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

be far, while we steer in this direction, for sixty or seventy miles will take us into the St. Lawrence, which the French might make too hot for us; and no voyage on this lake can be very long.”

“So says my uncle Cap; but to me, Jasper, Ontario and the ocean appear very much the same.”

“You have then been on the ocean; while I, who pretend to be a sailor, have never yet seen salt water. You must have a great contempt for such a mariner as myself, in your heart, Mabel Dunham?”

“Then I have no such thing in my heart, Jasper Eau-douce. What right have I, a girl without experience or knowledge, to despise any, much less one like you, who are trusted by the Major, and who command a vessel like this? I have never been on the ocean, though I have seen it; and, I repeat, I see no difference between this lake and the Atlantic.”

“Nor in them that sail on both? I was afraid, Mabel, your uncle had said so much against us fresh-water sailors, that you had begun to look upon us as little better than pretenders?”

“Give yourself no uneasiness on that account, Jasper; for I know my uncle, and he says as many things against those who live ashore, when at York, as he now says against those who sail on fresh water. No, no, neither my father nor myself think anything of such opinions. My uncle Cap, if he spoke openly, would be found to have even a worse notion of a soldier than of a sailor who never saw the sea.”

“But your father, Mabel, has a better opinion of soldiers than of any one else? he wishes you to be the wife of a soldier?”

“Jasper Eau-douce! — I the wife of a soldier! My father wishes it! Why should he wish any such thing? What soldier is there in the garrison that I could marry — that he could wish me to marry?”

“One may love a calling so well as to fancy it will cover a thousand imperfections.”

“But one is not likely to love his own calling so well as to cause him to overlook everything else. You say my father wishes me to marry a soldier; and yet there is no soldier at Oswego that he would be likely to give me to. I am in an awkward position; for while I am not good enough to be the wife of one of the gentlemen of the garrison, I think even you will admit, Jasper, I am too good to be the wife of one of the common soldiers.”

As Mabel spoke thus frankly she blushed, she knew not why, though the obscurity concealed the fact from her companion; and she laughed faintly, like one who felt that the subject, however embarrassing it might be, deserved to be treated fairly. Jasper, it would seem, viewed her position differently from herself.

“It is true Mabel,” said he, “you are not what is called a lady, in the common meaning of the word.”

“Not in any meaning, Jasper,” the generous girl eagerly interrupted: “on that head, I have no vanities, I hope. Providence has made me the daughter of a sergeant, and I am content to remain in the station in which I was born.”

“But all do not remain in the stations in which they were born, Mabel; for some rise above them, and some fall below them. Many sergeants have become officers — even generals; and why may not sergeants’ daughters become officers’ ladies?”

“In the case of Sergeant Dunham’s daughter, I know no better reason than the fact that no officer is likely to wish to make her his wife,” returned Mabel, laughing.

“You may think so; but there are some in the 55th that know better. There is certainly one officer in that regiment, Mabel, who does wish to make you his wife.”

Quick as the flashing lightning, the rapid thoughts of Mabel Dunham glanced over the five or six subalterns of the corps, who, by age and inclinations, would be the most likely to form such a wish; and we should do injustice to her habits, perhaps, were we not to say that a lively sensation of pleasure rose momentarily in her bosom, at the thought of being raised above a station which, whatever might be her professions of contentment, she felt that she had been too well educated to fill with perfect satisfaction. But this emotion was as transient as it was sudden; for Mabel Dunham was a girl of too much pure and womanly feeling to view the marriage tie through anything so worldly as the mere advantages of station. The passing emotion was a thrill produced by factitious habits, while the more settled opinion which remained was the offspring of nature and principles.

“I know no officer in the 55th, or any other regiment, who would be likely to do so foolish a thing; nor do I think I myself would do so foolish a thing as to marry an officer.”

“Foolish, Mabel!”

“Yes, foolish, Jasper. You know, as well as I can know, what the world would think of such matters; and I should be sorry, very sorry, to find that my husband ever regretted that he had so far yielded to a fancy for a face or a figure as to have married the daughter of one so much his inferior as a sergeant.”

“Your husband, Mabel, will not be so likely to think of the father as to think of the daughter.”

The girl was talking with spirit, though feeling evidently entered into her part of the discourse; but she paused for nearly a minute after Jasper had made the last observation before she uttered another word. Then she continued, in a manner less playful, and one critically attentive might have fancied in a manner slightly melancholy, —

“Parent and child ought so to live as not to have two hearts, or two modes of feeling and thinking. A common interest in all things I should think as necessary to happiness in man and wife, as between the other members of the same family. Most of all, ought neither the man nor the woman to have any unusual cause for unhappiness, the world furnishing so many of itself.”

