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

bounded away, looking back as if expecting me to follow.”

“No more of this, Pathfinder; we’ll talk no more of these things,” said Mabel, dashing the tears from her eyes: for the simple, earnest manner in which this hardy woodsman betrayed the deep hold she had taken of his feelings nearly proved too much for her own generous heart. “Now, let us look for my father; he cannot be distant, as I heard his gun quite near.”

“The Sergeant was wrong — yes, he was wrong, and it’s of no avail to attempt to make the dove consort with the wolf.”

“Here comes my dear father,” interrupted Mabel. “Let us look cheerful and happy, Pathfinder, as such good friends ought to look, and keep each other’s secrets.”

A pause succeeded; the Sergeant’s foot was heard crushing the dried twigs hard by, and then his form appeared shoving aside the bushes of a copse just near. As he issued into the open ground, the old soldier scrutinized his daughter and her companion, and speaking good-naturedly, he said, “Mabel, child, you are young and light of foot —look for a bird that I’ve shot that fell just beyond the thicket of young hemlocks on the shore; and, as Jasper is showing signs of an intention of getting under way, you need not take the trouble to clamber up this hill again, but we will meet you on the beach in a few minutes.”

Mabel obeyed, bounding down the hill with the elastic step of youth and health. But, notwithstanding the lightness of her steps, the heart of the girl was heavy, and no sooner was she hid from observation by the thicket, than she threw herself on the root of a tree and wept as if her heart would break. The Sergeant watched her until she disappeared, with a father’s pride, and then turned to his companion with a smile as kind and as familiar as his habits would allow him to use towards any.

“She has her mother’s lightness and activity, my friend, with somewhat of her father’s force,” said he. “Her mother was not quite so handsome, I think myself; but the Dunhams were always thought comely, whether men or women. Well, Pathfinder, I take it for granted you’ve not overlooked the opportunity, but have spoken plainly to the girl? women like frankness in matters of this sort.”

“I believe Mabel and I understand each other at last, Sergeant,” returned the other, looking another way to avoid the soldier’s face.

“So much the better. Some people fancy that a little doubt and uncertainty makes love all the livelier; but I am one of those who think the plainer the tongue speaks the easier the mind will comprehend. Was Mabel surprised?”

“I fear she was, Sergeant; I fear she was taken quite by surprise — yes, I do.”

“Well, well, surprises in love are like an ambush in war, and quite as lawful; though it is not so easy to tell when a woman is surprised, as to tell when it happens to an enemy. Mabel did not run away, my worthy friend, did she?”

“No, Sergeant, Mabel did not try to escape; that I can say with a clear conscience.”

“I hope the girl was too willing, neither! Her mother was shy and coy for a month, at least; but frankness, after all, is a recommendation in a man or woman.”

“That it is, that it is; and judgment, too.”

“You are not to look for too much judgment in a young creature of twenty, Pathfinder, but it will come with experience. A mistake in you or me, for instance, might not be so easily overlooked; but in a girl of Mabel’s years, one is not to strain at a gnat lest they swallow a camel.”

The reader will remember that Sergeant Dunham was not a Hebrew scholar.

The muscles of the listener’s face twitched as the Sergeant was thus delivering his sentiments, though the former had now recovered a portion of that stoicism which formed so large a part of his character, and which he had probably imbibed from long association with the Indians. His eyes rose and fell, and once a gleam shot athwart his hard features as if he were about to indulge in his peculiar laugh; but the joyous feeling, if it really existed, was as quickly lost in a look allied to anguish. It was this unusual mixture of wild and keen mental agony with native, simple joyousness, which had most struck Mabel, who, in the interview just related, had a dozen times been on the point of believing that her suitor’s heart was only lightly touched, as images of happiness and humor gleamed over a mind that was almost infantile in its simplicity and nature; an impression, however, which was soon driven away by the discovery of emotions so painful and so deep, that they seemed to harrow the very soul.

“You say true, Sergeant,” Pathfinder answered; “a mistake in one like you is a more serious matter.”

“You will find Mabel sincere and honest in the end; give her but a little time.”

“Ah’s me, Sergeant!”

“A man of your merits would make an impression on a rock, give him time, Pathfinder.”

“Sergeant Dunham, we are old fellow-campaigners —that is, as campaigns are carried on here in the wilderness; and we have done so many kind acts to each other that we can afford to be candid — what has caused you to believe that a girl like Mabel could ever fancy one so rude as I am?”

“What? — why, a variety of reasons, and good reasons too, my friend. Those same acts of kindness, perhaps, and the campaigns you mention; moreover, you are my sworn and tried comrade.”

