Part 27

“To tell how poor goosie was put out of pain (And the plucking and basting we need not explain);”

and how this innovation on Follow-the-Drum in after years made the voyage home with her regiment and continued her duties in Portman Street barracks, till a military funeral finished her course, belongs to the history of Her Majesty’s forces. That she was a goose is proved by record of her characteristics; _anser canadensis_ is a clamorous bird, and armed humans underneath his flight are made aware of his presence by his noisy gabble--if silent he would never be discovered. It is said the prudent fair ones of the flock keep a chucky-stone in the mouth during travel, in order to guard against temptation. Therefore, as the Great Grey Goose of the West was a gander and gabbler, the silent sentry, the goose militant of the Coldstream Guards, must have been a goose, and is a Deborah.

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When we come to the details of Mackenzie’s life, his attitude towards wife and bairns and mother and theirs towards him would disarm even his political critic. There is the meeting of the two old schoolmates, Isabel Baxter and Mackenzie, without recognition, the brief courtship, and a life of mutual devotion. There is baby Joseph Hume, whose early death saddened the father’s life; and there is the pathetic entry in his diary, after his rebellion had entailed banishment: “My daughter Janet’s birthday, aged thirteen. When I came home in the evening we had no bread; took a cup of tea without it, and Helen, to comfort me, said it was no better on the evening of my own birthday.”

They drank the cup of poverty together, father, mother, grandmother and children. For twenty-four hours at a stretch there was no food, fire or light; and after such a fast the father would go forth shivering to collect a small due or meet a friend willing to share a sixpence. The younger children never ceased to cry for food; the others suffered in silence. We read of the servant, one of the true-hearted Irish, and she is content to starve with the rest. Despite poverty, the father continued to wear a watch, once the property of his eldest daughter, whom he sincerely mourned for twelve years with an almost superstitious veneration. We find him telling his son to cheer up, not to despond; that there are green spots in the desert of life; that after darkness comes light. And even in this dreadful plight there are moments when the tragic becomes serio-comic. There is a night when the plaintive sounds from the darkness about him urge him to make one more assault upon the cupboard that he knows is empty--no, not quite empty; there is a book, and by the embers of their dying fire he reads the title, “The Dark Ages,” and he and all indulge in a hearty laugh, and then go supperless--nay, breakfastless and dinnerless--to bed.

The family did not follow him into exile immediately, but his devoted wife reached Navy Island a few hours before the dramatic moment when Drew arrived and the _Caroline_ became a torch. Like Deborah, she, too, might have said, “I will surely go with thee, notwithstanding the journey shall not be for thine honour.” The general belief is that, though loyal to him and a staunch Reformer, she by no means sympathised in his ultra opinions and combustive action. She remained for two weeks in that dreadful place, made flannel cartridge-bags, slept in a rough log shanty on a shelf covered with straw, where the walls were poor protection from wet and cold and but a thin partition from the unholy clamour of the desperate crowd about her, and tried to inspire her husband and his followers by an example of courage and freedom from fear. Then ill-health obliged her to leave, and when accompanying her to the house of a friend in Buffalo Mackenzie was arrested for breach of the neutrality laws. Scylla and Charybdis, the devil and the deep sea, a dilemma with the orthodox number of horns, lose all strength as similes at this point of the small hero’s career.

The devotion of Mackenzie’s mother, like that of most mothers, begins at the date of his birth. She was her husband’s senior by nineteen years and old for a first experience of motherhood. The husband’s death followed soon after, and then came the vows which her Church prescribed for the orphaned infant’s baptism, a struggle with misfortune, and a determination to keep a roof over their two heads. Strange to say, both grandparents were Mackenzies,--one Black Colin, or Colin Dhu--and both Loyalists who fought for the Stuarts.

In 1801 there was a grievous famine, and one of the earliest memories of “the bright boy with yellow hair--wearing a blue short coat with yellow buttons,” is that of his mother taking the chief treasure of her kist, a plaid of her own clan tartan and spun with her own hands when a girl, to sell for bread. As he lay in his bed and watched her take it out--not with tears we may be sure, Mrs. Mackenzie was no crying woman--did this earnest of future days of want and care shadow the equally heroic spirit of the child. The priest-grey coat of his father had to follow. “Well may I love the poor, greatly may I esteem the humble and the lowly, for poverty and adversity were my nurses, and in my youth were want and misery my familiar friends,” he wrote later. Divine worship was held in that family of two, and it was a daily prayer that the rightful monarch might be set upon the throne, with the saving clause--prophetic glimpses of a Family Compact--that he might have able and wise counsellers, added.

