The night of the eighteenth of December was moonless and dark. A column of five hundred men of the Forty-First and Hundredth regiments, a grenadier company of the First Royals, and fifty militia, filed out of the portals of Fort George, bearing scaling ladders and other implements of assault, as silent, as ghosts. At the head marched the forlorn hope of twenty men, among whom were Captain Villiers, Zenas, and McKay. But each man, though he bore his life in his hand, walked proudly erect, as if with the assurance of victory, or of a reward more glorious than even victory. They marched several miles up the river to a spot where a crossing could safely be effected without discovery or interruption.

Now began the stealthy march on the devoted fort. Like an avenging Nemesis, shod with silence, the column approached the unconscious garrison. Every order was conveyed in a whisper. No clink of sabre, nor clatter of muskets was heard. The snow, which had begun to fall, muffled the tread and deadened each sound. The column wound on in the hush of midnight over the wintry waste, stealing like a tiger on its prey. The piquets, lulled into security by the storm, were avoided by a detour. Now amid the blackness of night, the deeper blackness of the fort loomed up. McKay and Zenas moved to the front beside Captain Villiers who whispered his commands. McKay silently led the way to the sally-port. A huge grenadier grasped the sentry by the throat to prevent his giving the alarm. The forlorn hope glided through the small opening of the sally-port, and, well instructed beforehand, rushed to the main gateway, overpowered the guard, and flung open the huge iron- studded gates. The British column now poured in, and before drum had rolled or bugle rung had reached the central quadrangle. The garrison awoke from slumber only to a futile struggle with an exasperated foe, and after a short resistance were compelled to surrender. In this assault the loss of the victors was only six men—a circumstance almost unparalleled in military annals—that of the vanquished unhappily was considerably greater.

Three hundred prisoners, three thousand stand of arms, and an immense quantity of stores were captured—the latter a great boon to the well-nigh famished people of the devastated town of Niagara. [Footnote: The writer was intimately acquainted with an old resident on the Niagara River, who in his youth had been a prisoner in the American fort, and formed part of the forlorn hope which aided in its capture. From him many interesting incidents of the war were learned.]

We would fain here close this record of retaliation. Enough had been done for British honour and for the punishment of the enemy. But when dread Bellona cries "Havoc," and slips the leashes of the hellish dogs of war, the instincts of humanity seem lost, and baptized men seem in danger of reverting to unredeemed savagery. Trueman expostulated, and pleaded, and prayed for a mitigation of the penalty inflicted on the vanquished, but in vain. In ruthless retaliation for the burning of Niagara, the British ravaged the American frontier, and gave to the flames the thriving towns of Lewiston, Manchester, Black Rock, and Buffalo. At the latter place, an American force, two thousand strong, made a stout resistance, but was defeated, with the loss of four hundred men, by the British, with only one-third the number of troops, December 30.

Thus the holy Christmas-tide, God's pledge of peace and good-will toward men, rose upon a fair and fertile frontier scathed and blackened by wasting and rapine, and the year went out in "tears and misery, in hatred and flames and blood."

The marks of recent conflict were everywhere visible, and—saddest evidence of all—was the multitude of soldiers' graves whose silent sleepers no morning drum-beat should arouse forever. The peaceful parish church of Niagara had been turned into a hospital, where, instead of praise and prayer, were heard the groans of wounded and dying men. Everything in fact gave indications of military occupation and the prevalence of the awful reign of war.

Seldom has the frightful destructiveness of war been more strikingly illustrated. The commerce of the United States was completely crippled by the blockade of her ports, her revenue falling from $24,000,000 to $8,000,000. Admiral Cockburn, of the British Navy, swept the Atlantic coast with his fleet, destroying arsenals and naval stores wherever his gun-boats could penetrate. Great Britain also recovered her old prestige in more than one stubborn sea-fight with a not unworthy foe. On a lovely morning in June, the United States frigate "Chesapeake," of forty-nine guns, stood out of Boston harbour amid the holiday cheers of a sympathizing multitude, to answer the challenge to a naval duel of H. M. S. "Shannon," of fifty-two guns. They were soon locked muzzle to muzzle in deadly embrace, belching shot and grape through each other's sides, while the streaming gore incarnadined the waves. The British boarders swarmed on the "Chesapeake's" deck, and soon, with nearly half his crew killed or wounded, she struck her colours to the red-cross flag. In five days the shattered and blood-stained vessels crept together into Halifax harbour, the American captain, the gallant Lawrence, lying in his cabin cold in death; the British commander, the chivalric Broke, raving in the delirium of a desperate wound. The slain captain was borne to his grave amid the highest honours paid to his valour by a generous foe. Amid the roar of Broadway's living tide, beneath the shadow of old Trinity Church, a costly monument commemorates his heroic and untimely death. A few days later, the British brig "Boxer," of fourteen guns, surrendered to the U. S. brig "Enterprise," of sixteen guns. In one quiet grave, overlooking Casco Bay, beside which the writer, one sunny summer day, meditated on the vanity of earthly strife, their rival captains lie buried side by side. Some kindly hand had decked their graves with tiny flags, which in sun and shower had become dimmed and faded; and planted fair and innocent flowers which breathed their beauty and fragrance amid the shadows of death. So fade and pass away the false and transient glory of arms. So bloom and flourish in immortal beauty the supernal loveliness of virtue and piety.

It is a relief to turn away from these scenes of war and bloodshed to the record of human affection and heroic self-sacrifice and devotion.

George Morton, the faithful Canadian patriot, crippled, impoverished, sick at heart, and despairing of ever claiming Mary Lawson as his bride, returned after the burning of his native town to the ashes of his ruined home to begin life over again. A partial indemnity from the Government enabled him to resume business on a modest scale, which, by thrift and industry, grew and increased with the gradual growth of the town. Ensign Roberts was among the slain at the taking of the Fort, and Mr. Lawson's property was destroyed by the conflagration that followed. The old man, broken by his losses and by exposure, gradually sunk, and died, Mary nursing him devotedly to the last. After years of delay the love of the no longer youthful pair found its consummation in a happy marriage, followed by a calmly tranquil wedded life.

"Although this cruel war," whispered George to his bride upon their wedding-day, "has robbed us of all our own worldly wealth, has cost you your father, and has left me a cripple for life, yet it could not take from us the priceless wealth of our affection."

"Nay, dear heart," she replied, "the long trial of our love has purified it from earthly dross, and proved it the type of love immortal in the skies."

In after years, to children and to children's children on his knees, George Horton used often to recount the perils of those fearful scenes of war and wasting; but no theme was more pleasing to himself and to his youthful auditory, while the comely matron in her mature beauty blushed at the praise of her own heroism, than the episode of the fair Mary Lawson's midnight adventure in the ice on the Niagara, in the terrible winter of the war.



CHAPTER XIV.

TORONTO OF OLD.

The state of religion in Canada could not be expected to be prosperous during the prevalence of the demoralizing influences of war. The Methodist circuit work, as well as the work of other denominations, was very much disorganized. It was, from the interruption of intercourse caused by the unnatural conflict, without any supervision of the American Conference by which the Canadian preachers had been stationed. They were consequently left to their own resources to carry on their work as best they could, and most of them struggled bravely, like Neville Trueman, the example we have selected for illustration, against the various obstacles in their way—the recklessness and spiritual indifference begotten by the war—and the unjust and cruel suspicions and aspersions to which they were themselves subject.

The Rev. Henry Ryan, as Presiding Elder of the Upper Canada District—extending from the banks of the St. Lawrence to the banks of the St. Clair—endeavoured, by frequent journeyings throughout the vast field, to encourage both preachers and people in carrying on the work of God, amid the disheartenments and difficulties of the times. The Rev. Ezra Adams, in his recollections of the period, says, "He used to travel from Montreal to Sandwich, holding Quarterly Meetings: to accomplish which, he kept two horses at his home at the Twenty Mile Creek, and used one on his trip from the Niagara Circuit on his down country route; the other he used on his Sandwich route."

Supplementing this statement with additional facts, the Rev. Dr. Carroll, in his invaluable "History of Canadian Methodism," further remarks: "As his income was very small and precarious, he eked out the sum necessary to support his family by selling a manufacture of his own in his extensive journeys, and by hauling, with his double team in winter time, on his return route from Lower Canada, loads of Government stores or general merchandise." Such were the shifts to which Methodist preachers had to resort in order to sustain themselves in a work which they would not desert. Mr. Ryan, by his loyalty, gained the confidence and admiration of all friends of British supremacy, and, by his abundant and heroic labours, the affections of the God-fearing part of the community. During the progress of the war he held three Conferences, one as we have seen at St. David's; another, in 1813, at Matilda; and a third, the following year, at the old Methodist settlement of the Bay of Quinte.