“All this sounds well, so far as you and I are consarned; but they do not touch the case of your pretty daughter. She may think these very campaigns have destroyed the little comeliness I may once have had; and I am not quite sartain that being an old friend of her father would lead any young maiden’s mind into a particular affection for a suitor. Like loves like, I tell you, Sergeant; and my gifts are not altogether the gifts of Mabel Dunham.”

“These are some of your old modest qualms, Pathfinder, and will do you no credit with the girl. Women distrust men who distrust themselves, and take to men who distrust nothing. Modesty is a capital thing in a recruit, I grant you; or in a young subaltern who has just joined, for it prevents his railing at the non-commissioned officers before he knows what to rail at; I’m not sure it is out of place in a commissary or a parson, but it’s the devil and all when it gets possession of a real soldier or a lover. Have as little to do with it as possible, if you would win a woman’s heart. As for your doctrine that like loves like, it is as wrong as possible in matters of this sort. If like loved like, women would love one another, and men also. No, no, like loves dislike,” — the Sergeant was merely a scholar of the camp, — “and you have nothing to fear from Mabel on that score. Look at Lieutenant Muir; the man has had five wives already, they tell me, and there is no more modesty in him than there is in a cat-o’-nine-tails.”

“Lieutenant Muir will never be the husband of Mabel Dunham, let him ruffle his feathers as much as he may.”

“That is a sensible remark of yours, Pathfinder; for my mind is made up that you shall be my son-in-law. If I were an officer myself, Mr. Muir might have some chance; but time has placed one door between my child and myself, and I don’t intend there shall be that of a marquee also.”

“Sergeant, we must let Mabel follow her own fancy; she is young and light of heart, and God forbid that any wish of mine should lay the weight of a feather on a mind that is all gaiety now, or take one note of happiness from her laughter!”

“Have you conversed freely with the girl?” the Sergeant demanded quickly, and with some asperity of manner.

Pathfinder was too honest to deny a truth plain as that which the answer required, and yet too honorable to betray Mabel, and expose her to the resentment of one whom he well knew to be stern in his anger.

“We have laid open our minds,” he said; “and though Mabel’s is one that any man might love to look at, I find little there, Sergeant, to make me think any better of myself.”

“The girl has not dared to refuse you — to refuse her father’s best friend?”

Pathfinder turned his face away to conceal the look of anguish that consciousness told him was passing athwart it, but he continued the discourse in his own quiet, manly tones.

“Mabel is too kind to refuse anything, or to utter harsh words to a dog. I have not put the question in a way to be downright refused, Sergeant.”

“And did you expect my daughter to jump into your arms before you asked her? She would not have been her mother’s child had she done any such thing, nor do I think she would have been mine. The Dunhams like plain dealing as well as the king’s majesty; but they are no jumpers. Leave me to manage this matter for you, Pathfinder, and there shall be no unnecessary delay. I’ll speak to Mabel myself this very evening, using your name as principal in the affair.”

“I’d rather not, I’d rather not, Sergeant. Leave the matter to Mabel and me, and I think all will come right in the ind. Young girls are like timorsome birds; they do not over-relish being hurried or spoken harshly to nither. Leave the matter to Mabel and me.”

“On one condition I will, my friend; and that is, that you will promise me, on the honor of a scout, that you will put the matter plainly to Mabel the first suitable opportunity, and no mincing of words.”

“I will ask her, Sergeant, on condition that you promise not to meddle in the affair — yes, I will promise to ask Mabel whether she will marry me, even though she laugh in my face at my doing so, on that condition.”

Sergeant Dunham gave the desired promise very cheerfully; for he had completely wrought himself up into the belief that the man he so much esteemed himself must be acceptable to his daughter. He had married a woman much younger than himself, and he saw no unfitness in the respective years of the intended couple. Mabel was educated so much above him, too, that he was not aware of the difference which actually existed between the parent and child in this respect. It followed that Sergeant Dunham was not altogether qualified to appreciate his daughter’s tastes, or to form a very probable conjecture what would be the direction taken by those feelings which oftener depend on impulses and passion than on reason. Still, the worthy soldier was not so wrong in his estimate of the Pathfinder’s chances as might at first appear. Knowing all the sterling qualities of the man, his truth, integrity of purpose, courage, self-devotion, disinterestedness, it was far from unreasonable to suppose that qualities like these would produce a deep impression on any female heart; and the father erred principally in fancying that the daughter might know as it might be by intuition what he himself had acquired by years of intercourse and adventure.

As Pathfinder and his military friend descended the hill to the shore of the lake, the discourse did not flag. The latter continued to persuade the former that his diffidence alone prevented complete success with Mabel, and that