Chapter 8 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]