Flesh and blood had revolted at the long tasks of memorizing Scripture, Westminster Catechism, Psalms and “Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted,” set him by his parent. The leader of men was first a leader of boys, and the rebel of after years began that career by rebelling against his mother at the ripe age of ten years, leaving home and setting up on his own account in the Grampians as a hermit. An old castle perched somewhere near where the clouds seemed to touch the crags was to have been the hermitage, but a most carnal need of bread and butter and a fear of fairies induced a return. Though longing to be a hermit, young Willie had no taste for the study of polemics; but he would read till midnight, and his mother feared that “the laddie would read himself out o’ his judgment.” The first school to which he went was held in an old Roman Catholic chapel, where the former Holy Water basin was made the seat of punishment. This very small boy was early a good arithmetician and made satisfactory general progress, but he managed to find time to decorate the backs of his fellows with caricatures in chalk, and to pin papers to their coat-tails. One day he went into that sanctum, the master’s closet, put on the fool’s cap, tied himself up with the taws, and with the birch for sceptre took his seat in the holy cup. There was the usual denouement of discovery, a master boiling with rage, the taws and birch in active use, and a sorrowful small boy.

The mother was extremely small in stature, brunette, and with dark brown hair which, when it turned white, remained as long and abundant as ever; her eyes were sharp and piercing, generally quiet in expression but under excitement flashed ominously. The cheek bones were high, and the small features unmistakably Celtic, the thin-lipped mouth telling of an unconquerable will which she bequeathed to her only child. The face under the broad high forehead was seldom allowed to relax into perfect placidity, the surface always showing more or less of the inward volcano; any repose there was due to religious feeling. In the son we have but a replica of the mother. She spoke Gaelic, but seldom used it; she did not reckon fairies among abolished myths, and she believed firmly in the Mackenzie death-warning which was always given by an invisible messenger. The strongest affection existed between mother and son, who lived together for the last seventeen years of the former’s life.

It was but little to the credit of one of his powerful enemies that, in an effort to equal the _Advocate_, jeering remarks upon Mackenzie’s aged mother were made in the public press. But so it was; and he was advised to mend his ways as an editor, if he expected to continue to support his mother and family. The inference, as his biographer gives it, is that it was not praiseworthy to support an aged mother. It drew from the son the boast that if he could keep his old mother, his wife and his family, and avoid debt, he cared not for wealth.

Speaking in his paper of the spirit of the “faction” towards the press, Mackenzie indulged in a prophecy of an event at which the same aged mother was a pained witness. In connection with the trials of a Canadian editor of a different political stripe, he says: “By the implied consent of King, Lords and Commons, he is doomed to speedy shipwreck, unless a merciful Providence should open his eyes in time, and his good genius prompt him to hurl press and types to the bottom of Lake Ontario.” Mackenzie lived quite close to the lake, and his evil wishers must have taken the hint. Every one knows the story of how _noblesse oblige_ was construed into the necessity for an invasion of the printing office, at an hour when no man would be there; how the raiders, in age from thirty-four years downwards, were the flower of that “Canadian nobility” against which the editor never wearied hurling his radical sayings; and how Mrs. Mackenzie, then in her seventy-eighth year, stood trembling in a corner of the office--for the building was home as well--while she witnessed, with fear and indignation, the destruction of her son’s property and the means of her own livelihood. As if the tale could be improved upon, some romancers, telling of the rise of Canada from barbarism to civilization, have adorned it with gross maltreatment of the aged lady by these gentlemen who, with her only to stay them, were naturally _sans peur_. They should also be without this one reproach, for they were too intent upon pi-ing type and throwing the contents of the office into the bay to trouble about her.

Someone says that a good and true woman is like a Cremona violin; age but increases the worth and sweetens the tone. In the words of Disraeli, this woman’s love had illumined the dark woof of poverty; fate had it in store that that love should “lighten the fetters of the slave” before she died.

The way in which Canadian rebels were treated in prison is to the reader of their experiences a continual reproach to the powers which made them thus suffer. But the American Bastille, according to the records left by Mackenzie, out-did the Canadian. A steep staircase, a ladder and a trap-door fastened by bar and lock, led to a room wherein were the dangling rope and hideous apparatus of death ready waiting for the next unfortunate; beyond the room was Mackenzie’s cell. It was only through this passage-way that mother, children, wife or friends could reach him, where they had to run the gauntlet of coarse jests from brutalized men and the worse than brutal remarks of such women as were prisoners there. The gaoler in this place deserved to be immortalized by Dickens. Of low stature, with an exaggerated hook nose, fleshless and fallen-in cheeks on which nature had begrudged a sufficient skin covering; round, sunken, peering eyes, feline from long watching; nails filthy, like claws forever in the dirt--such was the gaoler. “You felt in regarding him that if cast into the sea he would have more power to pollute it than it would have to purify him.” A fee of thirty-six dollars for three months procured from him the occasional admittance of friends, although the iron doors were freely opened to those who wished to see a real live Canadian rebel. Close confinement and miasma broke Mackenzie’s health in a short time; he could no longer eat the food which his children carried him--it was feared he might be poisoned by the gaol fare--his wife was in delicate health, his mother had reached ninety years, and his mind was torn with anxiety over the illness of a beloved daughter. The other prisoners were allowed occasional days of freedom to visit taverns and roam the town, but no such liberty came to him. “My dear little girl grew worse and worse, she was wasted to a skeleton.... I had followed four of her sisters and a brother to the churchyard, but I might not look upon her. One fine day she was carried ... to the prison, and her mother and I watched her for forty-eight hours, but the gaoler vexed us so that she had to be taken home again, where she was soon in the utmost danger, and when her poor little sister comes to tell me how she is at dusk ... the gaoler will tell her to wait in the public place in the gaol, perhaps for an hour or more, till supper comes, as he can’t be put to the trouble of opening my cage twice.”

