That boy sits now with pen in hand, From memory's photographic land Painting in colors fair and true The vanished scenes which once he knew. As thus he rested taking breath, He little dreamed of blood or death. Up Rideau Street a man there came, Charles McStravick was his name. A tall, lithe, active fellow, he, As in a thousand you could see; A white blanket _capote_ he wore, And jauntily himself he bore, He stepped beneath the arch, and then Rushed at him fiercely two strong men. Both with surprise and dread were scan'd. One had a loaded whip in hand, The other a short bludgeon bore, And in a moment, all was o'er! Three blows, a crash, a stream of blood. All of the victim bad or good In life, was in an instant crushed To dust--off the assailants rushed, And none can tell from then 'till now The hands that laid McStravick low, Nor does he who relates the story Know more of that occurrence gory My history would be faithless here Did "Happy Jimmy" not appear, An innocent good natured soul As ever loved the flowing bowl-- An institution of the day That like himself hath passed away, Was "Happy Jimmy," he who made A vagrant's life a merry trade. CHAPTER VI. And now, kind reader, I behold Before me, as in days of old, Bold Paddy Whelan, Wexford Paddy Surely of noisy men the daddy; A man of most Herculean form, Who roamed through sunshine and through storm, And sounded loud in other days His notes in Hamnett Pinhey's praise-- And well he might sing with loud swell, "The Lamb of March" deserved it well! A man of learning, wit, and sense, No shallow thing of vain pretence, The true stamp of the current guinea Bore March's Father, Hamnett Pinhey. To "Muddy Little York" went he, The Independent and the Free To represent with power effective Amid the wisdom most collective, In the old days of Compact Rule Ere Grittism yet had gone to school; Dalhousie District's Archives too, Can show what he was wont to do. Paddy, though not of _genus ferae,_ Was yet a queer _lusus naturae_; His vital organs played beneath A shield of solid bone 'till death, Without a yielding space between, Where ribs in other men are seen, Though not a feathered bird, his toes Were web'd as well the writer knows, And joined in one in style most rare His molars and incisors were; His voice, when at its loudest swell, Was like a railway whistle's yell; In stature he was six feet tall, So there is Paddy for you all! But strike I now a strain sublime, A touch heroic into rhyme. As memory doth with truth uncoil The history of old Bob Boyle, A British soldier, bold and free, Of the old Ninety-Ninth was he, Who bravely fought and 'scaped from harm, At Lundy's Lane and Crysler's Farm, And gallantly his bayonet bore, At Fort Niagara, and the shore Of Sackett's Harbor trod of yore, When "Uncle Sam," our friend and brother, Or cousin, kicked up such a "bother" In 1812, and tried In vain to lower Britain's pride, By cutting from her parent side, By a Caesarean operation,