The Canadian Brothers; Or, The Prophecy Fulfilled: A Tale of the Late American War — Volume 1Richardson, Major (John)
History
The Canadian Brothers; Or, The Prophecy Fulfilled: A Tale of the Late American War — Volume 1
Richardson, Major (John)
United States -- History -- War of 1812 -- Fiction; War stories
The garrison left at Detroit consisted merely of two
companies-those of Captains Granville and Molineux, which
included among their officers, Middlemore, Villiers and
Henry Grantham. After the first excitement produced in
the minds of the townspeople, by their change of rulers,
had passed away, these young men desirous of society,
sought to renew their intimacy with such of the more
respectable families as they had been in the habit of
associating with prior to hostilities; but although in
most instances they were successful, their reception was
so different from what it had formerly been, (a change
originating not so much in design perhaps as resulting
from a certain irrepressible sense of humiliation, which
gave an air of gene to all their words and actions,) that
they were glad to withdraw themselves altogether within
the rude resources of their own walls. It happened however
about this period that Colonel D'Egville had received a
command to transfer the head of his department from
Amherstburg to Detroit, and, with a view to his own
residence on the spot, the large and commodious mansion
of the late Governor was selected for the abode of his
family. With the daughters of that officer, the D'Egvilles
had long been intimate, and as the former were to continue
under the same roof until their final departure from
Detroit, it was with a mutual satisfaction the friends
found themselves thus closely reunited--Added to this
party were Major Montgomery, (already fast recovering
from the effect of his wound,) and his niece, both of
whom only awaited the entire restoration of the former,
to embark immediately for the nearest American port.
At Colonel D'Egville's, it will therefore be supposed
the officers passed nearly all their leisure hours;
Molineux and Villiers flirting with the fair American
sisters, until they had nearly been held fast by the
chains with which they dallied, and Middlemore uttering
his execrable puns with a coolness of premeditation that
excited the laughter of the fair part of his auditors,
while his companions, on the contrary, expressed their
unmitigated abhorrence in a variety of ways. As for the
somewhat staid Captain Granville, he sought to carry his
homage to the feet of Miss Montgomerie, but the severe
and repellant manner in which she received all his
advances, and the look which almost petrified where it
fell, not only awed him effectually into distance, but
drew down upon him the sarcastic felicitations of his
watchful brother officers. There was one, however, on
whose attentions her disapprobation fell not, and Henry
Grantham, who played the part of an anxious observer,
remarked with pain that HE had been fascinated by her
beauty, in a manner which showed her conquest to be
complete.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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