The Canadian Brothers; Or, The Prophecy Fulfilled Part 10

"Saddle me 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 a.s.sist him in drawing on his stockings, &c. Sampson'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 Gattrie had been in some measure restored by sleep, it is by no means to be a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.sing on the beach in front of his hut. The object of this reconnoissance was, therefore, only to see if the canoe of the settler was still on the sh.o.r.e, 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 Sampson, 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 Sampson. 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 once more 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 Gattrie 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 he 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 princ.i.p.al, 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 a.s.sure you,"

replied Middlemore, more amused than annoyed at the adventure. "Ensign Paul, Emilius, Theophilus, Arnoldi, is, I calculate, a pretty considerable strong active sort 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, and 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 humour, "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 hare 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 princ.i.p.al 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 circ.u.mstances 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 princ.i.p.al, and certainly Grantham you were in every sense the princ.i.p.al 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 recognized 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 COURSE 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 any where along the sh.o.r.e."

"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 attention of that officer had, in common with that of his companions, been arrested, he proceeded at the full extent of his lungs.

"I reckon, young man, as how I shall pay you out for this, and drot my skin, if I once twists my fingers round your neck again, if any thing on this side h.e.l.l shall make me quit it, afore you squeaks your last squeak.

You've druv me from my home, and I'll have your curst blood for it yet. I'll sarve you, as I sarved your old father--You got my small bore, I expect, and if its any good to you to know that one of its nineties to the pound, sent the old rascal to the devil--why then you have it from Jeremiah Desborough's own lips, and be d----d to you."

And, with this horrible admission, the settler again seated himself in the stem of his canoe, and making good use of his paddle soon scudded away until his little vessel appeared but as a speck on the lake.

Henry Grantham was petrified with astonishment and dismay at a declaration, the full elucidation of which we must, reserve for a future opportunity. The daring confession rang in his ears long after the voice had ceased, and it was not until a light vehicle had been brought for Middlemore from Sampson's farm, that he could be induced to quit the sh.o.r.e, where he still lingered, as if in expectation of the return of the avowed MURDERER OF HIS FATHER.

CHAPTER IX.

At the especial invitation of Captain Molineux, Gerald Grantham dined at the garrison mess, on the evening of the day when the circ.u.mstances, detailed in our last chapter, took place. During dinner the extraordinary adventure of the morning formed the chief topic of conversation, for it had become one of general interest, not only throughout the military circles, but in the town of Amherstburg itself, in which the father of the Granthams had been held in an esteem amounting almost to veneration.

Horrible as had been the announcement made by the dejected and discomfited settler to him who now, for the first time, learnt that his parent had fallen a victim to ruffian vindictiveness, too many years had elapsed since that event, to produce more than the ordinary emotion which might be supposed to be awakened by a knowledge rather of the manner than the fact of his death. Whatever therefore might have been the pain inflicted on the hearts of the brothers, by this cruel re-opening of a partially closed wound, there was no other evidence of suffering than the suddenly compressed lip and glistening eye, whenever allusion was made to the villain with whom each felt he had a fearful account to settle. Much indeed of the interest of the hour was derived from the animated account, given by Gerald, of the circ.u.mstances which had led to his lying in ambuscade for the American on the preceding day; and as his narrative embraces not only the reasons for Captain Molineux's strange conduct, but other hitherto unexplained facts, we cannot do better than follow him in his detail.

"I think it must have been about half past eleven o'clock, on the night preceding the capture," commenced Gerald, "that, as my gun boat was at anchor close under the American sh.o.r.e, at rather more than half a mile below the farther extremity of Bois Blanc, my faithful old Sambo silently approached me, while I lay wrapped in my watch cloak on deck, calculating the chances of falling in with some spirited bark of the enemy which would afford me an opportunity of proving the mettle of my crew.

