Finding it vain to oppose himself to the torrent of openly expressed opinion, the mortified youth withdrew to a distance, and, hastening among the rude tumuli we have described, as being scattered about the edge of the bank, stood watching, with folded arms and heaving chest, the gradually receding bark of the enemy.  Alternately, as he thus gazed, his dark eye now flashed with the indignation of wounded pride, now dilated with the exulting consciousness of cooling triumph.  The assurance was strong within him, not only that his brother would soon make his appearance before the assembled groups who had had the cruelty to impugn his conduct, but that he would do so under circumstances calculated to change their warm censure into even more vehement applause.  Fully impressed with the integrity of his absent relative, the impetuous and generous hearted youth paused not to reflect that circumstances were such as to justify the belief—­or at least, the doubt—­that had been expressed, even by the most impartial of those who had condemned him.  It seemed to him that others ought to have known and judged him as he himself did, and he took a secret delight in dwelling on the self-reproach which (measuring the feelings of others by the standard of his own,) he conceived would attach to them, when it should be found how erroneous had been the estimate formed of his character.

While he thus gazed, with eyes intently bent upon the river, and manifesting even a deeper interest as the fleeing bark drew momentarily nearer to one particular point in the distance, the young officer heard footsteps approaching him.  Hastily dashing away a tear which had been called up by a variety of emotions, he tamed and beheld the Chieftain Tecumseh, and with him one, who, in the full uniform of the British Staff, united, in his tall and portly figure, the martial bearing of the soldier to the more polished graces of the habitual courtier.

“Henry, my noble boy,” exclaimed the latter, as he pressed the hand of the youth, “you must not yield to these feelings.  I have marked your impatience at the observations caused by Gerald’s strange absence, but I have brought you one who is too partial to you both, to join in the condemnation.  I have explained every thing to him, and he it was who, remarking you to be alone and suspecting the cause, first proposed coming to rouse you from your reverie.”

Affectionately answering the grasp of his noble looking uncle, (such was the consanguinity of the parties,) Henry Grantham turned at the same time his eloquent eye upon that of the chieftain, and, in a few brief but expressive sentences, conveyed, in the language of the Warrior, (with which the brothers were partially conversant), the gratification he experienced in his unchanged confidence in the absent officer.