After the burning of Niagara, and the complete disorganization of his circuit by the border strife, Neville Trueman sought an interview with his Presiding Elder during one of his periodical visits to the town of York. In consequence of the military exigencies of the times, navigation was maintained across the lake by armed brigs and schooners during the greater part of the winter. Taking advantage of one of these trips, Neville obtained permission from the military authorities to take passage in the armed schooner Princess Charlotte to York. The voyage was tedious and the weather bleak, so he suffered severely from the cold. As York harbour was frozen over, he landed on the ice and made his way to the twice-captured capital. It presented anything but a striking appearance, unless for dreariness and ruin. The half-burned timbers of the Parliament Building, Jail, and Court- House, showed in all their hideous blackness through the snow that failed to conceal beneath its mantle of white the desolation of the scene. In its most flourishing estate before the war, the town hardly numbered some nine hundred inhabitants, whose residences, for the most part humble wooden structures, were grouped along the loyally-named King Street, near the river Don. At the western extremity of the straggling town were the ruin-mounds of the fort, rent and torn by the terrific explosion of its magazine. On the banks of the Don, and commanding the bridge across that sluggish stream, as though the enemy thought it not worth the trouble of destroying, stood a rude log blockhouse, loop-holed for musketry, the upper story projecting over the lower, after the manner of such structures. [Footnote: A cut of this is given in "Lossing's Field Book of the War."]

Neville proceeded to the hospitable house of Dr. Stoyles, on King Street, near the intersection of the little-used road leading to the country,—Yonge Street, now the great artery of the circulation of the city. Till the erection of the first humble meeting-house, the Methodist preaching was often held in Dr. Stoyles' house. That gentleman also gave a cordial welcome to the travelling preachers of the day, and here Trueman found, as he expected, Presiding Elder Henry Ryan.

The following is the account given by Dr. Scadding, our Canadian historiographer and antiquarian, in his charming book "Toronto of Old," of the mother Church of Methodism in this goodly city, the parent of the fair sisterhood which now adorn its streets: "The first place of public worship of the Methodists was a long, low, wooden building, running north and south, and placed a little way back from the street. Its dimensions were forty by sixty feet. In the gable end towards the street were two doors, one for each sex. Within, the custom obtained of dividing the men from the women; the former sitting on the right hand on entering the building, the latter on the left."

The learned Doctor then goes on to illustrate historically the separation of the sexes in places of public worship, from the time of the Jews and the primitive church down to the modern Greek Church, so that at least the early Methodists had good precedent for their usage.

This old church was situated on the south side of King Street, on the corner of Jordan Street, so named from Mr. Jordan Post, the pioneer goldsmith of the capital, while the street in the rear commemorates the name of Melinda, his wife. When the Adelaide Street Church, which, for the time, was a very imposing brick structure, was built on what was then the public square, the old mother church was converted into a "Theatre Royal,"—to what base uses must we come!

All this, however, at the time of which we write, was still in the future; and Elder Ryan preached and prayed and exhorted to a little company in the worthy Dr. Stoyles' great kitchen, which was employed for that purpose as being the most commodious room in the house. It was the day of small things for Methodism in the capital of Upper Canada. But of the religious zeal of the little company of believers, we may judge from the fact that several of the members of the society came from two to eight miles, through the proverbially wretched roads of "Muddy York," to the class meeting. [Footnote: Carroll's "Case and his Cotemporaries," Vol. II., p. 167.]



CHAPTER XV.

A QUARTERLY MEETING IN THE OLDEN TIME.

Having enjoyed the counsels and encouragements of his Presiding Elder, Neville gladly embraced the invitation to ride with him in his substantial sleigh, well filled with wheat straw, on which they sat, to the village of Ancaster, where a grand Quarterly Meeting was to be held, to which the people came for many miles around. Religious privileges at that time were few, and these occasions were made the most of by the Methodists of the day. There was preaching on the Saturday; then a business meeting, when the contributions of the several classes were received. Of money there was very little; but promises of contributions of flour, pork, potatoes, hay and oats were gladly received instead.

On Saturday night a rousing prayer-meeting was held in the log meeting-house. Fervent exhortations were given, for the preachers looked for immediate results of their labours, and they were not disappointed Several of the brethren and sisters "got happy," and expressed their religions enjoyment in hymns and spiritual songs often of rugged rhythm, but, sung with fervour as they were, they seemed to bear up the soul as on wings to the very gate of heaven. Most of these hymns had a refrain of simple yet striking melody, in which every one in the house took part. A great favourite was the following:

"O the house of the Lord shall be filled With glory, hallelujah! With glory, hallelujah! With glory, hallelujah! Amen

"Let the preachers be filled with thy love. Sing glory, hallelujah! etc.

"Let the members be filled with thy love, Sing glory, hallelujah! etc.

"And the work of the Lord shall revive, Sing glory, hallelujah! Amen!"

The tide of religious feeling rose higher and higher. The standing invitation of Methodism to weary souls seeking the forgiveness of their sins, was given. Several persons presented themselves at the "penitent bench," most of whom were enabled to rejoice in a sense of conscious pardon.

Sunday was indeed a "high day" at the old Ancaster log meeting- house. From near and far, in sleighs, on horseback, and on foot, came methodist worshippers, and found hospitable welcome with the families of the neighbourhood. First there was love-feast at nine o'clock. The cruel war had not left unscathed that rustic congregation. There were rusty weeds of woe,—a black ribbon, a bit of crape, or a widow's cap,—that bore witness to the loss of husband or son in the sad conflict. The empty sleeve, pinned across the breast of one stout young fellow, showed that the strong right arm with which he had hoped to fight his battle of life, and hew out a home in the wilderness, had been buried in a gory trench with the bodies of his slain friends and neighbours.

But their temporal sufferings seemed to have driven these simple- minded people nearer to the source of all comfort and consolation. Many of the experiences and hymns had quite a martial ring. One of the latter was as follows:

"Ye soldiers of Jesus, pray stand to your arms. Prepare for the battle, the Gospel alarms. The signal of victory, hark! hark! from the sky; Shout, shout, ye brave armies, the watchmen all cry, Come with us, come with us, Come with us in love, Let us all march together to Heaven above.

"To battle, to battle, the trumpets do sound, The watchmen are crying fair Zion around; Some shouting, some singing, salvation they cry, In the strength of King Jesus, all hell we defy. Come with us," etc.

As this was taken up by one after another and welled into a grand chorus, it was impossible not to share the enthusiasm that it created. Another prime favourite was the following:

"Jesus, my king, proclaims the war; I want to die in the army; Awake, the powers of hell are near, I want to die in the army.

"'To arms! to arms!' I hear the cry, 'Tis yours to conquer or to die,' O the army, the army, the army of the Lord! I want to die in the army."

The god-fearing Canadian yeomanry, as they sang these strains, nourished at once their religious feelings and their patriotic enthusiasm. They felt in their hearts that love of King and country, and their valiant defence and self-sacrifice on their behalf, were also an acceptable service to God.

After the love-feast was a short intermission, during which a luncheon of seed-cakes, comfits and doughnuts were eaten as a preparation for the after service. Elder Ryan, whose warm, emotional Irish nature had been deeply affected by the experiences of the love-feast, preached one of his most spirit-stirring sermons. It was like the peal of a clarion calling to the battle of Armageddon the warriors of God against the powers of darkness. He was interrupted, but not the least disconcerted, by exclamations of "Amen!" "Hallelujah!" "Praise the Lord!" They seemed rather to give wings to his eloquence, for soaring in still loftier flights of eloquence.

After the sermon the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered to those devout worshippers. By these sacred ordinances, amid the carking cares and tribulations of the present life, were kept in view the far more important realities of the life that is to come, and the souls of the people were enbraved and strengthened for the conflicts, both literal and figurative, to which they were called.



CHAPTER XVI

THE PROTRACTED MEETING.

The day after the Quarterly Meeting, Elder Ryan drove to his home if home it could be called, where he spent not one-tenth part of his time—at the Twenty Mile Creek. Neville who travelled thus far with him, thought nothing of the twenty miles walk to the Holms, where he had left his horse.

One of his plans for the spiritual welfare of his scattered flock, was the holding of a series of protracted meetings at the various settlements. One of these was held at the wooden school-house of the little hamlet of Queenston. An old pensioner of the Revolutionary War had gathered a few children together and taught them their catechism, and as much of "the Three R's" as he knew. He was a staunch Churchman, but had a friendly feeling to the Methodists, because Mr. Wesley had been himself a clergyman of the Established Church.

The meeting awakened a deep and wide-spread interest. The awful scenes of carnage and death, of which the little village and its immediate vicinity had been the theatre, seemed to have brought the realities of another world more vividly before the moral consciousness of the community. Moreover there were few families that had not lost some friend or acquaintance, or perchance—

A nearer One atill, and a dearer One yet than all other.

Under these chastening influences many hearts were peculiarly open to the reception of divine truth. The gracious invitations of the Gospel, and the warnings and admonitions of the Law, were alike faithfully and affectionately urged by the young preacher. It was a characteristic of the preaching of the times that it had in it a strong back-bone of doctrine. It was very different from the boneless jelly-fish-like preaching we sometimes hear,—vague and indefinite, without a single clear conception from beginning to end.

A very profound impression was made by one sermon especially, on a subject on which Neville seldom preached, but which on this occasion was strangely impressed upon his mind. The text was that sublime Scripture and its context: "And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them."

The solemn impression of the sermon was greatly deepened by the singing, to a weird wailing sort of tune, of the hymn which followed. The hymn, whose majesty of imagery—a majesty derived from the Scriptures themselves—and whose resonant cadence gave it much of the character, in English, of the sublime Dies Irae, in Latin, was as follows:—

"The chariot! the chariot!—its wheels roll in fire, As the Lord cometh down in the pomp of His ire; Lo! self-moving, it drives on its pathway of cloud, And the heavens with the glory of God-head are bowed.

