Here a tall, fine-looking black, wearing the livery of Colonel D'Egville, entering to announce that coffee was waiting for them in an adjoining room—the party rose and retired to the ladies.
Many of our readers will doubtless bear in mind the spot called Elliott's Point, at the western extremity of Lake Erie, to which we have already introduced them. At a considerable distance beyond that again (its intermediate shores washed by the silver waves of the Erie) stretches a second, called also, from the name of its proprietor, Hartley's Point. Between these two necks are three or four farms; one of which, and adjoining Hartley's, was, at the period of which we treat, occupied by an individual of whom, unfortunately for the interests of Canada, too many of the species had been suffered to take root within her soil.
This person had his residence near Hartley's Point. Unlike those however whose dwellings rose at a distance, few and far between, hemmed in by the fruits of prosperous agriculture, he appeared to have paid but little attention to the cultivation of a soil, which in every part was of exceeding fertility. A rude log hut, situated in a clearing of the forest, the imperfect work of lazy labor, was his only habitation, and here he had for years resided without its being known how he contrived to procure the necessary means of subsistence; yet, in defiance of the apparent absence of all resources, it was subject of general remark, that he not only never wanted money, but had been enabled to bestow something like an education on a son, who had, at the epoch opened by our narrative, been absent from him upwards of five years. From his frequent voyages, and the direction his canoe was seen to take, it was inferred by his immediate neighbors, that he dealt in contraband, procuring various articles on the American coast, which he subsequently disposed of in the small town of Amherstburg (one of the principal English posts) among certain subjects domiciliated there, who were suspected of no very scrupulous desire to benefit the revenue of the country. So well and so wisely however, did he cover his operations, that he had always contrived to elude detection—and, although suspicion attached to his conduct, in no instance had he openly committed himself. The man himself, tall, stout, and of a forbidding look, was of a fearless and resolute character, and if he resorted to cunning, it was because cunning alone could serve his purposes in a country, the laws of which were not openly to be defied.
For a series of years after his arrival, he had contrived to evade taking the customary oaths of allegiance; but this, eventually awakening the suspicions of the magistracy, brought him more immediately under their surveillance, when year after year, he was compelled to a renewal of the oath, for the imposition of which, it was thought, he owed more than one of those magistrates a grudge. On the breaking out of the war, he still remained in undisturbed possession of his rude dwelling, watched as well as circumstances would permit, it is true, but not so narrowly as to be traced in his various nocturnal excursions by water. Nothing could be conceived more uncouth in manner and appearance than this man—nothing more villanous than the expression of his eye. No one knew from what particular point of the United States he had come, and whether Yankee or Kentuckian, it would have puzzled one of that race of beings, so proverbial fer acumen—a Philadelphia lawyer—to have determined.
The day following that of the capture of the American detachment was just beginning to dawn, as two individuals appeared on the skirt of the rude clearing in which the hut of the man we have just described, had been erected. The persons of both these, wrapped in blue military cloaks, reposed upon the dark foliage in a manner to enable them to observe, without being themselves seen, all that passed within the clearing, from the log hut to the sand of the lake shore. There had been an indication by one of these of a design to step forth from his concealment into the clearing, and advance boldly towards the house; but this had been checked by his companion, who, laying his hand upon his shoulder, arrested the movement, pointing out at the same time, the leisurely but cautious advance of two men from the hut towards the shore, on which lay a canoe half drawn up on the sands. Each, on issuing from the hut, had deposited a rifle against the rude exterior of the dwelling, the better to enable them to convey a light mast, sail, paddles, several blankets and a common corn-bag, apparently containing provisions, with which they proceeded towards the canoe.
"So," said the taller of the first party, in a whisper, "there is that d——d rascal Desborough setting out on one of his contraband excursions. He seems to have a long absence in view, if we may judge from the contents of his provision sack."
"Hist," rejoined his companion, "there is more here than meets the eye. In the first instance, remove the pistols from the case, and be prepared to afford me assistance, should I require it."
"What the devil are you going to do?" asked the first speaker, following however the hint that had been given him, and removing a pair of duelling pistols from their mahogany case.
While he was in the act of doing this, his companion had, without replying, quitted his side, and cautiously and noiselessly advanced to the hut. In the course of a few minutes he again appeared at the point whence he had started, grasping in either hand the rifles so recently deposited there.
"Well, what is the meaning of this feat? you do not intend, Yankee fashion, to exchange a long shot with poor Molineux, I hope—if so, my dear fellow, I cry off, for upon my honor, I cannot engage in anything that is not strictly orthodox."
He, thus addressed, could scarcely restrain a laugh at the serious tone in which his companion expressed himself, as if he verily believed he had that object in view.
"Would you not like," he asked, "to be in some degree instrumental in banishing wholly from the country a man whom we all suspect of treason, but are compelled to tolerate from inability to prove his guilt—this same notorious Desborough?"
"Now that you no longer speak and act in parables, I can understand you. Of course I should, but what proof of his treason are we to discover in the mere fact of his departing on what he may choose to call a hunting excursion? even admitting he is speculating in the contraband,thatcannot banish him; and if it could, we would never descend to become informers."
"Nothing of the kind is required of us—his treason will soon unfold itself, and that in a manner to demand, as an imperative duty, that we secure the traitor. For this have I removed the rifles which may, in a moment of desperation, be turned at backwoodsman's odds against our pistols. Let us steal gently towards the beach, and then you shall satisfy yourself; but I had nearly forgotten—suppose the other party should arrive?"
"Then they must in their turn wait for us. They have already exceeded their time ten minutes."
"Look," exclaimed his companion, as he slightly grasped the shoulder on which his hand had rested, "he is returning for the rifles."
Only one of the two men now retrod his steps from the beach towards the hut, but with a more hurried action than before. As he passed where the friends still lingered, he gave a start of surprise, apparently produced by the absence of the rifles. A moment's reflection seeming to satisfy him it was possible his memory had failed him, and that they had been left within the building, he hurried forward to assure himself. After a few moments of apparently ineffectual search, he again made his appearance, making the circuit of the hut to discover his lost weapons, but in vain; when in the fierceness of his anger, he cried aloud, with a bitterness that gave earnest of sincerity.
"By ——. I wish I had the curst British rascal who played me this trick, on t'other shore—if I wouldn't tuck my knife into his b——y gizzard, then is my name not Jeremiah Desborough. What the h—ll's to be done now?"
Taking advantage of his entrance into the hut, the two individuals, first described, had stolen cautiously under cover of the forest, until they arrived at its termination, within about twenty yards of the shore, where however there was no outward or visible sign of the individual who had been Desborough's companion. In the bows of the canoe were piled the blankets, and in the centre was deposited the provision bag that had formed a portion of their mutual load. The mast had not been hoisted, but lay extended along the hull, its sail loosened and partially covering the before-mentioned article of freightage. The bow half of the canoe pressed the beach, the other lay sunk in the water, apparently in the manner in which it had first approached the land.
Still uttering curses, but in a more subdued tone, against "the feller who had stolen his small bores," the angry Desborough retraced his steps to the canoe. More than once he looked back to see if he could discover any traces of the purloiner, until at length his countenance seemed to assume an expression of deeper cause for concern, than even the loss of his weapons.