“Am I to understand, then, Mabel, you would refuse to marry an officer, merely because he was an officer?”

“Have you a right to ask such a question, Jasper?” said Mabel smiling.

“No other right than what a strong desire to see you happy can give, which, after all, may be very little. My anxiety has been increased, from happening to know that it is your father’s intention to persuade you to marry Lieutenant Muir.”

“My dear, dear father can entertain no notion so ridiculous — no notion so cruel!”

“Would it, then, be cruel to wish you the wife of a quartermaster?”

“I have told you what I think on that subject, and cannot make my words stronger. Having answered you so frankly, Jasper, I have a right to ask how you know that my father thinks of any such thing?”

“That he has chosen a husband for you, I know from his own mouth; for he has told me this much during our frequent conversations while he has been superintending the shipment of the stores; and that Mr. Muir is to offer for you, I know from the officer himself, who has told me as much. By putting the two things together, I have come to the opinion mentioned.”

“May not my dear father, Jasper,” — Mabel’s face glowed like fire while she spoke, though her words escaped her slowly, and by a sort of involuntary impulse, — “may not my dear father have been thinking of another? It does not follow, from what you say, that Mr. Muir was in his mind.”

“Is it not probable, Mabel, from all that has passed? What brings the Quartermaster here? He has never found it necessary before to accompany the parties that have gone below. He thinks of you for his wife; and your father has made up his own mind that you shall be so. You must see, Mabel, that Mr. Muir follows you?”

Mabel made no answer. Her feminine instinct had, indeed, told her that she was an object of admiration with the Quartermaster; though she had hardly supposed to the extent that Jasper believed; and she, too, had even gathered from the discourse of her father that he thought seriously of having her disposed of in marriage; but by no process of reasoning could she ever have arrived at the inference that Mr. Muir was to be the man. She did not believe it now, though she was far from suspecting the truth. Indeed, it was her own opinion that these casual remarks of her father, which had struck her, had proceeded from a general wish to have her settled, rather than from any desire to see her united to any particular individual. These thoughts, however, she kept secret; for self-respect and feminine reserve showed her the impropriety of making them the subject of discussion with her present companion. By way of changing the conversation, therefore, after the pause had lasted long enough to be embarrassing to both parties, she said, “Of one thing you may be certain, Jasper, — and that is all I wish to say on the subject, — Lieutenant Muir, though he were a colonel, will never be the husband of Mabel Dunham. And now, tell me of your voyage; —when will it end?”

“That is uncertain. Once afloat, we are at the mercy of the winds and waves. Pathfinder will tell you that he who begins to chase the deer in the morning cannot tell where he will sleep at night.”

“But we are not chasing a deer, nor is it morning: so Pathfinder’s moral is thrown away.”

“Although we are not chasing a deer, we are after that which may be as hard to catch. I can tell you no more than I have said already; for it is our duty to be close-mouthed, whether anything depends on it or not. I am afraid, however, I shall not keep you long enough in the Scud to show you what she can do at need.”

“I think a woman unwise who ever marries a sailor,” said Mabel abruptly, and almost involuntarily.

“This is a strange opinion; why do you hold it?”

“Because a sailor’s wife is certain to have a rival in his vessel. My uncle Cap, too, says that a sailor should never marry.”

“He means saltwater sailors,” returned Jasper, laughing. “If he thinks wives not good enough for those who sail on the ocean, he will fancy them just suited to those who sail on the lakes. I hope, Mabel, you do not take your opinions of us fresh-water mariners from all that Master Cap says.”

“Sail, ho!” exclaimed the very individual of whom they were conversing; “or boat, ho! would be nearer the truth.”

Jasper ran forward; and, sure enough, a small object was discernible about a hundred yards ahead of the cutter, and nearly on her lee bow. At the first glance, he saw it was a bark canoe; for, though the darkness prevented hues from being distinguished, the eye that had become accustomed to the night might discern forms at some little distance; and the eye which, like Jasper’s, had long been familiar with things aquatic, could not be at a loss in discovering the outlines necessary to come to the conclusion he did.

“This may be an enemy,” the young man remarked; “and it may be well to overhaul him.”

“He is paddling with all his might, lad,” observed the Pathfinder, “and means to cross your bows and get to windward, when you might as well