"The trumpet! the trumpet! the dead all have heard, Lo! the depths of the stone-covered charnel are stirred! From the sea, from the earth, from the south, from the north, All the vast generations of men are come forth.

"The judgment! the judgment!—the thrones are all set, Where the Lamb and the white-vested elders are met! There all flesh is at once in the sight of the Lord, And the doom of eternity hangs on His word."

A picket of soldiers was billeted in the village, several of whom attended the meeting ostensibly for the purpose of making game of the "Yankee preacher." But such was the intense earnestness of the man and the spiritual power that attended his message, that all attempts to "make game" of the services were soon abandoned, and not a few who "came to mock remained to pray."

A deep seriousness pervaded the entire neighbourhood. The usual winter amusements and dancing parties were, to a great extent, forgone—and even the utilitarian paring bees in the great farm kitchens were shorn of much of the fun and frolic and divinings of the future by means of apple-parings thrown over the left shoulders, or apple-seeds roasted on the hearth. The present was felt to be too sad, and the future too full of foreboding to encourage fore-readings of the book of fate. The great revival was the subject of fireside conversation at many hearths, and of deep questionings in many hearts. Some of the most notorious ill-livers of the neighbourhood had experienced the emancipating spell of the Truth that maketh free, and were no longer the slaves of vice and drunkenness.

Katharine Drayton pondered these things in her heart. She was conscious of many good impulses, and her life had been marked by many generous and noble traits. But she felt in her inmost soul that these alone would not suffice. She could not from her heart repeat the words which she often sang in the congregation with her lips,—

"Jesus, thy Blood and Righteousness, My beauty are, my glorious dress; 'Midst flaming worlds in these array'd. With joy shall I lift up my head.

"Bold shall I stand in thy great day, For who aught to my charge shall lay? Fully absolved through these I am, From sin and fear, from guilt and shame."

She still felt an aching yearning of her soul for a perfect sympathy that she had never known since her mother died. Often as a little child, in some childish grief or trouble, she had flung herself on that loving mother's bosom and wept out her sorrow there. And now, with the burden of the dreadful war impending like a hideous night-mare on her soul; with her constant foreboding and solicitude for her brother, so thoughtless—nay reckless in his daring—a yearning for his soul's immortal welfare, if he should be stricken down untimely, even more than for his body, she felt a deep soul-longing for—she knew not what—but for some support and succour for her filtering spirit. She knew not that it was the wooing of the Celestial Bridegroom for the young love of her soul; that it was the voice of the Heavenly Father, saying, "Daughter, give me thy heart."

One night, heavy with a weight of care, and full of vague yet terrible apprehensions of the future, she flung herself upon her pillow and bursting into tears, sobbed out the pitiful cry, "O mother, mother! see thy sorrowing child." As she lay sobbing on the pillow, she seemed to hear a voice of ineffable sweetness, whispering to her soul the words of a familiar Scripture: "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort thee."

The holy words inspired a sense of hope and confidence in her soul, and led her to lift up her heart in prayer to that loving Saviour who hath promised to send the Comforter to them that mourn. As she knelt in prayer in her little chamber, the moonlight flooding with radiance her white-robed form like the exquisite picture described in Keats' St. Agnes' Eve, and pound out her whole soul to God, she felt the sweet assurance of acceptance filling her heart as the Master said once more: "Daughter, be of good cheer, thy sins are all forgiven thee."

She felt, however, that if she would experience the fulness of that Divine comfort she must not seek to hide it in her heart, but confess it before men. And from this she experienced an involuntary shrinking. Her nature was one susceptible of great depth and tenderness of feeling, but it was also one constitutionally reserved and sensitive. She knew, moreover, that such an act as joining the Methodists would be exceedingly distasteful to her father, whom she loved with a deep and impassioned affection. He had made the Methodist preachers welcome to his house with the characteristic hospitality of a Virginia gentleman, and because he respected their character and work; but he himself retained his allegiance to the Church of England, which he seemed to think identified with his fealty to the King.

Almost unconsciously the thought of Captain Villiers obtruded itself into Katharine's mind, not without some misgivings as to his opinion of the course which she felt to be her duty. Not that for a moment she entertained the thought of any right on his part to influence her performance of duty, or of any purpose on hers to be influenced by him.

Accompanied by her brother Zenas, Kate, on the next evening, attended the protracted meeting. The school-house was crowded. Towards the close of the service, those who had, since the last meeting, accepted the yoke of Christ, were asked to confess Him. "That," thought Kate, "means me; but how can I do it?" She had never even dreamt of speaking in public. It seemed impossible. But she heard the words sounding in her ears, "Whosoever will confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father which is heaven." Necessity seemed laid upon her; yet she shrank from the ordeal.

At this moment a pure, sweet, contralto voice began to sing with great fervour of expression, which gave assurance of the deep feeling with which the words were uttered, a hymn of rather uncouth rhythm, with an oft-repeated refrain which, however, thrilled many a heart. It ran as follows:—

"Come, ye that love the Lord, Unto me, unto me; Come, ye that love the Lord, Unto me; I've something good to say About the narrow way, For Christ the other day Saved my soul, saved my soul— For Christ the other day saved my soul."

"He gave me first to see What I was, what I was; He gave me first to see What I was. He gave me first to see My guilt and misery And then He set me free. Bless His name, bless His name, And then He set me free, bless His name!"

As if constrained by a spell-like influence, Kate rose to her feet, and in a modest but clear and concise manner made her confession of filial trust in the Saviour, and of conscious adoption as His child. When this young and timid girl had thus taken up the cross of confession, others were emboldened to follow her example. One after another paid their tribute of thanksgiving, while at intervals glad songs of praise welled forth from greatful hearts. Some of these, great favourites at the time, are now almost unknown. A general characteristic of these songs was a simple refrain, first sung as a solo, but gradually taken up by one after another, till a grand chorus rose and swelled like the organ chant of the winds among the neighbouring pines. One of these, sung to an exultant measure, ran thus:—

"O brothers, will you meet us On Canaan's heavenly shore? O brothers, will you meet us Where parting is no more?"

CHORUS.—"Then we'll march around Jerusalem, We'll march around Jerusalem, We'll march around Jerusalem, When we arrive at home."

Another, of touching pathos—with tears, as it were, in every line, and often bringing tears of greatful emotion to many an eye, sung as it was to a sweet plaintive air—ran thus:—

"Saw ye my Saviour? Saw ye my Saviour? Saw ye my Saviour and God? Oh! He died on Calvary, To atone for you and me, And to purchase our pardon with blood.

"There interceding, there interceding? Pleading that Burners might live— Crying, 'Father! I have died! Oh! behold My hands and side! O forgive them, I pray Thee, forgive."

Another, of similar strain, thus set forth in a sort of recitative the story of the resurrection of our Lord:—

"Oh, they crucified my Saviour, They crucified my Saviour, They crucified my Saviour, And they nailed Him to the cross.

"Then Joseph begged His body, etc., And he laid it in the tomb.

"Oh, the grave it could not hold Him, etc., For He burst the bars of death.

"Then Mary came a-running, etc., A-looking for her Lord.

"Oh, where have you laid Him, etc., For He is not in the tomb.

"Oh, why stand ye gazing? etc., Oh, ye men of Galilee?

"Don't you see Him now ascending! etc., There to plead for you and me.

"By-and-by we'll go to meet Him, etc., Where pleasures never fade."

While the incomparably superior lyrics of Wesley and Watts were generally sung in the public service of the Sabbath, when the preacher gave out the hymns from the book; yet these simpler and ruder strains were the greater favourites at the revival meeting. By these the godly forefather's of Methodism in Canada nourished their souls and enbraved their spirits for the heroic work in which they were engaged, of consecrating the virgin wilderness to God.



CHAPTER XVII.

HEART TRIALS.

"Well, Kate," said Zenas, as he and his sister rode homeward through the solemn moonlight and starlight, "You have burned your boats and broken down the bridge. There is no going back."

"I hope not, Zenas," she replied, "but I feel very much the need of going forward. I have only made the first step yet."

"Well, you've started on the right line, anyhow. It was a plucky thing to do. I did not think it was in you. You are naturally so shy. I wish I could do the same myself, but I haven't the courage."

"Don't think of yourself, Zenas, nor of your comrades; but of the loving Saviour who died for you and longs to save you."

"Upon my word, Kate, it made me feel more what a coward I am to see you standing before the whole meeting than all the preaching I ever heard."

"I felt that I ought, that I must," said Kate, "but after I rose I forgot every one there and spoke because my heart was full. O Zenas, just give up everything for Jesus; be willing to endure anything for Jesus; and you'll feel a joy and gladness you never felt before. Why, the very world seems changed, the stars and the trees, and the moonlight on the river were never so beautiful; and my heart is as light as a bird."

"I wish I could, Kate. I remember I used to feel something like that about Brock. I could follow him anywhere. I could have died for him."

"Well, that feeling is ennobling. But much nobler is it to enlist under the Great Captain, the grandest teacher and leader the world ever knew; and what is better far, the most loving Saviour and Friend."

With such loving converse, the brother and sister beguiled the homeward way. As Kate retired to her room a sweet peace flooded her soul as the moonlight flooded with a heavenly radiance the snowy world without. Zenas, on the contrary, was ill at ease, and tossed restlessly, his soul disturbed with deep questionings of the hereafter, during much of the night.

