THE FORTUNES OF WAR.
On the evening of the evacuation of Fort George, several of the
actors in the busy drama of the time were assembled in the great
kitchen of Squire Drayton's hospitable house. It was no time for
ceremony, so everybody met in the common living room. Captain
Villiers called to bid a hasty farewell to the kind family under
whose roof he had for several months abode as an invalid soldier,
and especially to take leave of the fair young mistress, through
whose care he had become convalescent. Neville Trueman had
resolved to follow the retreating army, both to avoid the
appearance of any complicity or sympathy with the invaders; and
that, in the severe conflict which was impending, his spiritual
services might be available to the militia, of whom a considerable
number were Methodists, and to such others as would accept them.
Zenas had obtained his father's consent to volunteer for the
militia cavalry service in this time of his country's need,
although it left the farm without a single man, except the squire
himself.
"The maids and I will plant the corn and cut the wheat, too," said
Kate, with the pluck of a true Canadian girl. "We'll soon learn to
wield the sickle, though you seem to doubt it, Captain Villiers,"
she went on, looking archly at the gallant captain, who smiled
rather incredulously.
"Nay, I am sure you will deserve to be honoured as the goddess
Ceres of your Canadian harvest-fields, by the future generations
of your country," politely answered the captain.
"I would rather serve my country in the present, than receive
mythical honours in the future," replied Kate.
"We'll be back before harvest to drive the Yanks across the river,
and get Sandy and Loker out of Fort Niagara," said Zenas. "Tom
would gnaw his very fetters off to get free, if he wore any. But
Sandy takes everything as it comes, as cool as you please. 'It was
all appointed,' he says, and 'all for the best.'"
"They will not keep the prisoners there," said the squire; "it is
too near the border. Chauncey will likely take them off to
Sackett's Harbour, and make them work in the dock-yards."
"They won't make McKay do that," said the captain; "it would be
against his conscience, and he would die first. He is the
staunchest specimen of an old stoic philosopher I ever came
across. Under the hottest fire to-day he was as cool as I ever saw
him on parade. As he stooped to raise a wounded comrade a round
shot struck and carried away his cartridge-box. Had he been
standing up it would have cut him in two. He never blanched, but
just helped the poor fellow off the field, when he was captured
himself."
"It is something more than stoicism," said Neville. "It is his
staunch Scotch Calvinism. It is not my religious philosophy; but I
can I honour its effects in others. It made heroic men of the
Ironsides, the Puritans, and the Covenanters; but so will a trust
in the loving fatherhood of God, without the doctrine of the
eternal decrees."
"We must not delay," said the captain. "The enemy's scouts will be
looking up stragglers," and after a hasty meal he, with Neville
and Zenas, rode away in the darkness, to join the rearguard of
Vincent's retreating army.
They had scarcely been gone five minutes when a loud knocking was
heard at the front door of the house, and, immediately after, the
trampling of feet in the hall. A peremptory summons was followed
by the bursting open of the kitchen door, when two flushed and
heated American dragoons, one a comet and the other a private,
stood on the threshold.
"Beg pardon, miss," said the officer, somewhat abashed at the
attitude of indignant surprise assumed by Katharine. "But is
Captain Villiers here? We were told he was."
"You see he is not," said the young girl, with a queenly sweep of
her arm around the room; "but you may search the house, if you
please."
"Oh, no occasion, as you say he is not here. I'll take the
liberty, if you please, to help myself to a slight refreshment,"
continued the spokesman, taking a seat at the table and beckoning
to his companion to do the same. "You'll excuse the usage of war.
We've had a hard day's work on light rations."
"You might at least ask leave," spoke up the squire, with a sort
of
"An Englishman's house is his castle,
An Englishman's crown is his hat,"
Air,--"We would not refuse a bit and sup, even to an enemy."
Glad of an excuse to detain the scouts as long as possible Kate
placed upon the table a cold meat-pie, of noble proportions, and a
flagon of new milk.
The troopers were valiant trencher-men, whatever else they were,
and promptly assaulted the meat-pie fort, as from its size and
shape it deserved to be called.
"You know this Captain Villiers, I suppose?" said the dragoon
subaltern at length; "I had particular instructions to secure his
capture."
"Oh yes! I know him very well," answered Kate. "He was here sick
for three months last winter."
"And very good quarters and good fare he had, I'll be bound," said
the fellow, with an air of insolent familiarity. "And when was he
here last, pray?"