"Ha, I expect some d——d spy has been on the look out—if so, I must cut and run I calculate purty soon."
This apprehension was expressed as he arrived opposite the point where the forest terminated. A slight rustling among the underwood reduced that apprehension to certainty. He grasped the handle of his huge knife that was thrust into the girdle around his loins, and riveting his gaze on the point whence the sound had proceeded, retreated in that attitude. Another and more distinct crush of underwood, and he stood still with surprise, on finding himself face to face, with two officers of the garrison.
"We have alarmed you, Desborough," said the younger, as they both advanced leisurely to the beach. "Do you apprehend danger from our presence?"
A keen searching glance flashed from the ferocious eye of the ruffian. Itwas but momentary. Quitting his firm grasp of the knife, he suffered his limbs to relax their tension, and aiming at carelessness, observed with a smile, that was tenfold more hideous from its being forced:
"Well now, I guess, who would have expected to see two officers so fur away from the fort at this early hour of the mornin'?"
"Ah," said the taller of the two, availing himself of the first opening to a pun which had been afforded, "we are merely out on ashootingexcursion."
Desborough gazed doubtingly on the speaker. "Strange sort of a dress that for shootin' I guess—them cloaks must be a great tanglement in the bushes."
"They serve to keep ourarmswarm," continued Middlemore, perpetrating another of his execrables.
"To keep your arms warm! well sure-ly, if that arn't droll. It may be some use to keep the primins dry, I reckon; but I can't see the use of keepin' the fowlin' pieces warm. Have you met with any game yet, officers? I expect as how I can point you out a purty spry place for pattridges and sich like."
"Thank you, my good fellow; but we have appointed to meet ourgamehere."
The dry manner in which this was observed had a visible effect on the settler. He glanced an eye of suspicion around, to see if other than the two officers were in view, and it was not without effort that he assumed an air of unconcern, as he replied:
"Well, I expect I have been many a long year a hunter, as well as other things, and yet, dang me if I ever calculated the game would come to me. It always costs me a purty good chase in the woods."
"How the fellowbeatsabout thebushto find whatgamewe are driving at," observed Middlemore, in an under tone, to his companion.
"Let him alone for that," returned he whom our readers have doubtless recognised for Henry Grantham. "I will match his punning against your cunning any day."
"The truth is, he isfishingto discover our motive for being here, and to find out if we are in any way connected with the disappearance of his rifles."
During this conversationapart, the Yankee had carelessly approached his canoe, and was affecting to make some alteration in the disposition of the sail. The officers, the younger especially, keeping a sharp look-out upon his movements, followed at some little distance, until they, at length, stood on the extreme verge of the sands. Their near approach seemed to render Desborough impatient.
"I expect, officers," he said, with a hastiness that, at any other moment, would have called down immediate reproof, if not chastisement, "you will only be losin' time here for nothin'; about a mile beyond Hartley's there'll be plenty of pattridges at this hour, and I am jist goin to start myself for a little shootin' in the Sandusky river."
"Than I presume," said Grantham, with a smile, "you are well provided with silver bullets, Desborough; for, in the hurry of departure, you seem likely to forget the only medium through which leaden ones can be made available—not a rifle or a shot-gun do I see."
The man fixed his eyes for a moment, with a penetrating expression, on theyouth, as if he would have sought a meaning deeper than the words implied. His reading seemed to satisfy him that all was right.
"What," he observed, with a leer, half cunning, half insolent, "if I have hid my rifle near the Sandusky swamp, the last time I hunted there?"
"In that case," observed the laughing Middlemore, to whom the opportunity was irresistible, "you are going out on awild goose chaseindeed. Your prospects for a good hunt, as you call it, cannot be said tobe sure as a gun; for in regard to the latter, you may depend some one has discovered andrifledit before this."
"You seem to have laid in a store of provisions for this trip, Desborough," remarked Henry Grantham; "how long do you purpose being absent?"
"I guess three or four days," was the sullen reply.
"Three or four days! why your bag contains"—and the officer partly raised a corner of the sail, "provisions for a week, or, at least, fortwofor half that period."
The manner in which thetwowas emphasised did not escape the attention of the settler. He was visibly disconcerted, nor was he at all reassured when the younger officer proceeded:
"By the bye, Desborough, we saw you leave the hut with a companion—what has become of him?"
The settler, who had now recovered his self-possession, met the question without the slightest show of hesitation:
"I expect you mean, young man," he said, with insufferable insolence, "a help as I had from Hartley's farm, to assist gittin' down the things. He took home along shore when I went back to the hut for the small bores."
"Oh ho, sir! the rifles are not then concealed near the Sandusky swamp, I find?"
For once the wily settler felt his cunning had overreached itself. In the first fury of his subdued rage, he muttered something amounting to a desire that he could produce them at that moment, as he would well know where to lodge the bullets—but, recovering himself, he said aloud:
"The rale fact is, I've a long gun hid, as I said, near the swamp, but my small bore I always carry with me—only think, jist as I and Hartley's help left the hut, I pit my rifle against the outside wall, not being able to carry it down with the other things, and when I went back a minute or two after, drot me if some tarnation rascal hadn't stole it."
"And if you had the British rascal on t'other shore, you wouldn't be long in tucking a knife into his gizzard, would you?" asked Middlemore, in a nearly verbatim repetition of the horrid oath originally uttered by Desborough. "I see nothing to warrant our interfering with him," he continued in an under tone to his companion.
Not a little surprised to hear his words repeated, the man lost somewhat of his confidence as he replied, "Well now, sure-ly, you officers didn't think nothin' o' that—I expect I was in a mighty rage to find my small bore gone, and I did curse a little hearty, to be sure."
"The small bore multiplied in your absence," observed Grantham; "when I looked at the hut there were two."
"Then may be you can tell me who was the particular d——d rascal that stole them," said the settler eagerly.
Middlemore laughed heartily at his companion who observed:
"The particular d——d rascal who removed, not stole them thence, stands before you."
Again the settler looked disconcerted. After a moment's hesitation he continued, with a forced grin that gave an atrocious expression to his whole countenance:
"Well now, you officers are playing a purty considerable spry trick—it's a good lark, I calculate—but you know, as the saying is, enough's as good as a feast. Do tell me, Mr. Grantham," and his discordant voice became more offensive in its effort at a tone of entreaty, "Do tell me where you've hid my small bore; you little think," he concluded, with an emphasis then unnoticed by the officers, but subsequently remembered to have been perfectly ferocious, "what reason I have to vally it."
"We never descend to larks of the kind," coolly observed Grantham; "but as you say you value your rifle, it shall be restored to you on one condition."
"And what may that be?" asked the settler, somewhat startled at the serious manner of the officer.
"That you show us what your canoe is freighted with. Here in the bows, I mean."
"Why," rejoined the Yankee quickly, but, as if without design, intercepting the officers' near approach, "that bag, I calculate, contains my provisions, and these here blankets that you see, peepin' like from under the sail, are what I makes my bed of while out huntin'."
"And are you quite certain there is nothing under those blankets?—nay do not protest—you cannot answer for what may have occurred while your back was turned, on your way to the hut for the rifle."
"By hell," exclaimed the settler, blusteringly, "were any man to tell me, Jeremiah Desborough, that there was anythin' beside them blankets in the canoe, I would lick him into a jelly, even though he could whip his own weight in wild cats."