As Kate sat at the head of the table next morning, where her mother had been wont to sit, some of her dead mother's holy calm and peace seemed to rest upon her countenance. So thought her father as he looked upon her.

"How like your mother you grow, child," ha said when all the rest had left the table.

"Do I, father? I hope I shall grow like her in everything. I have learned the secret of her noble life. I have found her best friend," and she modestly recounted her recent experiences.

Little more then passed, but a few days afterwards, the Squire took occasion, when he was alone with his daughter, to say, "I hope you are not going to join those Methodists, Kate. I respect religion as much as any one; but I think the Church of your father ought to be good enough for you. You've always been a good girl. I don't see the need of this fuss, as if you had been doing something awful. Besides," he went on, a little hesitatingly, as if he were not quite sure of his ground, "besides it will mar your prospects in life, if you only knew it."

"I don't understand you, father," replied Kate, with an expression of perplexity. "You have always thought too well of me. I know my life has been very far from right in the eyes of God. I feel I need pardon as much as the worst of sinners."

"Of course we're all sinners," went on the old man. "The Prayer Book says that. But then Christ died to save sinners, you know; and I'm sure you never did any thing very bad. But what I mean is this: You must be aware that you have made a deep impression upon Captain Villiers, and no blame to him either. He is an honourable gentleman, and he has asked my permission to pay his addresses. I asked him to wait till this cruel war is over, because while it lasts a soldier's life is very uncertain, and I did not wish to harrow up your feelings by cultivating affections which might be blighted in their bloom. Nay, hear me out, child," he continued, as Kate was about to reply," I did not intend to speak of this now, but the Captain is a strict Churchman, and so were his ancestors, he says, for three hundred years, and he would not, I am sure, like one for whom he entertains such sentiments as he does toward you, to cast in her lot with those ranting Methodists."

Kate had at first blushed deeply, and then grew very pale. She however listened to her father patiently, and then said quietly, but with much firmness, "I respect Captain Villiers very highly, father; and am very grateful for his kindness to us all, and especially to Zenas when he was wounded. I feel, too, the honour he has done me in entertaining the sentiments of which you speak. But something more than respect is due to the man to whom I shall entrust my life's keeping. Where my heart goes, there will go my hand; there, and not elsewhere."

"Pooh! pooh, child. Girls are always romantic, and never know their own mind. You will think better of it. I'm getting to be an old man, Kate, and would not like to leave you unsettled in life in these troublous times. You owe me your obedience as a daughter, remember?"

"I owe you my love, my life, father, but I owe something to myself, and more to God. I feel that my taste and disposition end that of Captain Villiers are very different, and more different than ever since the recent change in my religious feelings. It would be at the peril of my soul, were I to encourage what you wish."

"Nonsense, girl. You are growing fanatical. You never disobeyed me before. You must not disobey me now."

Kate smiled a wan and flickering smile of dissent; but to say more she felt would be fruitless. A heavy burden was laid upon her young life. She knew the iron will that slumbered beneath her father's kind exterior; but she felt in her soul a will as resolute, and with a woman's queenly dignity she resolved to keep that soul-realm free. In her outward conduct she was more dutiful and attentive to her father's comfort than ever; but she felt poignantly that for the first time in her life an injunction was laid upon her by one who she so passionately loved which she could not obey. She found much comfort in softly singing to herself in that inviolate domain, the solitude of her own room, a recent poem which she had clipped from the York Gazette, and which, in part, expressed her own emotions:—

"Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow Thee; Naked, poor, despised, forsaken, Thou, from hence, my all shalt be; Perish every fond ambition, All I've sought and hoped and known, Yet how rich is my condition! God and heaven are still my own!

"And while Thou shalt smile upon me, God of wisdom, love, and might, Foes may hate, and friends may shun me Show Thy face and all is bright. Go, then, earthly fame and treasure! Come disaster, acorn, and pain! In Thy service, pain is pleasure; With Thy favour, loss is gain.

"Man may trouble and distress me, Twill but drive me to Thy breast; Life with trials hard may press me, Heaven will bring me sweeter rest. O 'tis not in grief to harm me, While Thy love is left to me; O 'twere not in joy to charm me, Were that joy unmixed with Thee."



CHAPTER XVIII.

CHIPPEWA AND LUNDY'S LANE.

During the remainder of the winter the domestic history of the household at The Holms was unmarked by any incidents. The discharge of her homely duties and kindly charities to the people of the devastated village of Niagara who still lingered in the neighbourhood engrossed all the time and energies of Katharine Drayton. These wholesome activities prevented any morbid breedings or introspections, and furnished the best possible tonic for the strengthening of her moral purposes. Captain Villiers found frequent opportunities of visiting The Holms. His manner to Kate was one of chivalric courtesy; but, with a self-imposed restraint, he studiously endeavoured to repress any manifestation of tender feelings. Kate was cordial and kind, but as studiously avoided giving an opportunity for the manipulation of such feelings had it been contemplated.

Neville Trueman was engaged in special religious services night after night for nearly the whole winter at several appointments of his circuit. The revival influence seemed to widen and deepen as the weeks went by. He often called to invite Zenas to these meetings. At times the young man seemed strangely subdued and docile, and Neville rejoiced over what he considered the yielding of his will to the hallowed influences of the good Spirit of God. At other times he seemed wilful and wayward, or even petulant and testy, giving evidence of the resistance of his human will to the Divine drawings of which he was the subject. At such times the faith of Neville was sorely tried; but his patience and forbearance were never exhausted, and the sisterly affection and tenderness of Katharine were redoubled. Zenas would then break out into self-upbraidings and self-reproaches; and Kate, not knowing what to say, said little, but, in the solitude of her chamber, prayed for him all the more.

"Kate, you're an angel and I'm a brute," he said one day after one of these exacerbations of temper; "I don't see how you can bear with me."

"Bear with you, Zenas!" she replied, tears of sympathy rilling her eyes, "I could give my life for you. Alas! my brother, very far from an angel am I; I am a poor weak sinner, and I need the grace of God every day to cleanse my heart and keep it clean."

"If you, who are a saint, need that, what do I need, who am viler, than a beast?" he exclaimed with an impassioned gesture.

"You need the same, Zenas, dear; and it is for you if you only will seek it," she replied laying her hand gently on his arm.

He snatched her hand, kissed it passionately, then dropped it and turned abruptly away. She looked after him wistfully; but felt a glad assurance spring up in her heart that the object of so many prayers could not be finally lost.

Thus matters went on for several weeks. At last one day Kate was sewing alone in her little room, when through the window she saw Zenas approaching with long elastic strides from the barn. Bursting into her presence, he exclaimed, with joyous exaltation of manner, "I've done it, Kate! Thank God, at last I've done it!"

She had no need to ask, as she looked into his transfigured countenance, an explanation of his words. She flung herself upon his breast, and throwing her arms about his neck said, "Dear Zenas, I knew you would;—I felt sure of it. Thank God I Thank God!"

In loving communion the brother and sister sat, as Zenas told how he could not bear the struggle between his conscience and his stubborn will any longer. So, after doing his "chores" at the barn, he went on, he had climbed into the hay-loft, resolved not to leave it till the conflict was over and he had the consciousness of his acceptance with God and of the forgiveness of his sins. "I envied the very horses in the stalls," he said, in describing his emotions; "they were fulfilling their destiny; they had no burden of sin; while I was tortured with a damning sense of guilt. I flung myself on the straw," he went on; "and groaned in the bitterness of my spirit, 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death.' At that moment," he exclaimed, "I seemed to hear spoken in my ears, the exultant answer from the apostle: 'I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.' I sprang up, and before I knew began to sing—

"''Tis done, the great transaction's done! I am my God's and He is mine.'"

Kate took up the refrain, and brother and sister sang together the joyous song,—

"O happy day! O happy day! When Jesus washed my sins away!"

We must turn now to the more stormy public events of the time. Preparations for the campaign of 1814 were made on both sides with unabated energy. The legislature of Lower Canada increased the issue of army bills to the amount of L1,500,000, and that of the upper province voted a liberal appropriation for military expenditure, and increased the efficiency of the militia system. Stores of every kind, and in vast quantities, were forwarded from Quebec and Montreal by brigades of sleighs to Kingston as a centre of distribution for western Canada. A deputation of Indian chiefs from the West was received at the castle of St. Louis, and sent home laden with presents and confirmed in their allegiance to the British.

Early in the year, the Emperor of Russia offered to mediate between the belligerents in the interests of peace. Great Britain declined his interference, but proposed direct negotiations with the United States. The commissioners appointed, however, did not meet till August, and, meanwhile, the war became more deadly and mutually destructive than ever.

