Major Richardson

“ As heretofore, the brow of the American wore a cast of thought—only deeper, more decided—and even while her dark eyes flashed fire, as if in disappointment and anger at sundry passages in the letter over which she lingered, not once did the slightest color tinge her cheek, or the gloom dissipate itself from that cold brow. Emotion she felt, for this her heaving bosom and occasionally compressed lip betokened. Yet never was contrast more marked than that between the person and the face of Matilda Montgomerie, as Gerald Grantham then beheld her. ”

“ Matilda; call you it murder to overcome the enemies of one's country in fair and honorable combat, and in the field of glory?"
"Call YOU it what you will—disguise it under whatever cloak you may—it is no less murder. Nay, the worst of murders, for you but do the duty of the hireling slayer. In cold blood, and for a stipend, do you put an end to the fair existence of him who never injured you in thought or deed, and whom, under other circumstances, you would perhaps have taken to your heart in friendship." ”

“ No, no, Gerald, in the fulness of the pride of existence must he perish. He must not dream of death until he feels the blow that is aimed at his heart."
The agitation of Matilda was profound beyond any thing she had ever yet exhibited. Her words were uttered in tones that betrayed a fixed and unbroken purpose of the soul, and when she had finished, she threw her face upon the bosom of her lover, and ground her teeth together with a force that showed the effect produced upon her imagination, by the very picture of the death she had drawn. ”

“ No, Liftenant Grantham, you were not born to be an assassin. And now let's be starting—the day has already broke."
"And yet," returned Gerald, with a smile of bitter melancholy, as they hurried towards the spot where they had left their horses, "if any man ever had reason to act so as to merit the imputation of being such, I have. In that savage woodsman, Captain Jackson, you have beheld the murderer—the self acknowledged murderer of my father."
"God bless my soul!" cried Jackson, dropping the saddle which he carried, and standing still with very amazement. ”

“ I knew of the attempt of the Americans to possess themselves of the heights, and I crossed over with them under favor of this disguise, determined to find death, combatting at the side of our gallant General. Detaching myself from the ranks, I but waited the advance of the British column to remove from my concealment—you know the rest. But oh, Henry! if you could divine what a relief it is to me to part with existence, you would not wish the act undone. This was all I asked: to see you once more—to embrace you—and to die. Life offered me no hope but this. ”

“ One whom, a moment before, he believed to be still far distant, whom he had only a few months previously fled from, as from a pestilence, and whom he had solemnly sworn never to behold again, yet whom he continued to love with a passion that defied every effort of his judgment to subdue, making his life a wilderness—Matilda Montgomerie—And if her beauty had THEN had such surpassing influence over his soul, what was not its effect when he beheld her NOW, every grace of womanhood exhibited in a manner to excite admiration the most intense! ”

“ What self-ennobling actions the warrior performed, and what talent he displayed during that warfare, the page of American history must tell. With the spirit to struggle against, and the subsequent good fortune to worst the Americans in many conflicts, these latter, although beaten, have not been wanting in generosity to admire their formidable enemy while living, neither have they failed to venerate his memory when dead. If they have helped to bind the laurel around his living brow, they have not been the less willing to weave the cypress that encircles his memory. ”

“ Ere it could descend Grantham had rushed in upon him, and his sword still reeking with the blood it had so recently spilt, was driven to the very hilt in the body of the settler. The latter uttered a terrific scream in which all the most infernal of human passions were wildly blended, and casting aside his rifle, seized the young officer in his powerful gripe. Then ensued a contest the most strange and awful; the settler using every endeavour to gain the edge of the precipice, the other struggling, but in vain, to free himself from his hold. ”

“ The American spoke in tones in which reproach, expostulation, and wounded affection, were artfully and touchingly blended, and as she concluded, she too dropped her head upon her chest and sighed.
"Nay, Matilda, you do me wrong. It is one thing to swerve from the guilty purpose to which your too seductive beauty has won my soul, another to mourn as man should mourn, the hour when virtue, honor, religion, all the nobler principles in which my youth has been nurtured, have proved too weak to stem the tide of guilty passion. You say I love you not!" ”

