more
attention to the pleading call of the generals in the field or the
authoritative voice of the President, than they would have done to a
blind piper playing in the street! It was easier to dawdle than to fight
or even do duty in camp: it was more pleasant to bask in the admiring
smiles of silly girls who should have turned their eyes into basilisks
to blast the indolent and miserable cowards--than to dare the July sun
on the banks of the James, or run the risk of a flash from the enemy's
cannon. Men who had the welfare of the republic at heart, turned sick
when they looked at these hale, hearty and unwounded absentees from an
honorable service, every man of them daily breaking his oath to his
country and his obligations to his own conscience. This was one more of
the phases of society at Niagara, which Tom Leslie was called upon to
note down and study during those opening days of July, and one of the
evils which--shame to the nation that it should be so!--is only now[16]
beginning to find a partial remedy.

[Footnote 16: March 14th, 1863.]

But it has been said that Walter Harding reached Niagara at noon on
Monday, and thenceforth Leslie had a companion in most of his strolls
and observations. Harding's calm face looked a little jaded with close
attention to business in hot weather and a time of financial trouble; he
had not been quite so frequent a rambler at the Falls as Leslie, and had
some points of interest yet to visit in the neighborhood, especially on
the Canada side; he was fonder of the road and less fond of observations
among the crowd of sight-seers and summer-loungers, than his friend; and
as a consequence, after his coming, riding took the place of lounging
to a great degree. Nothing with reference to these rides, most of which
took place along the green lanes and among the fertile fields of
Brantford County, deserves notice in this place, except one phase of the
peculiar character of Leslie, half-earnest patriotism and
half-tormenting mischief. He found plenty of ill-feeling towards the
United States, among the Canadians, and as much effort as possible to
depreciate the Federal currency. Thenceforth his special anxiety was to
vex and annoy as many of the Canadians and native English as possible,
and verbally, at least, to annex the two Canadas to the Union.

Going up to the top of the Observatory at Lundy's Lane, on their
Tuesday-morning ride, among the other visitors who were listening to the
ten-