Sampson Gattrie had passed 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, passed 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 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.  At other times he would utter a loud shout, and, brandishing 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 rushing 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 Sampson; 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 passed, 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 Sampson passed; 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 countenances, would then open a passage with a rapidity which in them was remarkable, and burst into loud laughter as they fled from side to side to make way for Sampson.  Sometimes, on these occasions, the latter would suddenly check Silvertail, while in full career, and, in a voice that could be beard from almost every quarter of the little town, harangue them for half an hour together in their own language, and with an air of