“ Nay, Gerald, let it rather be matter of exultation with you that you did. Prejudiced as you are, this hand (and she extended an arm so exquisitely formed that one would scarce even have submitted it to the winds of Heaven) might not seem half so fair, had it once been dyed in human blood. Besides who so proper to avenge a woman's wrongs upon her destroyer, as the lover and the husband to whom she has plighted her faith for ever? ”

“ A pause of some moments ensued. Gerald was visibly disconcerted, and the arm which encircled the waist of the revengeful woman dropped, as if in disappointment, at his side.
"How strange and inconsistent are the prejudices of man," resumed Matilda, half mournfully, half in sarcasm; "here is a warrior—a spiller of human life by profession; his sword has been often dyed in the heart blood of his fellow man, and set he shudders at the thought of adding one murder more to the many already committed. ”

“ Remorse, shame, fear, regret, simultaneously assailed and weighed down the mind of Gerald. Triumphant vengeance, unmixed with any apprehension of self, reigned exclusively in the bosom of Matilda. The intense passion of the former, like a mist that is dissipated before the strong rays of the sun, had yielded before the masculine and practical display of the energetic hate of its object, while on the contrary she, whose beauty of person was now to him a thing without price, acknowledged no other feeling than contempt for the vacillating character of her associate. ”

“ An involuntary shudder passed over her form, and a slight contraction of the nerves of her face was perceptible, when Gerald described to his attentive and shocked auditory, the raising of the arm of the assassin; and her emotion at length assumed such a character of nervousness, that when he exultingly told of the rapid discharge of his own pistol, as having been the only means of averting the fate of the doomed, she could not refrain from rising suddenly in the boat, and putting her hand to her side, with the shrinking movement of one who had been suddenly wounded. ”

“ Life is death without you, and with you even crime may sit lightly on my soul. But we will fly far from the habitations of man. The forest shall be our home, and when the past recurs to me you shall smile upon me with that smile—look upon me with that look, and I will forget it all. Yes" he pursued, with a fierce excitement snatching up the holy book, and again carrying it to his lips—"once more I repeat my oath. He who has thus wronged you, my own Matilda, dies—dies by the hand of Gerald Grantham—of your affianced husband." ”

“ Miss Montgomerie on the contrary, whose anxiety throughout, to quit Detroit, had been no less remarkable than her former impatience to reach it, manifested a pleasure that amounted almost to exultation: and yet it was observed that by a strange apparent contradiction, her preference for Gerald from that moment became more and more divested of disguise.
There are few spots in the world, perhaps, that unite so many inducements to the formation of those sociable little reunions which come under the denomination of pic-nics, as the small islands adorning most of the American rivers. ”

“ Great was the terror that Sampson 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. ”

“ So remote, indeed, were the regions in which some of these warriors had been sought, that they were strangers to the existence of more than one of their tribes, and upon these they gazed with a surprise only inferior to what they manifested, when, for the first time, they marked the accoutrements of the British soldier, and turned with secret, but unacknowledged awe and admiration upon the frowning fort and stately shipping, bristling with cannon, and vomiting forth sheets of flame as they approached the shore. In these might have been studied the natural dignity of man. ”

“ Firm of step—proud of mien—haughty yet penetrating of look, each leader offered in his own person a model to the sculptor, which he might vainly seek elsewhere. Free and unfettered in every limb, they moved in the majesty of nature, and with an air of dark reserve, passed, on landing, through the admiring crowd.
There was one of the number, however, and his canoe was decorated with a richer and a larger flag, whose costume was that of the more civilized Indians, and who in nobleness of deportment, even surpassed those we have last named. This was Tecumseh. ”

