The Pathfinder, James Fenimore Cooper [top reads .TXT] 📗

very night; for it struck her young fancy that nothing better could well offer than to listen to the praises of one who was a bad historian of his own exploits.

“Will the Scud remain with us when we reach the island?” she asked, after a little hesitation about the propriety of the question; “or shall we be left to ourselves?”

“That’s as may be: Jasper does not often keep the cutter idle when anything is to be done; and we may expect activity on his part. My gifts, however, run so little towards the water and vessels generally, unless it be among rapids and falls and in canoes, that I pretend to know nothing about it. We shall have all right under Jasper, I make no doubt, who can find a trail on Ontario as well as a Delaware can find one on the land.”

“And our own Delaware, Pathfinder — the Big Serpent —why is he not with us to-night?”

“Your question would have been more natural had you said, Why are you here, Pathfinder? The Sarpent is in his place, while I am not in mine. He is out, with two or three more, scouting the lake shores, and will join us down among the islands, with the tidings he may gather. The Sergeant is too good a soldier to forget his rear while he is facing the enemy in front. It’s a thousand pities, Mabel, your father wasn’t born a general, as some of the English are who come among us; for I feel sartain he wouldn’t leave a Frencher in the Canadas a week, could he have his own way with them.”

“Shall we have enemies to face in front?” asked Mabel, smiling, and for the first time feeling a slight apprehension about the dangers of the expedition. “Are we likely to have an engagement?”

“If we have, Mabel, there will be men enough ready and willing to stand between you and harm. But you are a soldier’s daughter, and, we all know, have the spirit of one. Don’t let the fear of a battle keep your pretty eyes from sleeping.”

“I do feel braver out here in the woods, Pathfinder, than I ever felt before amid the weaknesses of the towns, although I have always tried to remember what I owe to my dear father.”

“Ay, your mother was so before you. ‘You will find Mabel, like her mother, no screamer, or a faint-hearted girl, to trouble a man in his need; but one who would encourage her mate, and help to keep his heart up when sorest prest by danger,’ said the Sergeant to me, before I ever laid eyes on that sweet countenance of yours, — he did!”

“And why should my father have told you this, Pathfinder?” the girl demanded a little earnestly. “Perhaps he fancied you would think the better of me if you did not believe me a silly coward, as so many of my sex love to make themselves appear.”

Deception, unless it were at the expense of his enemies in the field, — nay, concealment of even a thought, — was so little in accordance with the Pathfinder’s very nature, that he was not a little embarrassed by this simple question. In such a strait he involuntarily took refuge in a middle course, not revealing that which he fancied ought not to be told, nor yet absolutely concealing it.

“You must know, Mabel,” said he, “that the Sergeant and I are old friends, and have stood side by side — or, if not actually side by side, I a little in advance, as became a scout, and your father with his own men, as better suited a soldier of the king — on many a hard fi’t and bloody day. It’s the way of us skirmishers to think little of the fight when the rifle has done cracking; and at night, around our fires, or on our marches, we talk of the things we love, just as you young women convarse about your fancies and opinions when you get together to laugh over your idees. Now it was natural that the Sergeant, having such a daughter as you, should love her better than anything else, and that he should talk of her oftener than of anything else, — while I, having neither daughter, nor sister, nor mother, nor kith, nor kin, nor anything but the Delawares to love, I naturally chimed in, as it were, and got to love you, Mabel, before I ever saw you — yes, I did — just by talking about you so much.”

“And now you have seen me,” returned the smiling girl, whose unmoved and natural manner proved how little she was thinking of anything more than parental or fraternal regard, “you are beginning to see the folly of forming friendships for people before you know anything about them, except by hearsay.”

“It wasn’t friendship — it isn’t friendship, Mabel, that I feel for you. I am the friend of the Delawares, and have been so from boyhood; but my feelings for them, or for the best of them, are not the same as those I got from the Sergeant for you; and, especially, now that I begin to know you better. I’m sometimes afeared it isn’t wholesome for one who is much occupied in a very manly calling, like that of a guide or scout, or a soldier even, to form friendships for women, — young women in particular, — as they seem to me to lessen the love of enterprise, and to turn the feelings away from their gifts and natural occupations.”

“You surely do not mean, Pathfinder, that a friendship for a girl like me would make you less bold, and more unwilling to meet the French than you were before?”