Then the poor old mother sickens, and he knows her time has come. He makes every effort to be allowed to see her, and when he has given up hope writes her a truly beautiful letter of farewell. In it he thanks her for all she had done for him, all she has been to him, and that if the wealth of the world were his he would give it to be at her side. “But wealth I have none, and of justice there is but little here.” He tells her of his hopes to put, with his coming liberty, the rest in comfort, but “sorrow fills my heart when I am told that you will not have your aged eyes comforted by the sight.” The majesty of the law, for offence against which he was suffering, was invoked to get him freedom for the desired interview. Under the shadow of a writ of Habeas Corpus _ad respondendum_, a court at which he was required to appear as a witness was held in his house, and accompanied by his gaoler he was allowed to attend. The magistrate was late in arriving, conveniently cold when he did come, and protracted his sitting so that the desired interview between the dying mother and distressed son might have no interruption, while the sheriff and gaoler waited in the room adjoining the bedroom. The mother summoned all her fortitude, pronounced her last farewell, bade him trust in God and fear not. She never spoke afterwards, and from the windows of the gaol the political prisoner, in an agony which any can understand, with which all can sympathize, saw her funeral pass.

Mackenzie’s consideration towards women did not extend beyond the members of his own family. But an alert providence arranged that he should usually be well met. Some hours after Anderson had been shot, a rebel named Pool called at the house of Mr. James Scott Howard, in Yonge Street, to inquire the whereabouts of the body. Immediately after he left, the first detachment of the rebel army, about fifteen or twenty men, drew up on the lawn in front of the house, wheeled at the word of command, and went away in search of the dead man. The next to be seen were three or four Loyalists hurrying down the road, who said there were five hundred rebels behind them, and as the morning wore on more men were seen and the sound of firing was heard. At eleven o’clock, or thereabouts, another detachment of rebels appeared, headed by the afterwards well-known figure stuffed out with extra coats to be bullet-proof, on a small white horse. To enable the pony to enter the lawn the men wrenched off fence-boards, after which the stuffed man, Mackenzie, entered the house without knocking, took possession of the sitting-room, and ordered dinner for fifty. Mrs. Howard said she could not comply with such an order. Mackenzie took advantage of Mr. Howard’s absence in town to indulge in much abuse of the latter, saying it was high time someone else held the postmastership. Mrs. Howard at length referred him to the servant in the kitchen, and Mackenzie went to see about dinner himself. He and his men appropriated a sheep in process of cooking in a large sugar-kettle, a barrel of beef and a baking of bread. The tool house was made free use of to sharpen their weapons, which consisted of chisels and gouges on pole-ends, hatchets, knives and guns of all descriptions. At two o’clock the rebels took a disorderly departure, leaving a young West Highlander on guard. Mrs. Howard said she was sorry to see so fine a Scotchman turn against his Queen, to which the reply was, “Country first, Queen next.” The fifty rebels had evidently left on account of the flag of truce proceedings, and at half-past three they all returned, headed by Mackenzie. He demanded of Mrs. Howard “where the dinner was,” and her coolness of demeanour and temper exasperated him. He pulled her from her chair to the window, shook his whip over her, and told her to be thankful her house was not in the state in which she saw Dr. Horne’s. Lount privately told Mrs. Howard not to mind Mackenzie, as he was quite beside himself. After they had eaten the much-ordered dinner, the men had some barrels of whiskey on the lawn and their behaviour during the night naturally alarmed the family. The one man-servant had made his escape, saying he feared being taken prisoner by the rebels. The party remained there until Wednesday; the true defence of the place lay in Mrs. Howard’s intrepidity. Her troubles did not end with the departure of the rabble, for her husband, a true Loyalist of the best type, suffered much at the hands of either party. Such grinding between the upper and the nether millstone as he thereafter experienced is a matter of history.