The campaign opened in Lower Canada. General Wilkinson, who had removed his headquarters from Salmon River to Plattsburg, advanced with five thousand men from the latter place, crossed the Canadian frontier at Odelltown, and pushed on to Lacolle, about ten miles from the border. Here a large two-storey stone mill, with eighteen-inch walls, barricaded and loop-holed for musketry, was held by the British who numbered, in regulars and militia, about five hundred men, under the command of Major Handcock. Shortly after midday, on the 13th of March, General Wilkinson, with his entire force, surrounded the mill, being partially covered by neighbouring woods, with the design of taking it by assault. As they advanced with a cheer to the attack, they were met by such a hot and steady fire that they were obliged to fall back to the shelter of the woods. The guns were now brought up (an eighteen, a twelve, and a six-pounder), for the purpose of battering, at short range, a breach in the walls of the mill. Their fire, however, was singularly ineffective. The British sharpshooters picked off the gunners, so that it was exceedingly difficult to get the range or to fire the pieces. In a cannonade of two hours and a half, only four shots struck the mill. Major Handcock, however, determined to attempt the capture of the guns, and a detachment of regulars, supported by a company of voltigeurs and fencibles, was ordered to charge. In the face of desperate odds they twice advanced to the attack on the guns, but were repulsed by sheer weight of opposing numbers. The day wore on. The ammunition of the beleaguered garrison was almost exhausted. Yet no man spoke of surrender. For five hours this gallant band of five hundred men withstood an army of tenfold numbers. At length, incapable of forcing the British position, the enemy fell back, baffled and defeated, to Plattsburg, and for a time the tide of war ebbed away from the frontier of Lower Canada.

With the opening of navigation hostilities were resumed on Lake Ontario. During the winter, two new vessels had been built at Kingston.

Strengthened by the addition of these, the British fleet, under the command of Sir James Yeo, early in May, sailed for Oswego in order to destroy a large quantity of naval stores there collected. A military force of a thousand men, under General Drummond, accompanied the expedition. An assaulting party of three hundred and forty soldiers and sailors, in the face of a heavy fire of grape, stormed the strong and well-defended fort. In half an hour it was in their hands. The fort and barracks were destroyed, and some shipping, and an immense amount of stores were taken.

Sir James Yeo, now blockaded Chauncey's fleet in Sackett's Harbour. On the morning of the last day of May a flotilla of sixteen barges, laden with naval stores, was discovered seeking refuge amid the windings of Sandy Creek. A boat-party from the fleet, attempting pursuit, became entangled in the narrow creek, and was attacked by a strong force of the enemy, including two hundred Indians. After a desperate resistance, in which eighteen were killed and fifty wounded, the British force was overpowered, and a hundred and forty made prisoners. These were with difficulty saved from massacre by the enraged Iroquois, by the vigorous interposition of their generous captors.

The course of political events in Europe intimately affected the conflict in America. Napoleon was now a prisoner in Elba, and England was enabled to throw greater vigour into her transatlantic war. In the month of June, several regiments of the veteran troops of Wellington landed at Quebec, and strong re-enforcements were rapidly despatched westward.

The most sanguinary events of the campaign occurred on the Niagara frontier. On the 3rd of July, Brigadier-Generals Scott and Ripley, with a force of four thousand men, crossed the Niagara River at Buffalo. Fort Erie was garrisoned by only a hundred and seventy men, and the commandant, considering that it would be a needless effusion of blood to oppose an army with his scanty forces, surrendered at discretion. The next day, General Brown, the American Commander-in-Chief, advanced down the river to Chippewa. Here he was met by Major-General Riall, whose scanty force was strengthened by the opportune arrival of six hundred of the 3rd Buffs from Toronto, making his entire strength fifteen hundred regulars, six hundred militia, and three hundred Indians. The engagement that ensued was one of extreme severity, a greater number of combatants being brought under fire than in any previous action of the war.

Instead of prudently remaining on the defensive, Riall, about four o'clock on the afternoon of the fifth, boldly attacked the enemy, who had taken up a good position, partly covered by some buildings and orchards, and were well supported by artillery. The battle was fierce and bloody, but the Americans were well officered, and their steadiness in action gave evidence of improved drill. After an obstinate engagement and the exhibition of unavailing valour, the British were forced to retreat, with the heavy loss of a hundred and fifty killed and three hundred and twenty wounded, among whom was Lieutenant-Colonel the Marquis of Tweedall. The loss of the Americans was seventy killed and two hundred and fifty wounded. Riall retired in good order without losing a man or gun, though pursued by the cavalry of the enemy. Having thrown re- enforcements into the forts at Niagara, on both sides of the river, fearing lest his communication with the west should be cut off by the Americana, Riall retreated to Twenty Mile Creek. General Brown advanced to Queenston Heights, ravaged the country, burned the village of St. David's, and made a reconnoissance toward Niagara. Being disappointed in the promised co-operation of Chauncey's fleet in an attack on the forts at the mouth of the river, he returned to Chippewa, followed again by Riall as far as Lundy's Lane. In the meanwhile, General Drummond, hearing at Kingston of the invasion, hastened with what troops he could collect to strengthen the British force on the frontier. Reaching Niagara on the 25th of July, he advanced with eight hundred men to support Riall. At the same time, he pushed forward a column from Fort Niagara to Lewiston, to disperse a body of the enemy collected at that place. General Brown now advanced in force from Chippewa against the British position at Lundy's Lane. Riall was compelled to fall back before the immensely superior American force, and the head of his column was already on the way to Queenston. General Drummond coming up with his re-enforcements about five o'clock, countermanded the movement of retreat, and immediately formed the order of battle. He occupied the gently swelling acclivity of Lundy's Lane, placing his guns in the centre, on its crest. His entire force was sixteen hundred men, that of the enemy was five thousand. The attack began at six o'clock in the evening, Drummond's troops having that hot July day marched from Queenston landing. The American infantry made desperate efforts in successive charges to capture the British battery; but the gunners stuck to their pieces, and swept, with a deadly fire, the advancing lines of the enemy, till some of them were bayoneted at their post. The carnage on both sides was terrible.

At length the long summer twilight closed, and the pitying night drew her veil over the horrors of the scene. Still, amid the darkness, the stubborn contest raged. The American and British guns were almost muzzle to muzzle. Some of each were captured and re-captured in fierce hand-to-hand fights, the gunners being bayoneted while serving their pieces. About nine o'clock, a lull occurred. The moon rose upon the tragic scene, lighting up the ghastly staring faces of the dead and the writhing forms of the dying; the groans of the wounded mingling awfully with the deep eternal roar of the neighbouring cataract.

The retreating van of Riall's army now returned, with a body of militia—twelve hundred in all. The Americans also brought up fresh reserves, and the combat was renewed with increased fury. Thin lines of fire, marked the position of the infantry, while from the hot lips of the cannon flashed red volleys of flame, revealing in brief gleams the disordered ranks struggling in the gloom. By midnight, after six hours of mortal conflict, seventeen hundred men lay dead or wounded on the field, when the Americans abandoned the hopeless contest, their loss being nine hundred and thirty, besides three hundred taken prisoners. The British loss was seven hundred and seventy. To-day the peaceful wheat-fields wave upon the sunny slopes fertilized by the bodies of so many brave men, and the ploughshare upturns rusted bullets, regimental buttons, and other relics of this most sanguinary battle of the war. Throwing their heavy baggage and tents into the rushing rapids of the Niagara, and breaking down the bridges behind them, the fugitives retreated to Fort Erie, where they formed an entrenched camp. [Footnote: Withrow's "History of Canada," 8vo. Ed., pp. 323-333.]

We must now return to trace the individual adventures in this bloody drama of the personages of our story. Every possible provision that wise foresight could suggest had been made for the defence of the Niagara Frontier. Fort George had been strengthened and revictualled. A new fort—Fort Mississauga—with star-shaped ramparts, moat and stockade, had been constructed at the mouth of the river. Its citadel is a very solid structure, with walls eight feet thick, built of the bricks of the devastated town of Niagara. A narrow portal with a double iron door admits one to the vaulted interior of the citadel, and a stairway, constructed in the thickness of the wall, conducts to the second storey or platform, which is open to the sky. Here were formerly mounted several heavy guns, and the fire-place for heating the cannon-balls may still be seen.

On the morning of July fourth, a courier, on a foam-flecked steed, dashed into Fort George and announced to the officer of the day the startling intelligence of the invasion by the enemy in force and the surrender of Fort Erie. Soon all was activity, knapsacks were packed, extra rations cooked and served out, ammunition waggons loaded, cartridge-boxes filled, and the whole garrison, except a small guard, were under orders to march to meet the enemy at dawn the following morning.

That evening—the eve of the fatal fight at Chippewa—Captain Villiers snatched an hour to pay a farewell visit to The Holms, as had become his habit when ordered on active service. He seemed strangely distraught in manner, at times relapsing for several minutes into absolute silence. Before taking his leave, he asked Kate to walk with him on the river bank in the late summer sunset. The lengthening shadows of the chestnuts stretched over the greensward slopes, and were flung far out on the river which swept by in its silent majesty, far-gleaming in the last rays of the sinking sun. The Captain spoke much and tenderly of his mother and sisters in their far-off Berkshire home.

"I sometimes think," he said, as they stood looking at the shining reaches of the river, "that I shall never see them again; and to- night, I know not why, I seem to feel that presentiment more strongly than ever."

"We are all in the care, Captain Villiers," said Kate, "of a loving Heavenly Father. Not even one of these twittering sparrows falls to the ground without His notice; and we, who are redeemed by the death of His Son, are of more value than they."

"I wish I had your faith. Miss Drayton," said the Captain with a sigh.

"I am sure I wish you had, Captain Villiers," replied Kate earnestly. "I would not be without it, weak as it often is, for worlds. But you may have it. You have the strongest grounds for having it. But alas! I lived without it myself till very recently."