"So is it? Now then, Jeremiah Desborough, although I have never yet tried to whip my own weight in wild cats, I tell you there is something more than those blankets; and what is more, I insist upon seeing what that something is."
The settler stood confounded. His eye rolled rapidly from one to the other of the officers, at the boldness and determination of this language. Singly, he could have crushed Henry Grantham in his gripe, even as one of the bears of the forest, near the outskirt of which they stood; but there were two, and while attacking the one, he was sure of being assailed by the other—nay, what was worse, the neighborhood might be alarmed. Moreover, although they had kept their cloaks carefully wrapped around their persons, there could be little doubt that both officers were armed, not, as they had originally given him to understand, with fowling pieces, but with (at the present close quarters at least) far more efficient weapons—pistols. He was relieved from his embarrassment by Middlemore exclaiming:
"Nay, do not press the poor devil, Grantham; I dare say the story of his hunting is all a hum, and that the fact is, he is merely going to earn an honest penny in one of his free commercial speculations—a little contraband," pointing his finger to the bows, "is it not, Desborough?"
"Why now, officer," said the settler, rapidly assuming a dogged air, as if ashamed of the discovery that had been so acutely made, "you won't hurt a poor feller for doin' a little in this way. Drot me, these are hard times, and this here war jist beginnin' quite pits one to one's shifts."
"This might do, Desborough, were your present freight an arrival instead of a departure, but we all know that contraband is imported, not exported."
"Mighty cute you are, I guess," replied the settler warily, with something like the savage grin of the wild cat to which he had so recently alluded; "but I expect it would be none so strange to have packed up a few dried hog skins to stow away the goods I am goin' for."
"I should like to try the effect of a bullet among the skins," said Grantham, leisurely drawing forth and cocking a pistol, after having whispered something in the ear of his companion.
"Nay, officer," said Desborough, now for the first time manifesting serious alarm, "you sure-lydon't mean to bore a hole through them innocent skins?"
"True!" said Middlemore, imitating. "If he fires, the hole will be something more thanskindeep, I reckon—these pistols, to my knowledge, send a bullet through a two inch plank at twenty paces."
As Middlemore thus expressed himself, both he and Grantham saw, or fancied they saw, the blankets slightly agitated.
"Good place for ahidethat!" said the former, addressing his pun to the settler, on whom it was totally lost, "show us those said skins, my good fellow, and if we find they are not filled with anything it would be treason in a professed British subject to export thus clandestinely, we promise that you shall depart without further hindrance."
"Indeed, officer," muttered Desborough sullenly and doggedly, "I shan't do no sich thing. You don't belong to the custom-house, I reckon, and so I wish you a good day, for I have a considerable long course to run, and must be movin'." Then seizing the paddles that were lying on the sand, he prepared to shove the canoe from the beach.
"Not at least before I have sent a bullet to ascertain the true quality of your skins," said Grantham, levelling his pistol.
"Sure-ly," said Desborough, as he turned and drew himself to the full height of his bony and muscular figure, while his eye measured the officer from head to foot, with a look of concentrated but suppressed fury, "you wouldn'tdareto do this—you wouldn't dare to fire into my canoe—besides, consider," he said, in a tone somewhat deprecating, "your bullet may go through her, and you would hardly do a feller the injury to make him lose the chance of a good cargo."
"Then why provoke such a disaster by refusing to show us what is beneath those blankets?"
"Because it's my pleasure to do so," fiercely retorted the other, "and I won't show them to no man."
"Then it is my pleasure to fire," said Grantham. "The injury be on your own head, Desborough—one—two—"
At this moment the sail was violently agitated—something, struggling for freedom, cast the blankets on one side, and presently the figure of a man stood upright in the bows of the canoe, and gazed around him with an air of stupid astonishment.
"What," exclaimed Middlemore, retreating back a pace or two, in unfeigned surprise; "has that pistol started up, like the ghost in Hamlet, Ensign Paul Emilius Theophilus Arnoldi, of the United States Michigan Militia—a prisoner on his parole of honor? and yet attempting a clandestine departure from the country—how is this?"
"Not this merely," exclaimed Grantham, "but a traitor to his country, and a deserter from our service. This fellow," he pursued, in answer to an inquiring look of his companion, "is a scoundrel, who deserted three years since from the regiment you relieved. I recognised him yesterday on his landing, as my brother Gerald, who proposed making his report to the general this morning, had done before. Let us secure both, Middlemore; for, thank heaven, we have been enabled to detect the traitor at last in that which will excuse his final expulsion from the soil, even if no worse befall him. I have only tampered with him thus long to render his conviction more complete."
"Secure me! secure Jeremiah Desborough?" exclaimed the settler, with rage manifest in the clenching of his teeth and the tension of every muscle of his iron frame, "and that for jist tryin' to save a countryman—well, we'll see who'll have the best of it."
Before Grantham could anticipate the movement, the active and powerful Desborough had closed with him in a manner to prevent his making use of his pistol, had he even so desired. In the next instant it was wrested from him, and thrown far from the spot on which he struggled with his adversary, but at fearful odds against himself. Henry Grantham, although well and actively made, was of slight proportion, and yet in boyhood. Desborough, on the contrary, was in the full force of a vigorous manhood. A struggle, hand to hand, between two combatants so disproportioned, could not, consequently, be long doubtful as to its issue. No sooner had the formidable settler closed with his enemy, than pressing the knuckles of his iron hand, which met round the body of the officer, with violence against his spine, he threw him backward with force upon the sands. Grasping his victim with one hand as he lay upon him, he seemed, as Grantham afterwards declared, to be groping for his knife with the other. He was evidently anxious to despatch one enemy, in order that he might fly to the assistance of his son, for it was he whom Middlemore, with a powerful effort, had dragged from the canoe to the beach. While his right hand was still groping far the knife—an object which the powerful resistance of the yet unsubdued, though prostrate, officer rendered somewhat difficult of attainment—the report of a pistol was heard, fired evidently by one of the other combatants. Immediately the settler looked up to see who was the triumphant party. Neither had fallen, and Middlemore, if anything, had the advantage of his enemy; but to his infinite dismay, Desborough beheld a horseman, evidently attracted by the report of the pistol, urging his course with the rapidity of lightning, along the firm sands, and advancing with cries and vehement jesticulations to the rescue.
Springing with the quickness of thought from his victim, the settler was in the next moment at the side of Middlemore. Seizing him from behind by for arm within his nervous grasp, he pressed the latter with such prodigious force as to cause him to relinquish, by a convulsive movement, the firm hold he had hitherto kept of his adversary.
"In, boy, to the canoe for your life," he exclaimed, hurriedly as, followingup his advantage, he spun the officer round, and sent him tottering to the spot where Grantham lay, still stupified and half throttled. The next instant saw him heaving the canoe from the shore, with all the exertion called for by his desperate situation. And all this was done so rapidly, in so much less time than it will take our readers to trace it, that before the horseman, so opportunely arriving, had reached the spot, the canoe, with its inmates, had pushed from the shore.
Without pausing to consider the rashness and apparent impracticability of his undertaking, the strange horseman, checking his rein, and burying the rowels of his spurs deep into the flanks of his steed, sent him bounding and plunging into the lake, in pursuit of the fugitives.