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Nathaniel Pearson, a Quaker, one of the most refined and gentle of the gentlest sect, an intelligent farmer and keenly interested in politics, lived in the Aurora district. Some of his Quaker principles were sacrificed to those of Reform, and he rode off to join the insurgents on their way south. He missed them, and to his Quaker mind there was but one honourable thing to do, and that was to give himself up to the Government. During his absence his wife, possessed of as many gifts and attractions as her husband, had to go to Aurora on business, with the result that she was marched to the guard-house between two Loyalist soldiers. She appealed for help to a man who was their neighbour, and who often had been kept in the necessities of life by the Quaker family; but he turned a deaf ear, even when she pleaded on the score of her young baby at home. Her case reached the ears of a man named King, from Orillia, who at once interested himself in her behalf. “Do you tell me you have a young baby at home needing you? Gad, if they had taken my wife that way, they wouldn’t know that the devil had ever been born before!” His interest resulted in her release, and on reaching home she found that Quaker principles were to be forfeited once more. The Loyalists were about, searching for food and arms, and the faithful maid, Betty, determined they should have neither at her employers’ expense. The one gun in the house was hidden in a brush-heap behind the barn, and Betty had barely straightened her back after doing so when she saw a Loyalist on the fence, watching her. A party entered the house, demanding food, and were on their way to the cellar, where a large stock of freshly-cooked provisions was stored, when the faithful Betty once more forswore her sect, declared the cellar empty, and saved her master’s property.

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When Captain P. De Grasse left his home on that ever eventful night in December to join the Loyalists in the city he was accompanied by his two daughters, Charlotte and Cornelia, who wished to see him to the borders of the town, so that they could report his safety to their mother. The way lay through uncleared bush, and the time was late at night. They fell in with Matthews and his party, who were on their way to destroy the Don bridge, when Charlotte with great presence of mind suddenly wheeled to the left, made her pony stamp noisily through the mud, and thereby averted Matthew’s notice from her father and her sister. They all succeeded in reaching the city about one o’clock, an exciting ride for two girls under fifteen years of age. In spite of the commotion and signs of fear all about, the girls determined to go back to their mother. The first half of the return journey was in bright moon-light, but the second half contained all the terrors of darkness in a section infested by rebels. They reached their mother at four in the morning, and that same day returned to town with information of the proceedings of the rebels at the Don. Again, on the Wednesday, they crossed the bush to seek their father at the turnpike on Yonge Street; he was not there, and when Cornelia saw the general terror, consequent upon the report that the rebels were five thousand strong at Montgomery’s Tavern, she resolved to proceed there alone and find out the truth. As she passed the rebel lines all seemed amazed to see a little girl on a fiery pony come fearlessly among them, and she could hear them inquire of one another who she was. She reached the wheelwright’s by Montgomery’s without molestation, inquired in a casual manner as to the price of a sled of particular dimensions, promised to give him an answer the next day, turned her horse’s head towards town, when suddenly several men seized the bridle and said, “You are our prisoner.” They kept her nearly an hour while they waited for Mackenzie, who when he did come, amidst general huzzaing, announced “Glorious news! We have taken the Western Mail!” In the booty he had the historical feminine impedimenta which afterwards disguised him for escape, so capturing little girls was quite in the order of things. While the rebels congratulated him and crowded round the coachman and passengers, the doughty Cornelia saw her opportunity, whipped up her pony and made her escape, although fired at several times. After ridding herself of this party she was fired at from Watson’s and summoned to surrender. This but strengthened her nerve, and in time she reached the city, to give a true account of the robbery of the mail and the number and arms of the rebels.

Meantime the Loyalists were making use of Charlotte as a despatch bearer on the Kingston Road. She returned with the answer and then set out for her home. Near a corner of the bush she was fired at by a large party of rebels; both she and her pony were wounded, and the frightened beast jumped the fence; one of the rebels, not to be outwitted, ran across the angle of the bush, got in front of her and fired in her face.

The next day Cornelia, once more bent on seeing her father, reached the city in time to follow the troops up Yonge Street on their way to Gallows Hill. This daughter of the regiment was urged by the Chief-Justice to collect for him all the particulars of the engagement, which, cool and undaunted--oblivious of thundering of cannon--she undertook to do, and did.

Her adventures were not yet over, for on her way home she discovered that Matthews had by this time set the Don bridge on fire, and she at once returned to the city to give the alarm. While she was thus occupied another heroine, sometime cook to Sir Francis Bond Head, was engaged in putting the fire out, a work which she did not accomplish before receiving a bullet in her knee. As by this time the bridge was useless, Cornelia left her pony in town and set out on foot on her homeward way at eleven o’clock at night through a district filled with dispersed rebels. The story does not relate the final reunion of this mutually devoted family, but it is to be presumed Charlotte went on calmly cutting bread and butter and Cornelia continued worthy of the great name she bore.

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