"'Ma.s.sa Geral,' he said in a mysterious whisper, for old age and long services in my family have given him privileges which I have neither the power nor the inclination to check--'Ma.s.sa Geral,' pulling me by the collar--'I dam ib he no go sleep when him ought to hab all him eyes about him--him pretty fellow to keep watch when Yankee pa.s.s him in e channel.'

"'A Yankee pa.s.s me in the channel!'" I would have exclaimed aloud, starting to my feet with surprise, but Sambo, with ready thought, put his hand upon my mouth, in time to prevent more than the first word from being uttered.

"'Hush! dam him, Ma.s.sa Geral, ib you make a noise you no catch him.'

"'What do you mean then--what have you seen?'" I asked in the same low whisper, the policy of which his action had enjoined on me.

"'Lookee dare, Ma.s.sa Geral, lookee dare?'

"Following the direction in which he pointed, I now saw, but very indistinctly, a canoe in which was a solitary individual stealing across the lake to the impulsion of an apparently m.u.f.fled paddle; for her course, notwithstanding the stillness of the night, was utterly noiseless. The moon, which is in her first quarter, had long since disappeared, yet the heavens, although not particularly bright, ware sufficiently dotted with stars to enable me, with the aid of a night telescope, to discover that the figure, which guided the cautiously moving bark, had nothing Indian in its outline. The crew of the gun boat (the watch only excepted) had long since turned in; and even the latter lay reposing on the forecastle, the sentinels only keeping the ordinary look out. So closely moreover did we lay in sh.o.r.e, that but for the caution of the paddler, it might have been a.s.sumed she was too nearly identified with the dark forest against which her hull and spars reposed, to be visible. Curious to ascertain her object, I watched the canoe in silence, as, whether accidentally or with design, I know not, she made the half circuit of the gun boat and then bore away in a direct line for the Canadian sh.o.r.e. A suspicion of the truth now flashed across my mind, and I resolved without delay to satisfy myself. My first care was to hasten to the forecastle, and enjoin on the sentinels, who I feared might see and hail the stranger, the strictest silence. Then desiring Sambo to prepare the light boat which, I dare say, most of you have remarked to form a part of my Lilliputian command, I proceeded to arm myself with cutla.s.s and pistols. Thus equipped I sprang lightly in, and having again caught sight of the chase, on which I had moreover directed one of the sentinels to keep a steady eye as long as she was in sight, desired Sambo to steer as noiselessly as possible in pursuit. For some time we kept the stranger in view, but whether, owing to his superior paddling or lighter weight, we eventually lost sight of him. The suspicion which had at first induced my following, however, served also as a clue to the direction I should take. I was aware that the scoundrel Desborough was an object of distrust--I knew that the strictness of my father, during his magistracy, in compelling him to choose between taking the oaths of allegiance, and quitting the country, had inspired him with deep hatred to himself and disaffection to the Government; and I felt that if the spirit of his vengeance had not earlier developed itself, it was solely because the opportunity and the power had hitherto been wanting; but that now, when hostilities between his natural and adopted countries had been declared, there would be ample room for the exercise of his treason. It was the strong a.s.surance I felt that he was the solitary voyager on the face of the waters, which induced me to pursue him, for I had a presentiment that, could I but track him in his course, I should discover some proof of his guilt, which would suffice to rid us for ever of the presence of so dangerous a subject. The adventure was moreover one that pleased me, although perhaps I was not strictly justified in fitting my gun boat, especially as in the urgency of the moment, I had not even thought of leaving orders with my boatswain, in the event of any thing unexpected occurring during my absence. The sentinels alone were aware of my departure.

"The course we pursued was in the direction of Hartley's point, and so correct had been the steering and paddling of the keen-sighted negro, that when we made the beach, we found ourselves immediately opposite to Desborough's hut.

"'How is this, Sambo?' I asked in a low tone, as our canoe grated on the sand within a few paces of several others that lay where I expected to find but one--'are all these Desborough's?"

"'No, Ma.s.sa Geral--'less him teal him toders, Desborough only got one--dis a public landin' place.'

"'Can you tell which is his?' I inquired.