He himself evinced every symptom of one in a state of intoxication. Brandishing a stout cudgel over his head, and pealing forth a shout of defiance, he rolled from side to side on his spirited charger, like some laboring bark careering to the violence of the winds, but ever, like that bark, regaining an equilibrium that was never thoroughly lost. Shallow as the lake was at this point for a considerable distance, it was long before the noble animal lost its footing; and thus had its rider been enabled to arrive within a few paces of the canoe, at the very moment when the increasing depth of the water, in compelling the horse to the less expeditious process of swimming, gave a proportionate advantage to the pursued. No sooner, however, did the Centaur-like rider find that he was losing ground, than, again darting his spurs into the flanks of his charger, he made every effort to reach the canoe. Maddened by the pain, the snorting beast half rose upon the calm element, like some monster of the deep, and, making two or three desperate plunges with his fore feet, succeeded in reaching the stem. Then commenced a short but extraordinary conflict. Bearing up his horse as he swam, with the bridle in his teeth, the bold rider threw his left hand upon the stern of the vessel, and brandishing his cudgel in the right, seemed to provoke both parties to the combat. Desborough, who had risen from the stern at his approach, stood upright in the centre, his companion still paddling at the bows; and between these two a singular contest now ensued. Armed with the formidable knife which he had about his person, the settler made the most desperate and infuriated efforts to reach his assailant; but in so masterly a manner did his adversary use his simple weapon, that every attempt was foiled, and more than once did the hard iron-wood descend upon his shoulders, in a manner to be heard from the shore. Once or twice the settler stooped to evade some falling blow, and, rushing forward, sought to sever the hand which still retained its hold of the stern; but, with an activity remarkable in so old a man as his assailant, for he was upwards of sixty years of age, the hand was removed—and the settler, defeated in his object, was amply repaid for his attempt, by a severe collision of his bones with the cudgel. At length, apparently enjoined by his companion, the younger removed his paddle, and, standing up also in the canoe, aimed a blow with its knobbed handle at the head of the horse, at a moment when his rider was fully engaged with Desborough. The quick-sighted old man saw the action, and, as the paddle descended, an upward stroke from his own heavy weapon sent it flying in fragments in the air, while a rapid and returning blow fell upon the head of the paddler, and prostrated him at length in the canoe. The opportunity afforded by this diversion, momentary as it was, was not lost upon Desborough. The horseman, who, inhis impatience to avenge the injury offered to the animal, which seemed to form a part of himself, had utterly forgotten the peril of his hand; and before he could return from the double blow that had been so skilfully wielded, to his first enemy, the knife of the latter had penetrated his hand, which, thus rendered powerless, now relinquished its grasp. Desborough, whose object—desperate character as he usually was—seemed now rather to fly than to fight, availed himself of this advantage to hasten to the bows of the canoe, where, striding across the body of his insensible companion, he with a few vigorous strokes of the remaining paddle, urged the lagging bark rapidly ahead. In no way intimidated by his disaster, the courageous old man, again brandishing his cudgel, and vociferating taunts of defiance, would have continued the pursuit; but panting as he was, not only with the exertion he had made, but under the weight of his impatient rider, in an element in which he was supported merely by his own buoyancy, the strength and spirit of the animal began now perceptibly to fail him, and he turned, despite of every effort to prevent him, towards the shore. It was fortunate for the former that there were no arms in the canoe, or neither he nor the horse would, in all probability, have returned alive; such was the opinion, at least, pronounced by those who were witnesses of the strange scene, and who remarked the infuriated but impotent gestures of Desborough, as the old man, having once more gotten his steed into depth, slowly pursued his course to the shore, but with the same wild brandishing of his enormous cudgel, and the same rocking from side to side, until his body was often at right angles with that of his jaded, but sure-footed beast. As he is, however, a character meriting rather more than the casual notice we have bestowed, we shall take the opportunity, while he is hastening to the discomfited officers on the beach, more particularly to describe him.
Nearly midway between Elliott's and Hartley's points, both of which are remarkable for the low and sandy nature of the soil, the land, raising gradually towards the centre, assumes a more healthy and arable aspect; and, on its highest elevation, stood a snug, well cultivated property, called Girty's farm. From this height, crowned on its extreme summit by a neat and commodious farm-house, the far reaching sands, forming the points above-named, are distinctly visible. Immediately in the rear, and commencing beyond the orchard which surrounded the house, stretched forestward, and to a considerable distance, a tract of rich and cultivated soil, separated into strips by zig-zag enclosures, and offering to the eye of the traveller, in appropriate season, the several species of American produce, such as Indian corn, buck wheat, &c., with here and there a few patches of indifferent tobacco. Thus far of the property, a more minute description of which is unimportant. The proprietors of this neat little place were a father and son, to the latter of whom was consigned, for reasons which will appear presently, the sole management of the farm. Of him we will merely say that, at the period of which we treat, hewas a fine, strapping, dark curley-haired, white-teethed, red-lipped, broad-shouldered, and altogether comely and gentle tempered youth, of about twenty, who had, although unconsciously, monopolized the affections of almost every well favored maiden of his class, for miles around him—advantages of nature from which had resulted a union with one of the prettiest of the fair competitors for connubial happiness.
The father we may not dismiss so hastily. He was—but, before attempting the portraiture of his character, we will, in the best of our ability, sketch his person.
Let the reader fancy an old man of about sixty, possessed of that comfortable amptitude of person which is the result rather of a mind at peace with itself, and undisturbed by worldly care, than of any marked indulgence in indolent habits. Let him next invest this comfortable person in a sort of Oxford grey, coarse capote, or frock, of capacious size, tied closely round the waist with one of those-parti-colored worsted sashes, we have, on a former occasion described as peculiar to the bourgeois settlers of the country. Next, suffering the eye to descend on and admire the rotund and fleshy thigh, let it drop gradually to the stout and muscular legs, which he must invest in a pair of closely fitting leathern trowsers, the wide-seamed edges of which are slit into innumerable small strips, much after the fashion of the American Indian. When he has completed the survey of the lower extremities, to which he must not fail to subjoin a foot of proportionate dimensions, tightly moccasined, and, moreover, furnished with a pair of old English hunting spurs, the reader must then examine the head with which this heavy piece of animated machinery is surmounted. From beneath a coarse felt hat, garnished with an inch-wide band or ribbon, let him imagine he sees the yet vigorous grey hair, descending over a forehead not altogether wanting in a certain dignity of expression, and terminating in a beetling brow, silvered also with the frost of years, and shadowing a sharp, grey, intelligent eye, the vivacity of whose expression denotes its possessor to be far in advance, in spirit, even of his still active and powerful frame. With these must be connected a snub nose—a double chin, adorned with grizzly honors, which are borne, like the fleece of the lamb, only occasionally to the shears of the shearer—and a small, and not unhandsome, mouth, at certain periods pursed into an expression of irresistible humor, but more frequently expressing a sense of lofty independence. The grisly neck, little more or less bared, as the season may demand—a kerchief loosely tied around the collar of a checkered shirt—and a knotted cudgel in his hand—and we think our sketch of Simon Girty is complete.
