It afforded no slight amusement to the townspeople, and particularly the young urchins, who usually looked up to Sampson with awe, to be witnesses of one of those rencontres.  In a moment the shouting—­galloping—­rampaging cudgel-wielder was to be seen changed, as if by some magic power, into a being of almost child-like obedience, while he listened attentively and deferentially to the lecture of Major Grantham, whom he both feared and loved.  On these occasions, he would hang his head upon his chest—­confess his error—­and promise solemnly to amend his course of life, although it must be needless to add that never was that promise heeded.  Not unfrequently, after these lectures, when Major Grantham had left him, Sampson would turn his horse, and, with his arms still folded across his chest, suffer Silvertail to pursue his homeward course, while he himself, silent and thoughtful, and looking like a culprit taken in the fact, sat steadily in his saddle, without however venturing to turn his eye either to the right or to the left, as he passed through the crowd, who, with faces strongly expressive of mirth, marked their sense of the change which had been produced in the old interpreter.  Those who had seen him thus, for the first time, might have supposed that a reformation in one so apparently touched would have ensued; but long experience had taught that, although a twinge of conscience, or more probably fear of, and respect for, the magistrate, might induce a momentary humiliation, all traces of cause and effect would have vanished with the coming dawn.

To the sterling public virtues he boasted, Sampson Gattrie united that of loyalty in no common degree.  A more staunch adherent to the British Crown existed nowhere in the sovereign’s dominions; and, such was his devotedness to “King George,” that, albeit he could not in all probability have made the sacrifice of his love for whiskey, he would willingly have suffered his left arm to be severed from his body, had such proof of his attachment to the throne been required.  Proportioned to his love for every thing British, arose, as a natural consequence, his dislike for every thing anti-British; and especially for those, who, under the guise of allegiance, had conducted themselves in away to become objects of suspicion to the authorities.  A near neighbour of Desborough, he had watched him as narrowly as his long indulged habits of intoxication would permit, and he had been the means of conveying to Major Grantham much of the information which had induced that uncompromising magistrate to seek the expulsion of the dangerous settler—­an object which, however, had been defeated by the perjury of the unprincipled individual, in taking the customary oaths of allegiance.  Since the death of Major Grantham, for whom, notwithstanding his numerous lectures, he had ever entertained that reverential esteem which is ever the result of the ascendancy of the powerful and virtuous mind over the weak, and not absolutely vicious; and for whose sons he felt almost a father’s affection, old Gattrie had but indifferently troubled himself about Desborough, who was fully aware of what he had previously done to detect and expose him, and consequently repaid with usury—­an hostility of feeling which, however, had never been brought to any practical issue.