hurry the marriage. Let Vere show himself to be a man indeed before this child was given him, she thought.

Bee had forgotten marriage all those weeks that her brother was in danger. She told him, "I can't marry an Englishman or Canadian, when they are trying to kill you."

"I'm not dead yet, Bee, and our father gave you to the Edgars, for your grandfather to claim, if he liked, because our mother was English. But who is wanting to marry you?"

Bee evaded the question, not feeling ready to tell him of Ned yet. She wondered where he was, fighting for his country, that was half hers, and to clear his name.

* * *

As for Ned, he was back at Stoney Creek again, hearing that over-cautious commanders had again ordered Vincent to retreat to Kingston, but instead Vincent was staying there, and sending the regiment that Ned had come out with, on the "Lightfoot". Murray, its colonel, was to fortify Twenty-mile Creek (now St. Catherines) and do all he could to "annoy the enemy" then holding Niagara.

Ferguson would go with the regiment, and the people of Stoney Creek, who had grown very attached to the soldier-preacher, and who thought Murray's advance foolhardy, as the Americans had six thousand in Niagara, came to church, to hear, as one pessimist said--"Mr. Ferguson preach his own funeral sermon."

Ferguson had overheard the words, and he repeated them as he stood, for the last time, in his scarlet regimentals, in the pulpit at Stoney Creek. Then he added in a voice that rang with all the power of a strong man's faith: "You may hear of George Ferguson falling on the field, but he will not be dead. You have it from his own lips that all is well with him. The sting of death is removed, and I know that if this tabernacle of my body be dissolved, I have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens."

* * *

Murray, carefully reckless, did annoy the enemy very much. McClure who commanded at Niagara, demanded more men to crush the enemy who was continually attacking his foraging parties. The American newspapers loudly declared that "It is a mistake to keep the war in Upper Canada. We could take Lower Canada without soldiers. We have only to lead officers into the lower province, and the disaffected people will rise round our standard."

Winter came early that year and two armies were preparing to invade Lower Canada. Hampton, with five thousand men, was ordered to bring stores by way of Lake Champlain and meet Wilkinson. This last general, with nine thousand men, was to run the rapids of the St. Lawrence, and make a dash for Montreal. Kingston would not dare, they thought, to diminish her scanty garrison by sending men down the river. Lake Champlain had been stripped of troops to aid Upper Canada, and Montreal had only a few hundred regulars. Every thing depended on the Lower Canada militia.

Late that October the French-Canadians came out. They blocked every road that Hampton could take, and at Chateauguay, under De Salaberry, on October twenty-fifth, an army entirely of militia and Indians ambushed in the woods, so demoralized Hampton's army, that he decided it was impossible to get through with his heavy baggage, and retreated.

Cold and much snow came with November, but Wilkinson did not mean to stop. On November fifth, the startled scouts on the Canadian side saw one of the most dramatic scenes of the whole war. Between its snow-covered banks the St. Lawrence was storming black through the Galops Rapids, the first below Kingston, and down that rush of dark water, flecked with spurts of white foam, hundreds of bateaux, splendidly handled, were shooting one after another, laden with thousands of blue-coated men.

But Kingston did not intend to remain idle. She sent eight hundred men with a battery, to do anything they could. They fired on, and followed the bateaux, which suffered some loss. The enemy being delayed by want of provisions, and the landing parties sent out to forage, found to their dismay that the French-Canadian farmers had fled, burning what stores they could not take with them, and driving off their cattle.

On November tenth, the invaders, suffering much with cold and hunger, had most of their force down the Long Sault. Two thousand men were still above that great rapid, when a terrific fire was opened on them from the bank. The only thing to do was to land and dislodge the enemy. So was fought the battle of Chrysler's Farm. Eight hundred men with two cannon, poured a hot fire from behind the stone farm fences, then rushed out, and charged the invaders with flashing bayonets. Leaving many behind them, the Americans retreated in confusion to the boats, and ran the rapids. Wilkinson had just heard of Hampton's defeat, and as his men were starving, and the fights at Chrysler's and Chateauguay had taught him the kind of "welcome" he would get from Lower Canada, he retired entirely.

* * *

An old gray-headed man had command of the tiny battery at Chrysler's--Sir John Haslem--and after the victory he went on to Montreal, where Vere, now a lieutenant, was stationed. Since Vere's escape through Ned's condemnation, he had lived carefully, attending to his duties, and very hard on the failings of those under him.

"Can't be medium in anything," grumbled Sir John as he stood in a Montreal ball-room on Christmas evening watching Vere dancing with a pretty French-Canadian girl. "A year ago he was slackness itself, now he seems to delight in detecting and punishing slackness in others."

"He'll die by a shot from his own men in some battle," said the man he spoke to, to himself, adding aloud, "Hullo, what's the matter?"

The music had stopped and a man coming in called to Vere: "Hell's broke loose on the Niagara frontier, and we're to leave for there to-night."