“ But even the cocked pistol had not power to restrain the fierce—almost brutal—rage of the settler, whose growing intoxication added fuel to the fire which the presence of his enemy had kindled in his heart. Heedless of the determined air and threatening posture of the Aid-de-Camp, he made a bound forward, uttering a sound that resembled the roar of a wild beast rather than the cry of a human being, and struck over Jackson's shoulder at the chest of the officer. Gerald, whose watchful eye marked the danger, had however time to step back and avoid the blow. ”

“ How was it to be expected then that a man, whom the necessities of his country had raised up to itself in the twofold character of statesman and warrior—one gifted with a power of analyzing motives which has never been surpassed in savage life—how, I ask, was it to be expected that he, with all these injuries of aggression staring him in the face, should have been won over by a show of conciliation, which long experience, independently of his matured judgment, must have assured him was only held forth to hoodwink, until fitting opportunity should be found for again throwing off the mask. ”

“ Nay dearest Julia, this pleasantry is unseasonable. I certainly do intend, provided I am exchanged in time to return here with the army, which I doubt not will be instantly dispatched to restore our blighted fame, and then I shall claim you as my own. Will you then hesitate to become mine? Even as the daughter forsakes the home of her father without regret, to pass her days with him who is to her father, mother, all the charities of life, in short—so should she forsake her native land, adopting in preference that to which her husband is attached by every tie of honor, and of duty. ”

“ I had forgotten—but what condition, Gerald, (and here he spoke as if piqued at the abrupt manner in which his brother had concluded his half confidence) , what condition, I ask, may a woman entitled to our respect, as well as to our love, propose, which should be held of more account than that severest of offences against the Divine will— self murder—nay, look not thus surprised, for have you not admitted that you had guiltily attempted to throw away your life—to commit suicide in short—rather than comply with an earthly condition? ”

“ The only light admitted into the temple was through the window already described, and this was so feeble as scarcely to allow of the more distant objects in the room being seen. Gradually, as the moon sunk beneath the forest ridge, the gloom increased, until in the end the darkness became almost profound. At their first entrance Matilda, enshrouding herself in the folds of her cloak, had thrown herself upon the sofa; while Gerald continued to pace up and down the apartment with hurried steps, and in a state of feeling it would be a vain attempt to describe. ”

“ Superiority of numbers and position was on the one side: a daring Chief, an ardent desire of distinction, and the impossibility of retreat without humiliation, on the other.
In alluding thus to the capitulation of Detroit, we beg not to be understood as either reflecting on the American character, or unduly exalting our own. Question of personal bravery there was none, since no appeal was made to arms; but the absence of sanguinary event left in high relief the daring of the British Commander, whose promptitude and genius alone secured to him so important yet bloodless a conquest. ”

“ When did the fierceness of Indian hatred blaze forth against the English Colonists, who were limited in their views, as it has since against the subjects of the United States, who, since the revolution, have more than tripled their territorial acquisitions."
"Nay, General," replied the American, his lip partially curling with a smile, indicating consciousness of triumphant argument; "I shall defeat you on your own ground, and that by going back to a period anterior to the revolution —to the very period you describe as being characterized by less intense hostility to your own Government." ”

“ His features lost all their animation, and throwing away the book on which the impious oath had been taken, he turned away his face from Matilda, and sinking his head upon his chest, groaned and wept bitterly.
"What! already Gerald, do you repent? Nay, tell me not that one thus infirm of purpose, can be strong of passion. You love me not, else would the wrongs of her you love arm you with the fiercest spirit of vengeance against him who has so deeply injured her. But, if you repent, it is but to absolve you from your oath, and then the deed must be my own." ”

“ And yet," he pursued, after a, short pause, "how base, how terrible to slay an unsuspecting enemy. Would we could meet in single combat—and why not? Yes it can—it shall be so. Fool that I was not to think, of it before. Matilda, my own love, rejoice with me, for there is a means by which your honor may be avenged, and my own soul unstained by guilt. I wilt seek this man, and fasten a quarrel upon him. What say you, Matilda— speak to me, tell me that you consent." Gerald gasped with agony. ”