How I cursed the meddler
for his officiousness!"
"Oh, that soldier was your nephew," eagerly interrupted
Clara, pointing towards her companion, who had fallen
into a profound slumber, "the husband of this unfortunate
woman. Frank Halloway (for by that name was he alone
known in the regiment) loved my brother as though he had
been of the same blood. He it was who flew to receive
the ball that was destined for another. But I nursed him
on his couch of suffering, and with my own hands prepared
his food and dressed his wound. Oh, if pity can touch
your heart (and I will not believe that a heart that once
felt as you say yours has felt can be inaccessible to
pity), let the recollection of your nephew's devotedness
to my mother's child disarm you of vengeance, and induce
you to restore us!"
"Never!" thundered Wacousta,--"never! The very circumstance
you have now named is an additional incentive to my
vengeance. My nephew saved the life of your brother at
the hazard of his own; and how has he been rewarded for
the generous deed? By an ignominious death, inflicted,
perhaps, for some offence not more dishonouring than
those which have thrown me an outcast upon these wilds;
and that at the command and in the presence of the father
of him whose life he was fool enough to preserve.
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