"I have not been unobservant, Miss Drayton," continued the Captain, "of the—what shall I say?—the moral transfiguration of your character. It has been an argument as to the spiritual reality of religion that I could not gainsay. I have always observed its outward forms. I was duly baptized and confirmed, and have regularly taken the sacrament. But I feel the need of something more—something which I am sure my mother had, for if there ever was a saint on earth she is one."

"I can only send you," said Kate, "to the Great Teacher, who says 'Come unto Me and I will give you rest.' I am trying to sit at His feet and learn of Him. He will guide you into all truth."

"Amen!" solemnly answered the young man. After a pause he went on, "Miss Drayton, I make bold to ask a favour. Perhaps it may be a last one. Those hymns I have heard you sing come strangely home to my own heart. They awaken yearnings I never felt, and reveal truths I never saw before. May I take the liberty of asking the loan of your hymn-book? Even my mother, with her horror of dissent, would not object to the writings of so staunch a Churchman as the Rev. Charles Wesley."

"If you will do me the favour to accept it, I shall be most happy to give it you," replied Kate. "May it be a great help to you as it has been to me."

"You greatly honour me by your kindness," said the Captain. Drawing his small gold-clasped Prayer Book, on which was engraven his crest—a cross raguled with a wyvern volant—from the breast-pocket of his coat, he said, "Will you do me the further honour of accepting this book. The prayers I know by heart, and I think that, even though a dissenter," he added with a smile, "you will admire them."

"Thanks. I do admire them, very much," said Kate, who was quite familiar with the beautiful service of her father's Church.

The Captain stooped as they were walking through the little garden, which they had now reached, and plucking a few leaves and flowers, placed them in the book, saying in the words of the fair distraught Ophelia,—

"There is rosemary, that's for rememberance; And there is pansies, that's for thoughts."

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.

We shall depend for the further record of that eventful day on the narrative of Zenas, as subsequently reported, with all the vivid touches of personal experience and eye-witness. With bandaged head and one arm in a sling he sat at the kitchen table at The Holms, explaining to his father and some neighbours the fortunes of the fight. His story, disentangled from the interruptions of his auditors, was as follows: "You see," he said, making a rude diagram of the battle on the supper-table with the knives and forks, "General Riall took up a strong position on Lundy's Lane early in the day, with the regulars and the Glengary militia; and Lieutenant-Colonel Robinson [Footnote: Subsequently better known as Sir John Beverly Robinson, Chief Justice of Upper Canada.] commanded the sedentary militia. The enemy lay on the other side of Chippewa Creek, and didn't move till late in the afternoon. If they had come on in the morning, they could have crushed us like an egg-shell," and he suited the action to the word, by crushing into fragments one that lay upon the table.

"But we got it hard enough as it was. General Winfield Scott, [Footnote: Afterwards Commander-in-chief of the United States armies.] began pounding away at us with his artillery just before sundown. We expected to be re-enforced before long, so we determined to hold the hill where our own battery was planted at any cost. The sun went down; it got darker and darker; still the cannon flashed their tongues of flame, and the deadly rattle of the musketry went on without a minute's pause for three mortal hours. The Yankee sharp-shooters crept up in the darkness behind a screen of barberry bushes growing in the panels of a rail fence, and at a volley picked off all the gunners of our battery but three. Then, with a cheer, they rushed forward with the bayonet, and wrestled in fierce hand-to-hand fight with our infantry for the guns, which were alternately taken and re-taken on either side, till the hill-slope was slippery with blood.

"Our troop of dragoons was ordered to charge up the hill and re- capture the guns. I had only time to lift up my heart in prayer, and say 'Lord have mercy upon us,' when a roundshot struck my horse. He reared straight up and fell backward, partly falling upon me. All at once everything got black, and I heard not a sound of the din of battle that was raging around me. After a while, I don't know how long, it seemed like hours, I became aware of a deep thunderous sound that seemed to fill the air and cause the very earth to tremble, and I knew it was the roar of the Falls. Then I felt an intolerable aching, as if every bone in my body was broken. I opened my eyes and saw the moon shining through the drifting clouds. I was parched with thirst and raging with fever, and felt a sharp pain piercing my temple. Raising my arm to my head, I found my hair all clotted with blood from a scalp wound.

"Just then I heard a rattle and a cheer, and galloping down hill full in the moonlight, right toward the spot where I lay, a brass field-gun fully horsed, the drivers lashing the horses with all their might. I was afraid they would gallop over me, and raised my arm to warn them aside. But they either didn't see or couldn't heed, and on came the heavy cannon, lurching from side to side, the polished brass gleaming in the moonlight like gold. I heard a deep shuddering groan as the heavy wheels rolled over a wounded man beside me, crushing the bones of his legs like pipe stems. As the plunging horses galloped past, one iron-shod hoof struck fire against a stone just beside my head. In the momentary flash I could see the hoof poised just above my face. I remember I noticed that it had been badly shod, and one of the nails was bent over the edge of the shoe. By a merciful Providence, instead of dashing my brains out he stepped on one side, and I received no further hurt. After the roar of the battle had ceased, while the solemn stars looked down like eyes of pitying angels on the field of slaughter, I managed to crawl to the road-side and wet my parched lips with some muddy water that lay in a cattle track. In the morning Trueman found me and brought me off the field, and here I am laid up for one while. I pray God I may never see another battle. It is a sight to make angels weep and devils rejoice, to see men thus mangling each other like beasts of prey."

"Amen!" said his father. "Even when it is just, war is the greatest of calamities; and when unjust, it is the greatest of crimes."

Sadder still was the story told by Neville Trueman to Katharine Drayton, as he conveyed to her the dying message of Captain Villiers. The Captain was gallantly cheering on his company, when a bullet pierced his lungs. He fell from his horse and was bore to the rear, and carried into the little Methodist Church, which had been turned into a temporary hospital. Here Neville Trueman was busily engaged in far different ministrations from those which were the wont of that consecrated spot. The seats had been removed, and beds of unthrashed wheat sheaves from the neighbouring harvest-fields were strewn upon the floor.

As the bleeding form of Captain Villiers was brought in, Neville saw by his deathly pallor and his laboured breathing that he had not many hours to live. He sat down beside him on the floor and took the hand of the dying man, which he softly caressed as it lay passive in his grasp. Opening his eyes, a wan smile of recognition flickered over the pallid countenance. He tried to speak, but in vain. Then he pointed to his breast pocket, and made signs which Neville interpreted as a wish that he should take something out. He obeyed the suggestion, and found the copy of Wesley's Hymns given him by Katharine Drayton, but now, alas! dyed with the life- blood of a loyal heart.

"Tell her," said the dying man, but he faltered in his speech. Then, with difficulty opening the book, he turned to a passage where the leaf was turned down and a hymn was marked with the letters "H.V.," the initials of Herbert Villiers. The hymn was that sublime one beginning—

"Now I have found the ground wherein Sure my soul's anchor may remain:

The wounds of Jesus, for my sin Before the world's foundation slain; Whose mercy shall unshaken stay, When heaven and earth are fled away."

The dying eyes looked eagerly at Neville as the latter read the words; but when he replied, "Yes, I will tell her, and give her hack her book enriched with such a sacred recollection," a look of infinite content rested on the pallid face.

"I bless God I ever met her," faltered the failing voice. "Tell her," it continued with a final effort, "Tell her—we shall meet again—where they neither marry—nor are given in marriage—but are as the angels of God in heaven!" And with a smile of ineffable peace the happy spirit departed from the carnage of earth's battles to the everlasting peace of the skies.

Tears of pity fell fast from the eyes of the tender-hearted Katharine as she listened to the touching narration. As soon as she could sufficiently command her feelings she wrote a sympathetic letter to the now doubly-bereaved widow of the stately Melton Hall, amid the broad ancestral acres of Berkshire. She enclosed therewith the jewelled cross, which had been committed to her keeping; but the blood-stained hymn-book she placed in her little cabinet, beside the Prayer-Book with its leaves of rosemary for remembrance and pansies for thoughts.

The fellow-officers of Captain Villiers erected over the grave in which their comrade was buried, beneath the walls of the humble Methodist Church, a marble slab commemorating his valour and his heroic death. With the lapse of five-and-sixty years, however, its brief inscription has become well nigh illegible through the weathering of the elements, and the grave has become indistinguishable from the mouldering mounds on every side around it. But beneath the funeral hatchment of his father, on the chancel walls of Melton-Mowbray Church, is a marble shield charged with a cross enguled and a wyvern volant; and a record of the untimely death of the hope and last scion of the house on the banks of the far-off Niagara.



CHAPTER XX

CLOSING SCENES OF THE WAR.

We return now to retrace the fortunes of the war of which the culminating acts, at least in Upper Canada, had now taken place. After the fatal fight of Lundy's Lane, as we have seen, the American force retreated precipitately on Fort Erie, of which they retained possession, and, working night and day, formed an entrenched camp for their protection, strengthening a line of abattis along the front. The victorious British columns closely followed, and for three weeks the camp and fort occupied by the American army were closely besieged by a force only two-thirds as numerous. Two American armed vessels, which supported the fort on the lake side, were very cleverly captured in a night attack by Captain Dobbs, of the Royal Navy, by means of boats conveyed by sheer force of human muscles twenty miles across the country in the rear of the American lines, from the Niagara to Lake Erie.