Nor must the reader picture to himself this combination of animal properties, either standing, or lying, or walking, or sitting; but in a measure glued, Centaur-like, to the back of a noble stallion, vigorous, active, and of a dark chestnut color, with silver mane and tail. In the course of many years that Simon had resided in the neighborhood, no one could remember to have seen him stand, or lie, or walk, or sit, while away from his home, unless absolutely compelled. Both horse and rider seemed as though they could not exist while separated, and yet Silvertail (thus was the stallion named) was not more remarkable in sleekness of coat, soundness of carcase, and fleetness of pace, than his rider was in the characteristics of corpulency and joviality.
Simon Girty had passed the greater part of his younger days in America.He had borne arms in the revolution, and was one of those faithful loyalists, who preferring rather to abandon a soil which, after all, was one of adoption, than the flag under which they had been nurtured, had, at the termination of that contest, passed over into Canada. Having served in one of those irregular corps, several of which had been employed with the Indians, during the revolutionary contest, he had acquired much of the language of these latter, and to this knowledge was indebted for the situation of interpreter which he had for years enjoyed. Unhappily for himself, however, the salary attached to the office was sufficient to keep him in independence, and, to the idleness consequent on this, (for the duties of an interpreter were only occasional,) might have been attributed the rapid growth of a vice—an addiction to liquor—which unchecked indulgence had now ripened into positive disease.
Great was the terror that Simon was wont to excite in the good people of Amherstburg. With Silvertail at his speed he would gallop into the town, brandishing his cudgel, and reeling from side to side, exhibiting at one moment the joyous character of a Silenus, at another, as we have already shown—that of an inebriated Centaur. Occasionally he would make his appearance, holding his sides convulsed with laughter, as he reeled and tottered in every direction, but without ever losing his equilibrium. At other times he would utter a loud shout, and, brandishing his cudgel, dart at full speed along the streets, as if he purposed singly to carry the town by (what Middlemore often facetiously called) acoup de main. At these moments were to be seen mothers rushing into the street to look for, and hurry away, their loitering offspring, while even adults were glad to hasten their movements, in order to escape collision with the formidable Simon; not that either apprehended the slightest act of personal violence from the old man, for he was harmless of evil as a child, but because they feared the polished hoofs of Silvertail, which shone amid the clouds of dust they raised as he passed, like rings of burnished silver. Even the very Indians, with whom the streets were at this period habitually crowded, were glad to hug the sides of the houses, while Simon passed; and they who, on other occasions, would have deemed it in the highest degree derogatory to their dignity to have stepped aside at the approach of danger, or to have relaxed a muscle of their stern countenance, would then open a passage with a rapidity which in them was remarkable, and burst into loud laughter as they fled from side to side to make way for Simon. Sometimes, on these occasions, the latter would suddenly check Silvertail, while in full career, and, in a voice that could be heard from almost every quarter of the little town, harangue them for half an hour together in their own language, and with an air of authority that was ludicrous to those who witnessed it—and must have been witnessed to be conceived. Occasionally a guttural "ugh" would be responded in mock approval of the speech, but more frequently a laugh, on the part of the more youthful of his red auditors, was the only notice taken. His lecture concluded, Simon would again brandish his cudgel, and vociferate another shout; then betaking himself to the nearest store, he would urge Silvertail upon the footway, and with a tap of his rude cudgel against the door, summon whoever was within, to appear with a glass of his favorite beverage. And this would he repeat, until he had drained what he called his stirrup cup, at every shop in the place where the poisonous liquor was vended.
Were such a character to make his appearance in the Mother Country, endangering, to all perception, the lives of the Sovereign's liege subjects, he would, if in London, be hunted to death like a wild beast, by at least one half of the Metropolitan police; and, if in a provincial town, would be beset by a posse of constables. No one, however—not even the solitary constable of Amherstburgh, ever ventured to interfere with Simon Girty, who was in some degree a privileged character. Nay, strange as it may appear, notwithstanding his confirmed habit of inebriety, the old man stood high in the neighborhood, not only with simple but with gentle, for there were seasons when he evinced himself "a rational being," and there was a dignity of manner about him, which, added to his then quietude of demeanor, insensibly interested in his favor, those even who were most forward to condemn the vice to which he was unfortunately addicted. Not, be it understood, that in naming seasons of rationality, we mean seasons of positive abstemiousness; nor can this well be, seeing that Simon never passed a day of strict sobriety during the last twenty years of his life. But, it might be said, that his three divisions of day—morning, noon and night—were characterised by three corresponding divisions of drunkenness—namely, drunk, drunker, and most drunk. It was, therefore, in the first stage of his graduated scale, that Simon appeared in his most amiable and winning, because his least uproarious, mood. His libations commenced at early morn, and his inebriety became progressive to the close of the day. To one who could ride home at night, as he invariably did, after some twelve hours of hard and continued drinking, without rolling from his horse, it would not be difficult to enact the sober man in its earlier stages. As his intoxication was relative to himself, so was his sobriety in regard to others—and although, at mid-day, he might have swallowed sufficient to have caused another man to bite the dust, he looked and spoke, and acted, as if he had been a model of temperance. If he passed a lady in the street, or saw her at her window Simon Girty's hat was instantly removed from his venerable head, and his body inclined forward over his saddle-bow, with all the easy grace of a well-born gentleman, and one accustomed from infancy to pay deference to woman; nay, this at an hour when he had imbibed enough of his favorite liquor to have rendered most men insensible even to their presence. These habits of courtesy, extended moreover to the officers of the garrison, and such others among the civilians as Simon felt to be worthy of his notice. His tones of salutation, at these moments, were soft, his manner respectful, even graceful; and while there was nothing of the abashedness of the inferior, there was also no offensive familiarity, in the occasional conversations held by him with the different individuals, or groups, who surrounded and accosted him.
Such was Simon Girty, in the first stage of his inebriety, no outward sign of which was visible. In the second, his perception became more obscured, his voice less distinct, his tones less gentle and insinuating, and occasionally the cudgel would rise in rapid flourish, while now and then a loud halloo would burst from lungs, which the oceans of whiskey they had imbibed had not yet, apparently, much affected. These were infallible indices of the more feverish stage, of which the gallopings of Silvertail—the vociferations of his master—the increasing flourishing of the cudgel—the supposed danger of children—and the consequent alarm of mothers, together with the harangues to the Indian auditory, were the almost daily results.
There was one individual, however, in the town of Amherstburgh, of whom, despite his natural wilfulness of character, Simon Girty stood much in awe, and that to such a degree, that if he chanced to encounter him in his mad progress, his presence had the effect of immediately quieting him. This gentleman was the father of the Granthams, who, although then filling a civil situation, had formerly been a field officer in the corps in which Simon had served; and who had carried with him into private life those qualities of stern excellence for which he had been remarkable as a soldier—qualities which had won to him the respect and affection, not only of the little community over which, in the capacity of its chief magistrate, he had presided, but also of the inhabitants of the country generally for many miles around. Temperate to an extreme himself, Major Grantham held the vice of drunkenness in deserved abhorrence, and so far from sharing the general toleration extended to the old man, whose originality (harmless as he ever was in his intoxication,) often proved a motive for encouragement; he never failed, on encountering him, to bestow his censure in a manner that had an immediate and obvious effect on the culprit. If Simon, from one end of the street, beheld Major Grantham approaching at the other, he was wont to turn abruptly away; but if perchance the magistrate came so unexpectedly upon him as to preclude the possibility of retreat, he appeared as one suddenly sobered, and would rein in his horse, fully prepared for the stern lecture which he was well aware would ensue.
