The Yellow Briar. Patrick Slater

local craftsmen at Rochester were greatly disturbed. They took immediate action, and, as Masonry had great influence in New York State, Morgan was arrested on a trumped-up charge of petty larceny and bundled off to an outside town. The charge fell down; but Morgan was kept in gaol because he could not put up a bond for $2.65.

      On the night of Tuesday, September 26, 1826, someone paid the debt for him and he was released. Directly in front of the gaol, he was gagged and thrown into a closed carriage. He was afterwards locked up in the stone block-house facing the parade ground of the American fort at Niagara. He lay in an underground apartment used for storing ammunition. Colonel William McKay, a Knight Templar, had him in charge.

      At a meeting of Masons, held in Lewiston, it was resolved to discipline Morgan. The meeting was informed the assistance of two brethren would be required. The result of the balloting would remain secret; but the two men who drew marked ballots would be met by another craftsman at ten o’clock on a certain evening on the plain near Fort Niagara. The password would be “Thomson-Johnson.”

      Two men met at the time and place appointed. The third man joined them. Johnson was directed to fetch a row-boat. The other two repaired to the basement of the old stone fort.

      Morgan begged for mercy — but he cried in vain. His body was then placed in a gunny sack, which, being weighted with a chain, made a heavy burden for two men to carry. The boat was rowed out into the river. There was a splash. The boat returned to shore. The three separated without a further word being spoken.

      “The dirty heretics!” observed Bridget O’Hogan, calmly. “And it is the likes of them look down on the likes of us.”

      What seemed to disturb Mr. O’Hogan’s mind, in connection with the story, was not the fact that the poor man had been murdered by the Masons — he expected nothing better of them. He was wrathy because Masonry was so powerful that the State did not bring the murderers to justice.

      “Oh yes!” he told us, as he sucked his cutty, “we had midnight burnings and horrible murders in Ireland; but, if one peeked through the window, he saw the soldiery leading off the miserable creatures in irons to trial and to death.”

      The story of William Morgan brought disrepute to the Masonic Order, and an element of distrust to the minds of the neighbours of every member of the craft. I mention it, now, merely because it is a fair example of the unbridled prejudices of the times, which charged against every great body of men the reckless acts of its individual members. Every child knows, nowadays, that the Free Masons have a beautiful system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols. In their retreats of friendship and brotherly love, may God be with them. May the rays of heaven shed their benign influences upon them, and enlighten them in the paths of virtue and of science.

      But I feel that way toward them, not because of the secret mysteries they hele, ever conceal and never reveal — and which are very suitable for Sunday-school instruction — but because they form a harmless and respectable body of my fellow countrymen. There is no unkindly feeling in my old Catholic heart toward any of the secret fraternal, racial, or religious societies that infest this young country. It is only nature for birds of a feather to flock together. Such societies may all have some uses toward a common good; but there is a savour of snobbery at the basis of them all. They tend also to keep asunder Canadians who otherwise might more freely break the bread of patriotism at a common board and offer up to a land of freedom the full measure of their united and sincere devotion. Religious and lodge influences in public affairs have been a blighting curse in Canada. To get anywhere in my day, the aspirant had to be a bigot or a joiner; and, even today, there are poor prospects for any respectable loose fish.

      There never was any question as to the kidnapping of Morgan. In January 1827, Edward Sawyer and two other members of the craft pleaded guilty in New York State “to conspiring to seize and carry William Morgan from gaol to foreign parts and there continually to secrete and imprison him.” Sawyer was given a month in gaol.

      The other side of the story was that Morgan had been helped to run away to Canada to avoid his creditors.

      “But,” as Mr. O’Hogan exclaimed, “if the said William Morgan was alive, why did they not produce the man and save their ugly faces?”

      The next morning early I slipped around to see what had happened at the Tavern Tyrone. Himself was about, as usual, giving orders. His daughter Violet was making up a feather bed in the double-bedded room upstairs over the bar. No sign saw I of ought untoward. The first meeting of King Solomon’s Lodge, No. 22, G.R.C., had evidently passed off without anyone being hurted.

      Young Jack Trueman may have heard more of that lodge meeting than was intended for his ears; or perhaps he had the gift of a powerful imagination. He claimed to have hidden under the bed in the back bedroom upstairs, with his ear to the partition. In any event, the matter was much on his mind; and, in the afternoon, he herded a dozen youngsters into the Trueman stable to hold a lodge meeting of his own. I was in charge of the door; and Jack had a hammer and an empty beer-barrel.

      He gave the barrel three smart knocks; and we all came to attention.

      “What now, brethren, is our first care?” he demanded, in the heavy burr that reminds one of St. Andrews.

      I had my instructions.

      “To see that the lodge is properly tyled, worshipful sir,” said I.

      “Direct that duty to be done,” commanded Trueman, Jr.

      So I hammered three times on the inside of the stable door, and a little negro boy, posted outside, hammered back three times to tell us everything was in order.

      But young Jack refused to believe our ears. Over and over, he insisted that we holler at him:

      “The door is properly tyled, worshipful sir!”

      So I went out to make dead sure about it; and then I quietly stole away on more interesting business of my own.

3 ADRIFT

      Jack Trueman’s dog was a black and tan collie with a bobtail. His was the general-purpose breed of a drover’s tyke; and he was all dog. Jack claimed to own the sharp-eyed, self-reliant fellow — but that was a matter of opinion, merely. In the dog’s way of looking at things, Rover owned Jack Trueman; and Trueman — he owned me. When a smart, clever dog has something of his very own, you understand — say a smelly bone or an unruly boy — naturally he thinks highly of his own property. And he puts up with the smell of his own bone and the kicks of his own boy as one of the inconveniences of proprietorship, just the same as you and I put up with taxes.

      Rover liked, at times, to have his boy throw sticks for him; and, of course, sticks can not be thrown if they are not fetched. But he only fancied that sort of thing in moderation. When the sport ceased to amuse him, he would cock his leg against a post, and then run away on business of his own. This was clear evidence, you will agree, that Rover was the chief executive.

      Jack Trueman had not bought the dog; nor had he been given the dog. One day, Rover had left the drover’s team he was looking after, and had dropped in, casual-like, to inspect the alley at the side and the stable in the rear of the Tavern Tyrone. He fancied the look of the place and the smell of the slop-bucket. Off-hand, he decided he would like to own a boy who lived round an interesting place like that. So the two of them struck up a bargain on the spot – at least they thought they did. There was a mutual understanding so complete that things worked out all right.

      Rover was old enough to have sense, but young enough to be full of devilment. He was a regular fellow. He never got into any squabbles with girl dogs; but the body-odours of any gent of his own kind who strayed within a block of the Tavern Tyrone seemed very displeasing to him. And, when he fought another dog, Rover stuck right at the job till he gave a thrashing to the son of a bitch, or enough silly humans ran together to make it a draw. Jack and his collie got into street fights daily. I was their partisan and did a lot of grunting for them. The three of us skylarked that spring about the streets of Toronto.

      One