The Leatherstocking Tales II

by James Fenimore Cooper

  “And all this will return to you, Pathfinder, for one so upright and sincere will never waste his happiness on a mere fancy. You will dream again, of your hunts, of the deer you have slain, and of the beaver you have taken.”

  “Ah’s! me, Mabel; I wish never to dream again! Before we met, I had a sort of pleasure, in following up the hounds, in fancy as it might be; and even in striking a trail of the Iroquois—nay, I’ve been in skrimmages, and ambushments, in thought like, and found satisfaction in it, according to my gifts; but all those things have lost their charms since I’ve made acquaintance with you. Now, I think no longer of any thing rude in my dreams, but the very last night we staid in the garrison, I imagined I had a cabin in a grove of sugar maples, and at the root of every tree was a Mabel Dunham, while the birds that were among the branches, sung ballads, instead of the notes that natur’ gave, and even the deer stopped to listen. I tried to shoot a fa’an, but Killdeer missed fire, and the creatur’ laughed in my face, as pleasantly as a young girl laughs in her merriment, and then it 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 sarjeant was wrong—yes, he was wrong, and it’s of no use to attempt to make the doe 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 serjeant’s foot was heard crushing the dried twigs hard by, and then his form appeared shoving aside the bushes of a copse, quite near. As he issued into the open ground, the old soldier scrutinised his daughter and her companion, and speaking good-naturedly, he said—

  “Mabel, child; you are young and light of foot—look for a bird 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 serjeant 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,” he said. “Her mother was not quite as 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, sarjeant,” 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 make 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, sarjeant; 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 as 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, sarjeant, Mabel did not try to escape; that I can say with a clear conscience.”

  “I hope the girl was not too willing, neither! Her mother was shy and coy for a month, at least, but frankness, after all, is a recommendation, in 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 let it come with experience. A mistake in you, or in 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 muscles of the listener’s face twitched, as the serjeant 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, that 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 humour gleamed over a mind that was almost infantine in its simplicity and nature, an impression, however, that was soon driven away, by the discovery of emotions so painful and so deep, that they seemed to harrow the very soul. Indeed, in this respect, the Pathfinder was a mere child. Unpractised in the ways of the world, he had no idea of concealing a thought of any kind, and his mind received and reflected each emotion, with the pliability and readiness of that period of life. The infant scarcely yielded its wayward imagination to the passing impression, with greater facility, than this man, so simple in all his personal feelings, so stern, stoical, masculine and severe in all that touched his ordinary pursuits.

  “You say true, sarjeant,” Pathfinder answered—“a mistake in one like you is indeed a more serious matter.”

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

  “Ah’s! me, Sarjeant!”

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

  “Sarjeant 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 as 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 be consarned, but they do not touch the case of your pretty da’ghter. 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, sarjeant, 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 either 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 serjeant was merely a scholar of the camp, “and you have nothing to fear from Mabel on that score. Look at Lt. 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.”

  “Lt. 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 do’n’t intend there shall be that of a marquee, also.”

  “Sarjeant, 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 serjeant 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, sarjeant, 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 any thing, or to utter harsh words to a dog. I have not put the question in a way to be downright refused, sarjeant.”

  “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, sarjeant. Leave the matter to Mabel and me, and I think all will come right in the ind. Young gals be 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 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, sarjeant—yes I will ask her, on condition that you promise not to meddle in the affair—yes, I will promise to ask Mabel the question whether she will marry me, even though she laugh in my face, at my doing so, on that condition.”

  Serjeant Dunham gave the desired promise, very cheerfully, for he had completely wrought himself up into the belief that the man he so much esteemed and respected 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, for it is one of the most unpleasant features in the intercourse between knowledge and ignorance, taste and unsophistication, refinement and vulgarity, that the higher qualities are often necessarily subjected to the judgments of those who have absolutely no perceptions of their existence. It followed that Serjeant Dunham was not altogether qualified to appreciate his daughter’s tastes, or to form a very probable conjecture of 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, as he well did, 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, where there was an opportunity to acquire a knowledge of their existence, 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 endeavor to persuade the former, that his diffidence, alone, prevented complete success with Mabel, and that he had only to persevere, in order to prevail. Pathfinder was much too modest by nature, and had been too plainly, though so delicately, discouraged, in the recent interview, to believe all he heard; still, the father used so many arguments that seemed plausible, and it was so grateful to fancy that the daughter might yet be his, the reader is not to be surprised, when he is told that this unsophisticated being did not view Mabel’s recent conduct in precisely the light in which he may be inclined to view it, himself. He did not credit all that the Serjeant told him, it is true, but he began to think virgin coyness, and ignorance of her own feelings might have induced Mabel to use the language she had.