It afforded no slight amusement to the townspeople, and particularly the young urchins, who usually looked up to Simon with awe, to be witnesses of one of those rencontres. In a moment, the shouting—galloping—rampaging cudgel-wielder was to be seen changed, as if by some magic power, into a being of almost child-like obedience, while he listened attentively and deferentially to the lecture of Major Grantham, whom he both loved and feared. On these occasions, he would hang his head upon his chest—confess his error—and promise solemnly to amend his course of life, although it must be needless to add that never was that promise heeded. Not unfrequently, after these lectures, when Major Grantham had left him, Simon would turn his horse, and, with his arms still folded across his chest, suffer Silvertail to pursue his homeward course, while he himself, silent and thoughtful, and looking like a culprit taken in the fact, sat steadily in his saddle, without however venturing to turn his eye either to the right or to the left, as he passed through the crowd, who, with faces strongly expressive of mirth, marked their sense of the change which had been produced in the old interpreter. Those who had seen him thus for the first time, might have supposed that a reformation in one so apparently touched would have ensued; but long experience had taught that, although a twinge of conscience, or more probably fear of, and respect for, the magistrate, might induce a momentary humiliation, all traces of cause and effect would have vanished with the coming dawn.
To the sterling public virtues he boasted, Simon Girty united that of loyalty in no common degree. A more staunch adherent to the British crown existed nowhere in the sovereign's dominions; and such was his devotedness to "King George," that, albeit he could not in all possibility have made the sacrifice of his love for whiskey, he would willingly have suffered his left arm to be severed from his body, had such proof of his attachment to the throne been required. Proportioned to his love for everything British, arose, as anatural consequence, his dislike for everything anti-British; and especially for those who under the guise of allegiance, had conducted themselves in a way to become objects of suspicion to the authorities. A near neighbor of Desborough, he had watched him as narrowly as his long indulged habits of intoxication would permit, and he had been the means of conveying to Major Grantham much of the information which had induced that uncompromising magistrate to seek the expulsion of the dangerous settler—an object which, however, had been defeated by the perjury of the unprincipled individual, in taking the customary oaths of allegiance. Since the death of Major Grantham, for whom, notwithstanding his numerous lectures, he had ever entertained that reverential esteem which is the result of the ascendancy of the powerful and virtuous mind over the weak, and not absolutely vicious—and for whose sons he felt almost a fatherly affection—old Girty had but indifferently troubled himself about Desborough, who was fully aware of what he had previously done to detect and expose him, and consequently repaid with usury—an hostility of feeling which, however, had never been brought to any practical issue.
As a matter of course, Simon was of the number of anxious persons collected on the bank of the river, on the morning of the capture of the American gun-boat; but, as he was only then emerging from his first stage of intoxication (which we have already shown to be tantamount to perfect sobriety in any other person), there had been no time for a display of those uproarious qualities which characterized the last, and which, once let loose, scarcely even the presence of the General could have restrained. With an acuteness, however, which is often to be remarked in habitual drunkards at moments when their intellect is unclouded by the confusedness to which they are more commonly subject, the hawk's eye of the old man had detected several particulars which had escaped the general attention, and of which he had, at a later period of the day, retained sufficient recollection to connect with an accidental, yet important discovery.
At the moment when the prisoners were landed, he had remarked Desborough, who had uttered the hasty exclamation already recorded, stealing cautiously through the surrounding crowd, and apparently endeavoring to arrest the attention of the younger of the American officers. An occasional pressing of the spur into the flank of Silvertail, enabled him to turn as the settler turned, and thus to keep him constantly in view; until, at length, as the latter approached the group of which General Brock and Commodore Barclay formed the centre, he observed him distinctly to make a sign of intelligence to the Militia Officer, whose eye he at length attracted, and who now bestowed upon him a glance of hasty and furtive recognition. Curiosity induced Simon to move Silvertail a little more in advance, in order to be enabled to obtain a better view of the prisoners; but the latter turning away his head at the moment, although apparently without design, baffled his penetration. Still he had a confused and indistinct idea that the person was not wholly unknown to him.
When the prisoners had been disposed of, and the crowd dispersed, Simon continued to linger near the council-house, exchanging greetings with the newly arrived chiefs, and drinking from whatever whiskey bottle was offered to him until he at length gave rapid indication of arriving at his third or grand climacteric. Then were to be heard the loud shoutings of his voice, and the clattering of Silvertail's hoofs; as horse and rider flew like lightning past the fort into the town, where a more than usual quantity of the favorite liquid was quaffed at the several stores, in commemoration, as he said, of the victory of his noble boy, Gerald Grantham, and to the success of the British arms generally throughout the war.
Among the faults of Simon Girty, was certainly not that of neglecting the noble animal to whom long habit had deeply attached him. Silvertail was equally a favorite with the son, who had more than once ridden him in the occasional races that took place upon the hard sands of the lake shore, and in which he had borne everything away. As Simon was ever conscious and collected about this hour, care was duly taken by him that his horse should be fed, without the trouble to himself of dismounting. Even as Girty sat in his saddle, Silvertail was in the daily practice of munching his corn out of a small trough that stood in the yard of the inn where he usually stopped, while his rider conversed with whoever chanced to be near him—the head of his cudgel resting on his ample thigh, and a glass of his favorite whiskey in his other and unoccupied hand.
Now it chanced that, on this particular day, Simon neglected to pay his customary visit to the inn, an omission which was owing rather to the hurry and excitement occasioned by the stirring events of the morning, than to any wilful neglect of his steed. Nor was it until some hours after dark that, seized with a sudden fit of caressing Silvertail, whose glossy neck he patted, until the tears of warm affection started to his eyes, he bethought him of the omission of which he had been guilty. Scarcely was the thought conceived, before Silvertail was again at full career, and on his way to the inn. The gate stood open, and, as Simon entered, he saw two individuals retire, as if to escape observation, within a shed adjoining the stable. Drunk as he was, a vague consciousness of the truth, connected as it was with his earlier observation, flashed across the old man's mind; and when, in answer to his loud hallooing, a factotum, on whom devolved all the numerous officers of the inn, from waiter down to ostler, made his appearance, Simon added to his loudly expressed demand for Silvertail's corn, a whispered injunction to return with a light. During the absence of the man, he commenced trolling a verse of "Old King Cole," a favorite ballad with him, and with the indifference of one who believes himself to be alone. Presently the light appeared, and, as the bearer approached, its rays fell on the forms of two men, retired into the furthest extremity of the shed and crouching to the earth as if in concealment, whom Simon recognised at a glance. He however took no notice of the circumstance to the ostler, or even gave the slightest indication, by look or movement, of what he had seen.
