Matilda Montgomerie; Or, The Prophecy Fulfilled. Major Richardson
sight of the dignity attached to their position as councillors, they sprang wildly up, and seizing the weapons that lay at their side, rushed confusedly forth, leaving Tecumseh, and two or three only of the more aged chiefs, behind them. The debate thus interrupted, the council was adjourned, and soon afterwards General Brock, accompanied by his staff, and conversing, through his interpreter, with the Shawnee chieftain as they walked, approached the groups still crowded along the bank of the river.
Meanwhile, after the discharge of the last gun, the battery on the island had been quitted by the officer in command, who, descending to the beach, preceded by two of his men, stepped into a light skiff that lay chained to the gnarled root of a tree overhanging the current, and close under the battery. A few sturdy strokes of the oars soon brought the boat into the centre of the stream, when the stout, broad-built figure and carbuncled face of an officer in the uniform of the forty-first regiment, were successively recognised, as he stood upright in the stern.
"What the deuce brings Tom Raymond to us in such a hurry? I thought the order of the general was that he should on no account leave his post, unless summoned by signal," observed one of the group of younger officers who had first quitted the council hall, and who now waited with interest for the landing of their companion.
"What brings him here, can you ask?" replied one at the side of the questioner, and with a solemnity of tone and manner that caused the whole of the group to turn their eyes upon him, as he mournfully shook his head.
"Aye, what brings him here?" repeated more than one voice, while all closed inquiringly around for information.
"Why the thing is as clear as the carbuncles on his own face—the boat, to be sure." And the truism was perpetrated with the same provokingly ludicrous, yet evidently forced, gravity of tone and manner.
"Execrable, Middlemore.—Will you never give over that vile habit of punning?"
"Detestable!" said another.
"Ridiculous!" repeated a third.
"Pshaw! the worst you ever uttered!" exclaimed a fourth, and each, as he thus expressed himself, turned away with a movement of impatience.
"That animal, Raymond, grows like a very porpoise," remarked a young captain, who prided himself on the excessive smallness of his waist. "Methinks that, like the ground-hogs that abound on his island, he must fatten on hickory nuts. Only see how the man melts in the noonday sun. But as you say, Villiers, what can bring him here without an order from the general? And then the gun last fired. Ha! I have it.—He has discovered a Yankee boat stealing along through the other channel."
"No doubt there is craft of some description in the wind," pursued the incorrigible Middlemore, with the same affected unconsciousness.
"Ha!" returned Captain Molineux, the officer who had commented so freely upon the fat lieutenant in the boat—"Your pun, infamous as it would be at the best, is utterly without point now, for there has not been a breath of wind stirring during the whole morning."
"Pun, did you say?" exclaimed Middlemore, with well affected surprise at the charge, "my dear fellow, I meant no pun."
Further remark was checked by an impatience to learn the cause of Lieutenant Raymond's abrupt appearance, and the officers approached the principal group. The former had now reached the shore, and, shuffling up the bank as fast as his own corpulency and the abruptness of the ascent would permit, hastened to the general, who stood at some little distance awaiting the expected communication of the messenger.
"Well, Mr. Raymond, what is it—what have you discovered from your post?" demanded the General, who, with those around him, found difficulty in repressing a smile at the heated appearance of the fat subaltern, the loud puffing of whose lungs had been audible before he himself drew near enough to address the chief—"something important, I should imagine, if we may judge from the haste with which you appear to have travelled over the short distance that separates us?"
"Something very important, indeed, General," answered the officer, touching his undress cap, and speaking huskily from exertion; "there is a large bark, sir, filled with men, stealing along shore in the American channel, and I can see nothing of the gun boat that should be stationed there. A shot was fired from the eastern battery, in the hope of bringing her to, but, as the guns mounted there are only carronades, the ball fell short, and the suspicious looking boat crept still closer to the shore—I ordered a shot from my battery to be tried, but without success, for, although within range, the boat hugs the land so closely that it is impossible to distinguish her hull with the naked eye."
"The gun boat not to be seen, Mr. Raymond?" exclaimed the General; "how is this, and who is the officer in command of her?"
"One," quickly rejoined the Commodore, to whom the last query was addressed, "whom I had selected for that duty for the very vigilance and desire for service attributed to him by my predecessor—of course I have not been long enough here, to have much personal knowledge of him myself."
"His name?" asked the General.
"Lieutenant Grantham."
"Grantham?" repeated the General, with a movement of surprise; "It is indeed strange that he should forego such an opportunity."
"Still more strange," remarked the commodore, "that the boat he commands should have disappeared altogether. Can there be any question of his fidelity? the Granthams are Canadians, I understand."
The general smiled, while the young officer who had been noticed so particularly by Tecumseh on his landing, colored deeply.
"If," said the former, "the mere circumstance of their having received existence amid these wilds can make them Canadians, they certainly are Canadians; but if the blood of a proud race can make them Britons, such they are. Be they which they may, however, I would stake my life on the fidelity of the Granthams—still, the cause of this young officer's absence must be inquired into, and no doubt it will be satisfactorily explained. Meanwhile, let a second gunboat be detached in pursuit."
The commodore having given the necessary instructions to a young midshipman, who attended him in the capacity of an aid-de-camp, and the general having dismissed Lieutenant Raymond back to his post on the island, these officers detached themselves from the crowd, and, while awaiting the execution of the order, engaged in earnest conversation.
"By Jove, the commodore is quite right in his observation," remarked the young and affected looking officer, who had been so profuse in his witticisms on the corpulency of Lieutenant Raymond; "the general may say what he will in their favor, but this is the result of entrusting so important a command to a Canadian."
"What do you mean, sir?" hastily demanded one even younger than himself—it was the youth already named, whose uniform attested him to be a brother officer of the speaker. He had been absent for a few minutes, and only now rejoined his companions, in time to hear the remark which had just been uttered.
"What do you mean, Captain Molineux?" he continued, his dark eye flashing indignation, and his downy cheek crimsoning with warmth. "Why this remark before me, sir, and wherefore this reflection on the Canadians?"
"Why really, Mr. Grantham," somewhat sententiously drawled the captain; "I do not altogether understand your right to question in this tone—nor am I accountable for any observations I may make. Let me tell you, moreover, that it will neither be wise nor prudent in you, having been received into a British regiment to become the Don Quixotte of your countrymen."
"Received into a British regiment, sir! do you then imagine that I, more than yourself, should feel this a distinction," haughtily returned the indignant youth. "But, gentlemen, your pardon," checking himself and glancing at the rest of the group, who were silent witnesses of the scene; "I confess I do feel the distinction of being admitted into so gallant a corps—this in a way, however, that must be common to us all. Again I ask, Captain Molineux," turning to that officer, "the tendency of the observations you have publicly made in regard to my brother."
"Your question, Mr. Grantham might, with as much propriety, be addressed to any other person