“Not so, not so. With you in danger, for instance, I fear I might become foolhardy; but before we became so intimate, as I may say, I loved to think of my scoutings, and of my marches, and outlyings, and fights, and other adventures: but now my mind cares less about them; I think more of the barracks, and of evenings passed in discourse, of feelings in which there are no wranglings and bloodshed, and of young women, and of their laughs and their cheerful, soft voices, their pleasant looks and their winning ways. I sometimes tell the Sergeant that he and his daughter will be the spoiling of one of the best and most experienced scouts on the lines.”

“Not they, Pathfinder; they will try to make that which is already so excellent, perfect. You do not know us, if you think that either wishes to see you in the least changed. Remain as at present, the same honest, upright, conscientious, fearless, intelligent, trustworthy guide that you are, and neither my dear father nor myself can ever think of you differently from what we now do.”

It was too dark for Mabel to note the workings of the countenance of her listener; but her own sweet face was turned towards him, as she spoke with an energy equal to her frankness, in a way to show how little embarrassed were her thoughts, and how sincere were her words. Her countenance was a little flushed, it is true; but it was with earnestness and truth of feeling, though no nerve thrilled, no limb trembled, no pulsation quickened. In short, her manner and appearance were those of a sincere-minded and frank girl, making such a declaration of goodwill and regard for one of the other sex as she felt that his services and good qualities merited, without any of the emotion that invariably accompanies the consciousness of an inclination which might lead to softer disclosures.

The Pathfinder was too unpractised, however, to enter into distinctions of this kind, and his humble nature was encouraged by the directness and strength of the words he had just heard. Unwilling, if not unable, to say any more, he walked away, and stood leaning on his rifle and looking up at the stars for full ten minutes in profound silence.

In the meanwhile the interview on the bastion, to which we have already alluded, took place between Lundie and the Sergeant.

“Have the men’s knapsacks been examined?” demanded Major Duncan, after he had cast his eye at a written report, handed to him by the Sergeant, but which it was too dark to read.

“All, your honor; and all are right.”

“The ammunition — arms?”

“All in order, Major Duncan, and fit for any service.”

“You have the men named in my own draft, Dunham?”

“Without an exception, sir. Better men could not be found in the regiment.”

“You have need of the best of our men, Sergeant. This experiment has now been tried three times; always under one of the ensigns, who have flattered me with success, but have as often failed. After so much preparation and expense, I do not like to abandon the project entirely; but this will be the last effort; and the result will mainly depend on you and on the Pathfinder.”

“You may count on us both, Major Duncan. The duty you have given us is not above our habits and experience, and I think it will be well done. I know that the Pathfinder will not be wanting.”

“On that, indeed, it will be safe to rely. He is a most extraordinary man, Dunham — one who long puzzled me; but who, now that I understand him, commands as much of my respect as any general in his majesty’s service.”

“I was in hopes, sir, that you would come to look at the proposed marriage with Mabel as a thing I ought to wish and forward.”

“As for that, Sergeant, time will show,” returned Lundie, smiling; though here, too, the obscurity concealed the nicer shades of expression; “one woman is sometimes more difficult to manage than a whole regiment of men. By the way, you know that your would-be son-in-law, the Quartermaster, will be of the party; and I trust you will at least give him an equal chance in the trial for your daughter’s smiles.”

“If respect for his rank, sir, did not cause me to do this, your honor’s wish would be sufficient.”

“I thank you, Sergeant. We have served much together, and ought to value each other in our several stations. Understand me, however, I ask no more for Davy Muir than a clear field and no favor. In love, as in war, each man must gain his own victories. Are you certain that the rations have been properly calculated?”

“I’ll answer for it, Major Duncan; but if they were not, we cannot suffer with two such hunters as Pathfinder and the Serpent in company.”

“That will never do, Dunham,” interrupted Lundie sharply; “and it comes of your American birth and American training. No thorough soldier ever relies on anything but his commissary for supplies; and I beg that no part of my regiment may be the first to set an example to the contrary.”

“You have only to command, Major Duncan, to be obeyed; and yet, if I might presume, sir — “

“Speak freely, Sergeant; you are talking with a friend.”

“I was merely about to say that I find even the Scotch soldiers like venison and birds quite as well as pork, when they are difficult to be had.”

“That may be very true; but likes and dislikes have nothing to do with system. An army can rely on nothing but its commissaries. The irregularity of the provincials has played the devil with the king’s service too often to be winked at any longer.”

“General Braddock, your honor, might have been advised by Colonel Washington.”

“Out upon your Washington! You’re all provincials together, man, and uphold each other as if you were of a sworn confederacy.”

“I believe his majesty has no more loyal subjects than