When the man had watered Silvertail and put his corn in the trough, he returned to the house, and Simon, with his arms folded across his chest, as his horse crunched his food, listened attentively to catch whatever conversation might ensue between the loiterers. Not a word however was uttered, and soon after he saw them emerge from their concealment—step cautiously behind him—cross the yard towards the gate by which he had entered—and then disappear altogether. During this movement the old man had kept himself perfectly still, so that there could be no suspicion that he had in any way observed them. Nay, he even spoke once or twice coaxingly to Silvertail, asif conscious only of the presence of that animal, and, in short, conducted himself in a manner well worthy of the cunning of a drunken man. The reflections to which this incident gave rise, had the effect of calling up a desperate fit of loyalty, which he only awaited the termination of Silvertail's hasty meal to put into immediate activity. Another shout to the ostler, a second glass swallowed, the reckoning paid, Silvertail bitted, and away went Simon once more at his speed through the now deserted town, the road out of which to his own place, skirted partly the banks of the river, and partly those of the lake.
After galloping about a mile, the old man found the feet of Silvertail burying themselves momentarily deeper in the sands which form the road near Elliot's Point. Unwilling to distress him, he pulled him up to a walk, and, throwing the reins upon his neck, folded his arms as usual, rolling from side to side at every moment, and audibly musing, in the thick, husky voice that was common to him in inebriety.
"Yes, by Jove, I am as true and loyal a subject as any in the service of King George, God bless him (here he bowed his head involuntarily and with respect), and though, as that poor dear old Grantham used to say, I do drink a little (hiccup), still there's no great harm in that. It keeps a man alive. I am the boy, at all events, to scent a rogue. That was Desborough and his son I saw just now, and the rascals, he! he! he!—the rascals thought, I suppose, I was too drunk (hiccup), too drunk to twig them. We shall tell them another tale before the night is over. D—n such skulking scoundrels, I say. Whoa! Silvertail, whoa!—what do you see there, my boy, eh?"
Silvertail only replied by the sharp pricking of his ears, and a side movement, which seemed to indicate a desire to keep as much aloof as possible from a cluster of walnut trees, which, interspersed with wild grape vines, may be seen to this hour, resting in gloomy relief on the white deep sands that extend considerably in that direction.
"Never mind, my boy, we shall be at home presently," pursued Simon, patting the neck of his unquiet companion. "But, no—I had forgotten; we must give chase to these (hiccup) to these rascals. Now there's that son Bill of mine fast asleep, I suppose, in the arms of his little wife. They do nothing but lie in bed, while their poor old father is obliged to be up at all hours, devising plans for the good of the King's service, God bless him! But I shall soon (hiccup)—Whoa, Silvertail! whoa, I say! D—n you, you brute, do you mean to throw me?"
The restlessness of Silvertail, despite of his rider's caresses, had been visibly increasing as they approached the dark cluster of walnuts. Arrived opposite to this, his ears and tail erect, he had evinced even more than restlessness—alarm: and something, that did not meet the eye of his rider, caused him to take a sideward spring of several feet. It was this action that, nearly unseating Simon, had drawn from him the impatient exclamation just recorded.
At length the thicket was passed, and Silvertail, recovered from his alarm, moved forward once more on the bound, in obedience to the well known whistle of his master.
"Good speed have they made," again mused Simon, as he approached his home: "if indeed, as I suspect, it be them who are hiding in yonder thicket. Silvertail could not have been more than ten minutes finishing his (hiccup)his corn, and the sands had but little time to warm beneath his boots when he did start. These Yankees are swift footed fellows, as I have had good (hiccup) good experience in the old war, when I could run a little myself like the best of them. But here we are at last. Whoa, Silvertail, whoa! and now to turn out Bill from his little wife. Bill, I say, hilloa! hilloa! Bill, hilloa!"
Long habit, which had taught the old man's truly excellent and exemplary son the utter hopelessness of his disease, had also familiarized him with these nightly interruptions to his slumbers. A light was speedily seen to flash across the chamber in which he slept, and presently the principal door of the lower building was unbarred, and unmurmuring and uncomplaining, the half-dressed young man stood in the presence of his father. Placing the light on the threshold, he prepared to assist him as usual to dismount, but Simon, contrary to custom, rejected for a time every offer of the kind. His rapid gallop through the night air, added to the more than ordinary quantity of whiskey he had that day swallowed, was now producing its effect, and, while every feature of his countenance manifested the extreme of animal stupidity, his apprehension wandered and his voice became almost inarticulate. Without the power to acquaint his son with the purpose he had in view, and of which he himself now entertained but a very indistinct recollection, he yet strove, impelled as he was by his confusedness of intention, to retain his seat, but was eventually unhorsed and handed over to the care of his pretty daughter-in-law, whose office it was to dispose of him for the night, while her husband rubbed down, fed, and otherwise attended to Silvertail.
A few hours of sound sleep restored Simon to his voice and his recollection, when his desire to follow the two individuals he had seen in the yard of the inn the preceding night, and whom he felt persuaded he must have passed on the road, was more than ever powerfully revived. And yet, was it not highly probable that the favorable opportunity had been lost, and that, taking advantage of the night, they were already departed from the country, if such (and he doubted it not) was their intention. "What a cursed fool," he muttered to himself, "to let a thimbleful of liquor upset me on such an occasion, but, at all events, here goes for another trial." With the impatient, over-indulged Simon, to determine on a course of action, was to carry it into effect.
"Hilloa, Bill! I say, Bill my boy!" he shouted from the chamber next to that in which his son slept. "Hilloa! Bill, come here directly."
Bill answered not, but sounds were heard in his room as of one stepping out of bed, and presently the noise of flint and steel announced that a light was being struck. In a few minutes the rather jaded-looking youth appeared at the bedstead of his parent.
"Bill, my dear boy," said Simon, in a more subdued voice, "did you see anybody pass last night after I came home? Try and recollect yourself; did you see two men on the road?"
"I did, father; just as I had locked the stable door, and was coming in for the night, I saw two men passing down the road. But why do you ask?"
"Did you speak to them—could you recognise them?" asked Simon, without stating his motive for the question.
"I wished them good night; and one of them gruffly bade me good night too; but I could not make out who they were, though one did for a momentstrike me to be Desborough, and both were tallish sort of men."
"You're a lad of penetration, Bill; now saddle me Silvertail as fast as you can."
"Saddle Silvertail! Surely, father, you are not going out yet; it's not daylight."
"Saddle Silvertail, Bill," repeated the old man, with the air of one whose mandate was not to be questioned. "But where the devil are you going, sir?" he added, impatiently.
"Why to saddle Silvertail, to be sure," said the youth, who was just closing the door for that purpose.
"What, and leave me, a miserable old man, to get up without a light? Oh fie, Bill. I thought you loved your poor old father better than to neglect him so—there, that will do. Now send in Lucy to dress me."
The light was kindled, Bill went in and spoke to his wife, then descended to the stable. A gentle tap at the door of the old interpreter, and Lucy entered in her pretty night dress, and, half asleep, half awake, but without a shadow of discontent in her look, proceeded to assist him in drawing on his stockings, &c. Simon's toilet was soon completed, and Silvertail being announced as "all ready," he, without communicating a word of his purpose, issued forth from his home just as the day was beginning to dawn.