The British forces also threw up strong entrenchments and planted batteries; and the two armies lay watching each other like couchant lions, waiting the opportunity to make the fatal spring. The guns on the batteries were kept double shotted, and through the long nights dark lanterns were kept burning, and linstocks ready for firing lay beside every gun. Ever and anon a live shell screamed through the air, one of which penetrating an American magazine, caused it to explode with fearful violence.

On the 14th of August, after a vigorous bombardment, a night attack, in three columns, was made upon the fort. At two o'clock in the morning, the columns moved out of the trenches, with the utmost silence, bearing scaling ladders, and crept stealthily over the plain toward the apparently slumbering fort. Dark clouds hung low, and the only sounds heard were the melancholy cry of the loon and the measured dash of the waves upon the shore. At length the American picket discovered the approach of the British columns and gave the alarm. The bugles rang shrill in the ear of night. Every embrasure of the seemingly sleeping fort flashed forth its tongue of flame, revealing the position of the assailants, and the gloom settled heavier than ever, deepened still further by the sulphureous clouds of smoke from the cannon. The British van hacked with their swords at the abattis, and tried, by wading through a marsh, to enter the curtain of the fore by a flank movement. Rent and torn by a fire of canister and grape, five times the assailing columns were hurled back, and five times, undaunted, they returned to the charge.

At length the wall was reached, the ladders were planted, and Lieutenant-Colonel Drummond, with a hundred men of the Royal Artillery, gained a footing in a bastion. The parole by which they recognized each other in the dark was "steel"—an omen of the desperate means used to insure their victory. With pike and bayonet they rushed upon the garrison. Their comrades swarmed up the scaling ladders and filled the bastion. Suddenly the ground heaved and trembled as with the throes of an earthquake. There came a burst of thunder sound; a volcano of fire and timber; stones and living men were hurled two hundred feet in the air; and the night settled down on the scene of chaos. The British columns, utterly demoralized by this appalling disaster, fell back precipitately on their entrenchments, leaving the mangled bodies of two hundred of their comrades, among them the gallant leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Drummond, in the fatal fosse and bastion.

The Americans, being strongly re-enforced, a month later made a vigorous sally from the fort, but were driven back, with a loss on the part of both assailants and assailed of about four hundred men. Shortly after, General Izzard blew up the works and re- crossed the river to United States territory. The fortress, constructed at such a cost, and assailed and defended with such valour, soon fell to utter ruin. Where earth-shaking war achieved such vast exploits, to-day the peaceful waters of the placid lake kiss the deserted strand, and a few grass-grown and mouldering ram-mounds alone mark the grave of so much military pomp, power, and unavailing valour. [Footnote: Engravings of these are given in Lossing's "Field Book of the War."]

Nor were the ravages of the war confined alone to the Niagara frontier. Far otherwise. They extended from the upper waters of the Mississippi to the Atlantic seaboard, and to the Gulf of Mexico. In the West, Michilimackinac was re-enforced, and Prairie du Chien, a fort on the Mississippi, was captured by a body of six hundred and fifty Canadians and Indians, without the loss of a single man. An American attempt to recapture Michilimackinac, by a force of a thousand men, was a total failure, the only exploit of the expedition being the inglorious pillage and destruction of the undefended trading-post of Ste. Marie.

Meanwhile, Sir John Sherbrooke, the Governor of Nova Scotia, despatched several hostile expeditions from Halifax against the coast of Maine.

Eastport, Castine, Bangor, Machias, and the whole region from the Penobscot to the St. Croix, surrendered to the British, and were held by them to the close of the war.

The arrival, in August, of sixteen thousand of Wellington's Peninsular troops, the heroes of so many Spanish victories, placed at the command of Sir George Prevost the means of vigorously undertaking offensive operations. A well-appointed force of eleven thousand men advanced from Canada to Lake Champlain. Captain Downie, with a fleet on which the ship carpenters were still at work as he went into action, was to co-operate with the army in an attack on Plattsburg, which was defended by five well-armed vessels and by fifteen hundred regulars and as many militia, under General Macomb. The British fleet gallantly attacked the enemy, but after a desperate battle, in which Captain Downie was slain, and nine of the ill-manned gunboats fled, it was compelled to surrender to a superior force. Prevost, notwithstanding that his strength was ten times greater than that of the enemy, had awaited the assistance of the fleet. As he tardily advanced his storming columns, the cheers from the fort announced its capture. Although on the verge of an easy victory, Prevost, fearing the fate of Burgoyne, and humanely averse to the shedding of blood, to the intense chagrin of his soldiers gave the signal to retreat. Many of his officers for very shame broke their swords, and vowed that they would never serve again. While an able civil governor, Prevost was an incompetent military commander. He was summoned home by the Horse Guards to stand a court-martial, but he died the following year, before the court sat.

The launch at Kingston of the "St. Lawrence," an "oak leviathan" of a hundred guns, gave the British complete naval supremacy of Lake Ontario, and enabled them strongly to re-enforce General Drummond with troops and stores.

We will now trace very briefly the further events of the war, which lay altogether outside of Canada. Along the Atlantic seaboard the British maintained a harassing blockade. The close of the Continental war enabled Great Britain to throw more vigour into the conflict with the United States. Her giant navy was, therefore, free from service in European waters, and Admiral Cockburn, with a fleet of fifty vessels, about the middle of August, arrived in Chesapeake Bay with troops destined for the attack on the American capital. Tangier Island was seized and fortified, and fifteen hundred negroes of the neighbouring plantations were armed and drilled for military service. They proved useful but very costly allies, as, at the conclusion of the war, the Emperor of Russia, who was the referee in the matter, awarded their owners an indemnity of a million and a quarter of dollars, or over eight hundred dollars each for raw recruits for a six weeks' campaign.

There are two rivers by which Washington may be approached—the Potomac, on which it is situated, and the Patuxent, which flows in its rear. The British commander chose the latter, both on account of the facility of access, and for the purpose of destroying the powerful fleet of gunboats which had taken refuge in its creeks. This object was successfully accomplished on the 20th of August— thirteen of the gunboats being destroyed and one captured, together with fourteen merchant vessels. The army, under the command of General Ross, on the following day disembarked. It numbered, including some marines, three thousand five hundred men, with two hundred sailors to drag the guns—two small three- pounders.

For the defence of Washington, General Winder had been assigned a force of sixteen thousand six hundred regulars, and a levy of ninety-three thousand militia had been ordered. Of the latter, not one appeared; of the former, only about one-half mustered. The Americans had, however, twenty-six guns against two small pieces possessed by the British. General Winder took post at Bladensburg, a few miles from Washington. His batteries commanded the only bridge across the East Potomac. Ross determined to storm the bridge in two columns. Not for a moment did the war-bronzed veterans of the Peninsular war hesitate. Amid a storm of shot and shell, they dashed across the bridge, carried a fortified house, and charged on the batteries before the second column could come to their aid. Ten guns were captured. The American army was utterly routed, and fled through and beyond the city it was to defend. The lack of cavalry and the intense heat of the day prevented the pursuit by the British. The brilliant action was saddened to the victors by the loss of sixty-one gallant men slain and one hundred and eighty-five wounded.

Towards evening the victorious army occupied the city. The destruction of the public buildings had been decreed, in retaliation for the pillage of Toronto and the wanton burning of Niagara. An offer was made to the American authorities to accept a money payment by way of ransom, but it was refused. The next day, the torch was ruthlessly applied to the Capitol, with its valuable library, the President's house, treasury, war office, arsenal, dockyard, and the long bridge across the Potomac. The enemy had already destroyed a fine frigate, a twenty-gun sloop, twenty thousand stand of arms, and immense magazines of powder. Even if justifiable as a military retaliation, this act was unworthy of a great and generous nation.

The town of Alexandria was saved from destruction only by the surrender of twenty-one vessels, sixteen hundred barrels of flour, and a thousand hogsheads of tobacco.

The city of Baltimore redeemed itself more bravely. Against that place General Ross now proceeded with his army and the fleet. In attacking the enemy's outposts, General Ross was slain, and the command devolved on Colonel Brooke. Six thousand infantry, four hundred horse, and four guns, protected by a wooden palisade, disputed the passage of the British. With a shout and a cheer Wellington's veterans attacked the obstructions, and, in fifteen minutes, were masters of the field. The American army fled, leaving behind them six hundred killed or wounded, and three hundred prisoners, September 13. The next morning, the British were within a mile and a half of Baltimore, but they found fifteen thousand men, with a large train of artillery, in possession of the heights commanding the city. Colonel Brooke, not willing to incur the risk of attacking in daylight, with three thousand men, a fivefold number, resolved on attempting a surprise by night. He learned, however, that the enemy, by sinking twenty vessels in the river, had prevented all naval co-operation. The inevitable loss of life in an assault far counter-balancing any prospective advantage, Brooke wisely abandoned the design, and withdrew unmolested to his ships.

The fleet and army which had been baffled at Baltimore sailed for New Orleans, with the object of capturing the chief cotton port of the United States, then a city of seventeen thousand inhabitants. The fleet arrived off the mouth of the Mississippi on the 8th of December. It was opposed by a flotilla of gunboats, but they were all soon captured and destroyed. Amid very great difficulties and hardships, resulting from the severity of the weather and the wretched condition of the roads, the army under General Packenham advanced to within six miles of New Orleans. Here General Jackson, the American commander, had constructed a deep ditch and an entrenchment of earthworks, strengthened by sand-bags and cotton- bales, a thousand yards long, stretching from the Mississippi to an impassable swamp in the rear. Flanking batteries enfiladed the front. Behind these formidable works was posted an army of twelve thousand men.

