Matilda Montgomerie Or The Prophecy Fulfilled Part 7

"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 c.o.c.king 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-_ly_ don't mean to bore a hole through them innocent skins?"

"True!" said Middlemore, imitating. "If he fires, the hole will be something more than _skin_ deep, 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 a _hide_ that!" 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't _dare_ to 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 antic.i.p.ate 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 a.s.sistance 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, following up 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.e.

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.

Brandis.h.i.+ng 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 n.o.ble 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 brandis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sailant; 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 sh.o.r.e. Once or twice the settler stooped to evade some falling blow, and, rus.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sailant, 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 k.n.o.bbed 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, in his 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 brandis.h.i.+ng 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 sh.o.r.e. 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, p.r.o.nounced 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 sh.o.r.e, but with the same wild brandis.h.i.+ng 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.

CHAPTER VIII.

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, a.s.sumes 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, he was 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 cla.s.s, for miles around him--advantages of nature from which had resulted a union with one of the prettiest of the fair compet.i.tors 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 ampt.i.tude 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, coa.r.s.e 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 coa.r.s.e 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 s.h.i.+rt--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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sed 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, pa.s.sed 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, brandis.h.i.+ng 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, brandis.h.i.+ng his cudgel, dart at full speed along the streets, as if he purposed singly to carry the town by (what Middlemore often facetiously called) a _coup de main_.

At these moments were to be seen mothers rus.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed; 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 pa.s.sage 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 flouris.h.i.+ng 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 pa.s.sed 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 a natural 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 quant.i.ty of the favorite liquid was quaffed at the several stores, in commemoration, as he said, of the victory of his n.o.ble 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 n.o.ble 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 gla.s.s 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 circ.u.mstance 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, as if 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 gla.s.s 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, G.o.d 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 p.r.i.c.king of his ears, and a side movement, which seemed to indicate a desire to keep as much aloof as possible from a cl.u.s.ter 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.