  “The Quarter Master is no favorite,” said Pathfinder, in answer to one of his companion’s remarks. “Mabel will never look on him as more than one who has had four or five wives already.”

  “Which is more than his share. A man may marry twice, without offence to good morals and decency, I allow, but four times is an aggravation.”

  “I should think even marrying once, what Master Cap calls a circumstance!” put in Pathfinder, laughing, in his quiet way, for, by this time, his spirits had recovered some of their buoyancy.

  “It is, indeed, my friend, and a most solemn circumstance, too. If it were not that Mabel is to be your wife, I would advise you to remain single. But here is the girl, herself, and discretion is the word.”

  “Ah’s! me, sarjeant, I fear you are mistaken!”

  Chapter XIX

  “Thus was this place,

  A happy rural seat of various view:”

  —Paradise Lost, IV.246–47.

  * * *

  MABEL WAS IN WAITING on the beach, and the canoe was soon launched. Pathfinder carried the party out through the surf, in the same skilful manner he had brought it in, and, though Mabel’s colour heightened with excitement, and her heart seemed often ready to leap out of her mouth again, they reached the side of the Scud, without having received even a drop of spray.

  Ontario is like a quick-tempered man, sudden to be angered, and as soon appeased. The sea had already fallen, and though the breakers bounded the shore, far as the eye could reach, it was merely in lines of brightness, that appeared and vanished, like the returning waves produced by the stone that has been dropped into a pool. The cable of the Scud was scarce seen above the water, and Jasper had already hoisted his sails, in readiness to depart, as soon as the expected breeze from the shore should fill the canvass.

  It was just sunset, as the cutter’s mainsail flapped, and its stem began to sever the water. The air was light and southerly, and the head of the vessel was kept looking up along the south shore, it being the intention to get to the eastward, again, as fast as possible. The night that succeeded was quiet, and the rest of those who slept, deep and tranquil.

  Some difficulty occurred concerning the command of the vessel, but the matter had been finally settled by an amicable compromise. As the distrust of Jasper was far from being appeased, Cap retained a supervisory power, while the young man was allowed to work the craft, subject, at all times, to the control and interference of the old seaman. To this Jasper consented, in preference to exposing Mabel any longer to the dangers of their present situation, for, now that the violence of the elements had ceased, he well knew, that the Montcalm would be in search of them. He had the discretion, however, not to reveal his apprehensions on this head, for it happened that the very means he deemed the best to escape the enemy were those which would be most likely to awaken new suspicions of his honesty, in the minds of those who held the power to defeat his intentions. In other words, Jasper believed that the g
allant young Frenchman who commanded the ship of the enemy, would quit his anchorage under the fort at Niagara, and stand up the lake, as soon as wind abated, in order to ascertain the fate of the Scud, keeping mid-way between the two shores, as the best means of commanding a broad view, and that, on his part, it would be expedient to hug one coast or the other, not only to avoid a meeting, but as affording a chance of passing without detection, by blending his sails and spars with objects on the land. He preferred the south, because it was the weather shore, and because he thought it was that which the enemy would the least expect him to take, though it necessarily led near his settlements, and in front of one of the strongest posts he held in that part of the world.

  Of all this, however, Cap was happily ignorant, and the serjeant’s mind was too much occupied with the details of his military trust, to enter into these niceties, which so properly belonged to another profession. No opposition was made, therefore, and, ere morning, Jasper had apparently dropped quietly into all his former authority, issuing his orders freely, and meeting with obedience without hesitation, or cavil.

  The appearance of day brought all on board, on deck again, and, as is usual with adventurers on the water, the opening horizon was curiously examined, as objects started out of the obscurity, and the panorama brightened under the growing light. East, west and north, nothing was visible, but water, glittering in the rising sun, but southward stretched the endless belt of woods, that then held Ontario in a setting of forest verdure. Suddenly an opening appeared ahead, and then the massive walls of a château-looking house, with outworks, bastions, block-houses and palisadoes, frowned on a headland, that bordered the outlet of a broad stream. Just as the post became visible, a little cloud rose over it, and the white ensign of France was seen fluttering from a lofty flagstaff.