Packenham resolved to send Colonel Thornton, with fourteen hundred men, across the river by night, to storm a battery which swept the front of the earthworks, and to menace the city of New Orleans. At the same time, the main attack was to be made on Jackson's lines, in two columns, under Generals Gibbs and Keane. Packenham had only six thousand men, including seamen and marines, "to attack twice the number, entrenched to the teeth in works bristling with bayonets and loaded with heavy artillery." [Footnote: Allison's "History of Europe," Chap. lxxvi., American ed., vol. iv., p. 480.] The rapid fall of the river retarded the crossing of the troops, and prevented a simultaneous attack on the right and left banks.

Impatient at the delay, Packenham ordered the assault on Jackson's lines, January 6, 1815; the columns moved steadily forward, but the dawn of day revealed their approach, and they were met by a concentrated and murderous fire from the batteries. Without flinching, they advanced to the ditch, when it was found that the fascines and scaling-ladders had been forgotten. The head of the column, thus brought to a halt under the enemy's guns, was crushed by the tremendous fire. Packenham now fell mortally wounded, and Generals Gibbs and Keane were shortly after struck down.

The gallant Ninety-third Highlanders, however, undaunted by the carnage, rushed forward, and many of them fairly climbed their way into the works, mounting on each other's shoulders. But their rash valour brought upon them the concentrated fire of grape, by which the successful assailants were cut down to a man. General Lambert, on whom the command now devolved, finding it impossible to carry the works, and the slaughter being appalling, drew off his troops. In this sanguinary repulse, the British lost two thousand men killed, wounded, and prisoners. The Americans claim that their loss was only eight killed and thirteen wounded.

Meanwhile, Colonel Thornton, on the left bank of the river, had achieved a brilliant success. With only one-third of his command, or less than five hundred men, he had stormed a redoubt of twenty guns, defended by seventeen hundred men. The defeat of the main body, however, rendered the position untenable. Lambert successfully retreated to his ships, bringing off all his stores, ammunition, and field artillery. On the 27th the army re-embarked, and found a partial consolation for its defeat in the capture of Fort Boyer, a strong fortification at the mouth of the river.

Peace had already been concluded at Ghent on the 24th of December, and was hailed with delight by the kindred peoples, wearied with mutual and unavailing slaughter. The calm verdict of history finds much ground of extenuation for the revolt of 1776; but for the American declaration of war in 1812, little or none. A reckless Democratic majority wantonly invaded the country of an unoffending neighbouring people, to seduce them from their lawful allegiance and annex their territory. The long and costly conflict was alike bloody and barren. The Americans annexed not a single foot of territory. They gained not a single permanent advantage. Their seaboard was insulted, their capital destroyed. Their annual exports were reduced from L22,000,000 to L1,500,000. Three thousand of their vessels were captured. Two-thirds of their commercial class became insolvent A vast war-tax was incurred, and the very existence of the Union imperilled by the menaced secession of the New England States. The "right of search" and the rights of neutrals—the ostensible but not the real causes of the war—were not even mentioned in the treaty of peace. The adjustment of unsettled boundaries was referred to a commission, and an agreement was made for a combined effort for the suppression of the slave-trade. The United States, however, continued its internal slave-traffic, of a character even more obnoxious than that which it engaged to suppress.

On Canada, too, the burden of the war fell heavily. Great Britain, exhausted by nearly twenty years of conflict, and still engaged in a strenuous struggle against the European despot, Napoleon, could only, till near the close of the war, furnish scanty military aid. It was Canadian militia, with little help from British regulars, who won the brilliant victories of Chrysler's Farm and Chateauguay; and throughout the entire conflict they were the principal defence of their country. In many a Canadian home, bitter tears were shed for son or sire left cold and stark upon the bloody plain at Queenston Heights, or Chippewa, or Lundy's Lane, or other hard-fought field of battle.

The lavish expenditure of the Imperial authorities, for ship- building, transport service, and army supplies, and the free circulation of the paper money issued by the Canadian Government, greatly stimulated the material prosperity of the country. [Footnote: The paper money of the United States was not redeemed till it had greatly depreciated in value, to the often ruinous loss of the holders.] Its peaceful industries, agriculture, and the legitimate development of its natural resources, however, were very much interrupted, and vast amounts of public and private property were relentlessly confiscated or destroyed by the enemy. [Footnote: See Withrow's "History of Canada;" 8vo. ed., pp., 234-340.]



CHAPTER XXI.

CLOSING SCENES.

After the stubborn and sanguinary battles of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, and Fort Erie, the Niagara frontier had exemption from invasion, and a sort of armed truce prevailed to the end of the war. It was long, however, before the exasperation of feeling excited on either side by the unhappy conflict had died away. Now, thank God, the ameliorating influence of time, of commercial intercourse, and, let us hope, of Christian amity, has almost entirely obliterated the bitter memories of that unnatural strife. A continual exchange of international courtesies and friendly amenities, marks the intercourse of the kindred peoples who dwell upon opposite sides of the Niagara River. At the narrowest part of that river, two miles below the Falls, it is now spanned by the fairy-like railway Suspension Bridge—a life-artery along which throbs a ceaseless pulse of commerce between the Dominion of Canada and the United States of America, the two fairest and noblest daughters of brave Old England, the great mother of nations. As the deep and gloomy gorge beneath that bridge, with its wrathful and tumultuous torrent, seemed to forbid all intercourse between its opposite banks, so, unhappily, a deep and gloomy chasm has too long yawned between these neighbouring peoples, through which has raged a brawling torrent of estrangement, bitterness, and even of fratricidal strife. But as wire by wire that wondrous bridge was woven between the two countries, so social, religious, and commercial intercourse has been weaving subtile cords of fellowship between the adjacent communities; and now, let us hope, by the late Treaty of Washington, a golden bridge of amity and peace has spanned the gulf, and made them one in brotherhood for ever. As treason against humanity is that spirit to be deprecated that would sever one strand of those ties of friendship, or stir up strife between two great nations of one blood, one faith, one tongue. May this peaceful arbitration be the inauguration of the happy era told by the poet and seer,

"When the war-drum throbs no longer, and the battle-flags are furled

In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world!"

While musing on this theme, the following fancies wove themselves into verse, in whose aspiration all true patriots of either land will devoutly join:

As the great bridge which spans Niagara'a flood Was deftly woven, subtile strand by strand Into a strong and stable iron band, Which heaviest stress and strain has long withstood; So the bright golden strands of friendship strong, Knitting the Mother and the Daughter land In bonds of love—as grasp of kindly hand May bind together hearts estranged long— Is deftly woven now, in that firm gage Of mutual plight and troth, which, let us pray, May still endure unshamed from age to age— The pledge of peace and concord true alway: Perish the hand and palsied be the arm That would one fibre of that fabric harm!

Neville Trueman held on the even tenor of his way, through the period during which the tide of war was ebbing away on the Atlantic coast and on the lower Mississippi. Notwithstanding the tried and true character of his loyalty, he was not free from ungenerous and unjust aspersions by those prejudiced and bigoted against his American birth. He had, however, one friend who never swerved from her generous admiration of his character and respect for his conduct. Katharine Drayton never failed to defend both the one and the other when unkindly criticised in her presence. Yet to himself she was, while uniformly kind and courteous, yet unusually reserved in the expression of her personal feelings. The words of high appreciation which were spoken, in his defence to others, and which would to him have been a guerdon compensating a hundredfold all his trials and troubles, were to him unuttered. A sense of maiden modesty, if not a deeper and tenderer feeling, sealed her lips and made her, on this subject, dumb in his presence.

If the enthusiastic friendship of her brother could have made amends for this reserve Neville had, indeed, ample compensation. Nevertheless a sense of loneliness and isolation were at times oppressively felt by the young man. Almost unconsciously to himself the character and person of Katharine Drayton had become to him very dear. They occupied much of his thought, and mingled even with his morning and evening orisons. Yet he sedulously avoided giving expression, even to himself, to his desires and aspirations. The sad uncertainties of the times forbade the thought of marrying or giving in marriage. His own anomalous position as having, apparently, an allegiance divided between the two countries unhappily at war, was also felt to be a great embarrassment in all his personal relations. Above all he was not without the apprehension that the heart of Katharine Drayton might have been won by the brave soldier whose untimely death she deplored with a sorrow deep and unfeigned. Her lacerated affections he felt to be too tender and too sacred a subject to be lightly approached. Moreover, what had he, a poor Methodist itinerant, without a home, without a country, dependent for his daily food and nightly shelter upon the Providence of God and the generosity of an alien people, themselves impoverished by a long and cruel conflict with his own countrymen, to offer in exchange for her love! For himself he had no fears, no forebodings for the future, no feeling of humiliation in accepting the generous hospitality of his kind congregations. But, he questioned, how could he ask the delicately-nurtured Katharine Drayton, the heiress of many acres, whose lightest wish had been gladly gratified by loving hands,—how could he ask her to leave the sheltering roof and cheerful hearth, where she reigned a queen, to share the privations, discomforts, and it might be poverty, of his migratory existence? The question smote with appalling emphasis upon his heart. So he continued to nourish in his soul a vague hope, menaced by a vague fear that sorely tried his courage and his faith.