Although the reflective powers of Girtie had been in some measure restored by sleep, it is by no means to be assumed he was yet thoroughly sober. Uncertain in regard to the movements of those who had so strongly excited his loyal hostility, (and, mayhap, at the moment his curiosity,) it occurred to him that if Desborough had not already baffled his pursuit, a knowledge of the movements and intentions of that individual might be better obtained from an observation of what was passing on the beach in front of his hut. The object of this reconnaissance was, therefore, only to see if the canoe of the settler was still on the shore, and with this object he suffered Silvertail to take the road along the sands, while he himself, with his arms folded and his head sunk on his chest, fell into a reverie with which was connected the manner and the means of securing the disloyal Desborough, should it happen that he had not yet departed. The accidental discharge of Middlemore's pistol, at the very moment when Silvertail had doubled a point that kept the scene of contention from his view, caused him to raise his eyes, and then the whole truth flashed suddenly upon him. We have already seen how gallantly he advanced to them, and how madly, and in a manner peculiarly his own, he sought to arrest the traitor Desborough in his flight.
"Sorry I couldn't force the scoundrel back, gentlemen," said Simon, as he now approached the discomfited officers. "Not much hurt, I hope," pointing with his own maimed and bleeding hand to the leg of Middlemore, which that officer, seated on the sand, was preparing to bind with a silk handkerchief. "Ah, a mere flesh wound, I see. Henry, Henry Grantham, my poor dear boy, what still alive after the desperate clutching of that fellow at your throat? But now that we have routed the enemy—must be off—drenched to the skin. No liquor on the stomach to keep out the cold, and if I once get an ague fit, its all over with poor old Simon. Must gallop home, and, while his little wife wraps a bandage round my hand, shall send down Bill with a litter. Good morning, Mr. Middlemore, good bye, Henry, my boy." And then, without giving time to either to reply, the old man applied his spurs oncemore to the flanks of Silvertail, who, with drooping mane and tail, resembled a half drowned rat; and again hallooing defiance to Desborough, who lay to at a distance, apparently watching the movements of his enemies, he retraced his way along the sands at full gallop, and was speedily out of sight.
Scarcely had Girty disappeared, when two other individuals, evidently officers, and cloaked precisely like the party he had just quitted, issued from the wood near the hut upon the clearing, and thence upon the sands—their countenances naturally expressing all the surprise that might be supposed to arise from the picture now offered to their view.
"What in the name of Heaven is the meaning of all this?" asked one of the new comers, as both now rapidly advanced to the spot where Middlemore was yet employed in coolly binding up his leg, while Henry Grantham, who had just risen, was gasping with almost ludicrous efforts to regain his respiration.
"You must ask the meaning of our friend here," answered Middlemore, with the low chuckling good-natured laugh that was habitual to him, while he proceeded with his bandaging. "All I know is, that I came out as a second, and here have I been made a first—a principal, which, by the way, is contrary to all my principle."
"Do be serious for once, Middlemore. How did you get wounded, and who are those scoundrels who have just quitted you?" anxiously inquired Captain Molineux, for it was he, and Lieutenant Villiers, who, (the party already stated to have been expected), had at length arrived.
"Two desperate fellows in their way, I can assure you," replied Middlemore, more amused than annoyed at the adventure. "Ensign Paul, Emilius, Theophilus, Arnoldi, is, I calculate, a pretty considerable strong actyvesort of fellow; and, to judge by Henry Grantham's half strangled look, his companion lacks not the same qualities. Why, in the name of all that is precious would you persist in poking your nose into the rascal's skins, Grantham? The ruffians had nearly made dried skins of ours."
"Ha! is that the scoundrel who calls himself Arnoldi," asked Captain Molineux? "I have heard," and he glanced at Henry Grantham as he spoke, "a long story of his villainy from his captor within this very hour."
"Which is your apology, I suppose," said Middlemore, "for having so far exceeded your appointment, gentlemen."
"It certainly is," said Lieutenant Villiers, "but the fault was not ours. We chanced to fall in with Gerald Grantham, on our way here, and that he detained us, should be a matter of congratulation to us all."
"Congratulation!" exclaimed Middlemore, dropping his bandage, and lifting his eyes with an expression of indescribable humor. "Am I then to think it matter of congratulation that, as an innocent second, I should have had a cursed piece of lead stuck in my flesh to spoil my next winter's dancing. And Grantham is to think it matter of congratulation that, instead of putting a bullet through you, Molineux, (as I intend he shall when I have finished dressing this confounded leg, if his nerves are not too much shaken), he should have felt the gripe of that monster Desborough around his throat, until his eyes seem ready to start from their sockets, and all this because you did not choose to be in time. Upon my word, I do not know that it is quite meet that we should meet you. What say you, Grantham?"
"I hope," said Captain Molineux with a smile, "your principal will think as you do, for should he decline the meeting, nothing will afford more satisfaction to myself."
Both Grantham and Middlemore looked their utter surprise at the language thus used by Captain Molineux, but neither of them spoke.
"If an apology the most ample for my observation of yesterday," continued that officer, "an apology founded on my perfect conviction of error, (that conviction produced by certain recent explanations with your brother), can satisfy you, Mr. Grantham, most sincerely do I make it. If, however, you hold me to my pledge, here am I of course to redeem it. I may as well observe to you in the presence of our friends, (and Villiers can corroborate my statement), that my original intention on leaving your brother, was to receive your fire and then tender my apology, but, under the circumstances in which both you and Middlemore are placed at this moment, the idea would be altogether absurd. Again I tender my apology, which it will be a satisfaction to me to repeat this day at the mess table, where I yesterday refused to drink your brother's health. All I can add is that when you have heard the motives for my conduct, and learnt to what extent I have been deceived, you will readily admit that I acted not altogether from caprice."
"Your apology I accept, Captain Molineux," said Grantham, coming forward and unhesitatingly offering his hand. "If you have seen my brother, I am satisfied. Let there be no further question on the subject."
"So then I am to be the only bulleted man on this occasion," interrupted Middlemore, with ludicrous pathos—"the only poor devil who is to be made to remember Hartley's point for ever. But no matter. I am not the first instance of a second being shot, through the awkward bungling of his principal, and certainly Grantham you were in every sense the principal in this affair, for had you taken my advice you would have let the fellows go to the devil their own way."
"What! knowing, as I did, that the traitor Desborough had concealed in his canoe a prisoner on parole—nay, worse, a deserter from our service—with a view of conveying him out of the country."
"How did you know it."
"Because I at once recognised him, through the disguise in which he left the hut, for what he was. That discovery made, there remained but one course to pursue."
"Ah! and coarse work you made of it, with a vengeance," said Middlemore, "first started him up like a fox from his cover, got the mark of his teeth, and then suffered him to escape."
"Is there no chance of following—no means of overtaking them?" said Captain Molineux—"No, by Heaven," as he glanced his eye from right to left, "not a single canoe to be seen anywhere along the shore."
"Following!" echoed Middlemore; "faith the scoundrels would desire nothing better: if two of us had such indifferent play with them on terra firma, you may rely upon it that double the number would have no better chance in one of these rickety canoes. See there how the rascals lie to within half musket shot, apparently hailing us."
Middlemore was right. Desborough had risen in the stern of the canoe, and now, stretched to his full height, called leisurely, through his closed hands, on the name of Henry Grantham. When he observed the attentionof that officer had, in common with that of his companions, been arrested, he proceeded at the full extent of his lungs.