"About half-an-hour ago," said Kate, knowing that by this time he
must be beyond pursuit.
"Zounds!" cried the trooper, springing to his feet, "why did you
not tell me that before?"
"Because you did not ask me, sir," said the maiden demurely, while
her black eyes flashed triumph at her father, who sat in his arm
chair stolidly smoking his pipe.
With an angry oath, the fellows hurried out of the house as
unceremoniously as they had entered, when Kate and her father had
a merry laugh over their discomfiture.
Next morning the troopers appeared again, in angry humour. "That
was a scurvy trick you played us last night, old gentleman," said
the elder.
"No trick at all," said the squire. "I hope you were pleased with
your entertainment? Did you catch your prisoner?" he asked, with a
somewhat malicious twinkle of his eye towards Kate, who was in the
room.
"No, we didn't; but we came upon the enemy's rear-guard, and
nearly got captured ourselves. But you'll have to pay for your
little game, by liberal supplies for Dearborn's army."
The staunch old loyalist, who would willingly impoverish himself
to aid the King's troops, stoutly refused to give "a single groat
or oat," as he expressed it, to the King's enemies. It was
"against his conscience," he said.
"We'll relieve you of your scruples," said the officer. "I want
some of those horses in your pasture to mount my troop of
dragoons," and going oat of the house he ordered the half-score of
troopers without to dismount and capture the horses in the meadow.
The men, after a particularly active chase, captured three out of
six horses. The others defied every effort to catch them. The
troopers threatened to shoot them, but the cornet forbade it, and
ordered the squire to send them to head-quarters during the day--a
command which he declined to obey. Such were some of the ways in
which the loyal Canadians were pillaged of their property by their
ruthless invaders.
The squire indeed demanded a receipt from the officer for the
property thus "requisitioned."
"Oh yes! I'll give you a receipt," said that individual, "and much
good may it do you," and that was all the good it did do him, for
he never received a cent of compensation.
Colonel Vincent, in the meantime, had withdrawn the garrisons from
the frontier forts on the Niagara river. He retreated with sixteen
hundred men toward the head of the lake, and took up a strong
position on Burlington Heights, near Hamilton. In the now peaceful
Protestant cemetery to the west of the city may still be trace
among the graves the mouldering ramparts and trenches of this once
warlike camp. Dearborn despatched a force of three thousand men,
with two hundred and fifty cavalry and nine field-pieces, under
Generals Chandler and Winder, to dislodge the Canadian force. On
the 6th of June they encamped at Stony Creek, seven miles from
Vincent's lines. The position of the latter was critical. Niagara
and York had both been captured. Before him was a victorious foe.
His ammunition was reduced to ninety rounds. He was extricated
from his peril by a bold blow. Colonel John Harvey, having
reconnoitered the enemy's position, proposed a night attack.
Vincent heartily co-operated. At midnight, with seven hundred
British bayonets, they burst upon the American camp. A fierce
fight ensued in which the enemy were utterly routed. The British,
unwilling to expose their small number to a still superior force,
retired before daybreak, with four guns and a hundred prisoners,
including both of the American Generals. The victory, however, was
purchased with the loss of two hundred men killed or missing. A
venerable old lady, recently deceased, has described to the writer
the dreary procession of waggons laden with wounded men that filed
past her father's door on their return to the British head-
quarters. The battle was fought early on Sunday morning, near the
house of "Brother Gage," a good Methodist, as his appellation
indicates. [Footnote: Carroll's "Case and His Cotemporaries," Vol
I., p. 307.] On that sacred day, so desecrated by the havoc of
war, he gathered the neighbours together and buried the slain,
friend and foe, in one wide, common grave. Among the traditions of
the war is one which records that the boys of the Gage family
gathered up a peck of bullets which had been intercepted by the
stone fence bounding the lane that led to the house.
The Americans, after destroying their camp stores and leaving the
dead unburied, retreated to Forty Mile Creek, where they effected
a junction with General Lewis, advancing to their aid with two
thousand men. At daybreak on the 8th of June, the American camp
was shelled by Commodore Yeo's fleet. The enemy retreated to Fort
George, abandoning their tents and stores, which were captured by
Vincent. Their baggage, shipped by batteaux to the fort, was
either taken by the fleet or abandoned on the shore. [Footnote:
Withrow's History of Canada, 8vo. ed., chap. xxiii.1.316]