The Four Canadian Highwaymen or, The Robbers of Markham Swamp   By: J. E. (Joseph Edmund) Collins (1855-1892)

OR,

THE ROBBERS OF MARKHAM SWAMP.

BY EDMUND COLLINS

PREFACE.

The following story is founded on fact, everybody about this part of Canada who is not deaf having heard of the gang at Markham Swamp.

I have no doubt that some of my friends who are in the habit of considering themselves "literary," will speak with despair and disparagement of myself when they read the title of this book. They will call it "blood and thunder," and will see that I am on my way to the dogs.

Well, these people are my friends after all, and I shall not open a quarrel with them. For they themselves have tempted the public with stupid books and essays; and they failed in finding buyers. Therefore they have demonstrated for me that a stupid book doesn't pay; and I will not, even for my best friend, write anything but what the people will buy from me. I am not a Fellow of the R.S.C., and if I produced anything dreary I could not look for the solace of having that discerning association clap their hands while I read my manuscript.

As to my subject being blood and thunder, as some of the litterateurs will describe it, I have only to say that the author of Hard Cash wrote more than a dozen short stories laid upon lines similar to mine. A young man fighting for a place in literature, and for bread and butter at the same time, need not blush at being censured for adopting a literary field in which Charles Reade spent so many years of his life.

By and by, when I drive a gilded chariot, and can afford to wait for books with quieter titles and more dramatic worth to bring me their slow earnings, I shall be presumptuous enough to set such a star before my ambition as the masters of English fiction followed.

E. C.

TORONTO, 1st August, 1886.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

THE PRETTY ASTER AND MR. HAM

CHAPTER II.

A GATHERING STORM

CHAPTER III.

THE DUEL

CHAPTER IV.

TO THE EDGE OF MARKHAM SWAMP.

CHAPTER V.

THE ROBBERS OF MARKHAM SWAMP.

CHAPTER VI.

THE WAYS OF ROBBER LIFE.

CHAPTER VII.

ROBBERS AT HOME AND ABROAD.

CHAPTER VIII.

UNDERGROUND MYSTERIES OF THE SWAMP

CHAPTER IX.

DISCIPLINE AND OTHER INCIDENTS

CHAPTER X.

BURIED ALIVE IN HIS ROOM

CHAPTER XI.

SCENES LEADING TO THE CLIMAX

CHAPTER XII.

THE CAPTURE OF THE 'MOST' BEAUTIFUL MAIDEN.

CHAPTER XIII.

'ALL'S WELL THAT END'S WELL.'

MARY HOLT'S ENGAGEMENT

THE FOUR CANADIAN HIGHWAYMEN;

OR,

THE ROBBERS OF MARKHAM SWAMP.

CHAPTER I.

THE PRETTY ASTER AND MR. HAM.

It was the autumn of the year, and the dress of the Canadian woods at that season, forty years ago, differed little from the gaudy garbs of now. Near a small village not far from the town of Little York, I choose as the place for the opening of this true story.

The maple, of all the trees in the forest, was the only one so far frost smitten and sun struck. The harvests had been gathered, and the only tenants of the fields were flocks of pigeons that came to feed among the stubble; for many a ripe ear fell from the heads in the tying of the sheaves; many a shower of the golden grain had fallen as the load, drawn by slow oxen, lurched and swayed along the uneven ground.

Nestling in a grove of primeval pines that sentinelled the placid, shining waters of the Don stood a low, wide eaved cottage. It was completely clad in ivy; and upon the eastern side there was a dull copper tinge through the matted masses of the Virginia creeper.