I wonder, Jasper, that Mabel never took a fancy to you, now, rather than setting her mind on me."
"Take, a fancy to me, Pathfinder!" returned the young man, endeavoring to clear his voice without betraying himself; "what is there about me to please such a girl as Mabel Dunham?
I have all that you find fault with in yourself, with none of that excellence that makes even the generals respect you."
"Well, well, it's all chance, say what we will about it.
Here have I journeyed and guided through the woods female after female, and consorted with them in the garrisons, and never have I even felt an inclination for any, until I saw Mabel Dunham.
It's true the poor Sergeant first set me to thinking about his daughter; but after we got a little acquainted like, I'd no need of being spoken to, to think of her night and day.
I'm tough, Jasper; yes, I'm very tough; and I'm risolute enough, as you all know; and yet I do think it would quite break me down, now, to lose Mabel Dunham!"
"We will talk no more of it, Pathfinder," said Jasper, returning his friend's squeeze of the hand, and moving back towards the fire, though slowly, and in the manner of one who cared little where he went; "we will talk no more of it.
You are worthy of Mabel, and Mabel is worthy of you -- you like Mabel, and Mabel likes you -- her father has chosen you for her husband, and no one has a right to interfere.
As for the Quartermaster, his feigning love for Mabel is worse even than his treason to the king."
By this time they were so near the fire that it was necessary to change the conversation.
Luckily, at that instant, Cap, who had been in the block in company with his dying brother-in-law, and who knew nothing of what had passed since the capitulation, now appeared, walking with a meditative and melancholy air towards the group.
Much of that hearty dogmatism, that imparted even to his ordinary air and demeanor an appearance of something like contempt for all around him, had disappeared, and he seemed thoughtful, if not meek.
"This death, gentlemen," said he, when ho had got sufficiently near, "is a melancholy business, make the best of it.
Now, here is Sergeant Dunham, a very good soldier, I make no question, about to slip his cable; and yet he holds on to the better end of it, as if he was determined it should never run out of the hawse-hole; and all because he loves his daughter, it seems to me.
For my part, when a friend is really under the necessity of making a long journey, I always wish him well and happily off."
"You wouldn't kill the Sergeant before his time?" Pathfinder reproachfully answered.
"Life is sweet, even to the aged; and, for that matter, I've known some that seemed to set much store by it when it got to be of the least value."
Nothing had been further from Cap's real thoughts than the wish to hasten his brother-in-law's end. He had found himself embarrassed with the duties of smoothing a deathbed, and all he had meant was to express a sincere desire that the Sergeant were happily rid of doubt and suffering.
A little shocked, therefore, at the interpretation that had been put on his words, he rejoined with some of the asperity of the man, though rebuked by a consciousness of not having done his own wishes justice.
"You are too old and too sensible a person, Pathfinder," said he, "to fetch a man up with a surge, when he is paying out his ideas in distress, as it might be.
Sergeant Dunham is both my brother-in-law and my friend, -- that is to say, as intimate a friend as a soldier well can be with a seafaring man, -- and I respect and honor him accordingly.
I make no doubt, moreover, that he has lived such a life as becomes a man, and there can be no great harm, after all, in wishing any one well berthed in heaven.
Well! we are mortal, the best of us, that you'll not deny; and it ought to be a lesson not to feel pride in our strength and beauty. Where is the Quartermaster, Pathfinder?
It is proper he should come and have a parting word with the poor Sergeant, who is only going a little before us."
"You have spoken more truth, Master Cap, than you've been knowing to, all this time.
You might have gone further, notwithstanding, and said that we are mortal, the worst of us; which is quite as true, and a good deal more wholesome, than saying that we are mortal, the best of us.
As for the Quartermaster's coming to speak a parting word to the Sergeant, it is quite out of the question, seeing that he has gone ahead, and that too with little parting notice to himself, or to any one else."
"You are not quite so clear as common in your language, Pathfinder.
I know that we ought all to have solemn thoughts on these occasions, but I see no use in speaking in parables."
"If my words are not plain, the idee is.
In short, Master Cap, while Sergeant Dunham has been preparing himself for a long journey, like a conscientious and honest man as he is, deliberately, the Quartermaster has started, in a hurry, before him; and, although it is a matter on which it does not become me to be very positive, I give it as my opinion that they travel such different roads that they will never meet."
"Explain yourself, my friend," said the bewildered seaman, looking around him in search of Muir, whose absence began to excite his distrust.
"I see nothing of the Quartermaster; but I think him too much of a man to run away, now that the victory is gained.
If the fight were ahead instead of in our wake, the case would be altered."
"There lies all that is left of him, beneath that greatcoat," returned the guide, who then briefly related the manner of the Lieutenant's death.
"The Tuscarora was as venemous in his blow as a rattler, though he failed to give the warning," continued Pathfinder.
"I've seen many a desperate fight, and several of these sudden outbreaks of savage temper; but never before did I see a human soul quit the body more unexpectedly, or at a worse moment for the hopes of the dying man.
His breath was stopped with the lie on his lips, and the spirit might be said to have passed away in the very ardor of wickedness."
Cap listened with a gaping mouth; and he gave two or three violent hems, as the other concluded, like one who distrusted his own respiration.
"This is an uncertain and uncomfortable life of yours, Master Pathfinder, what between the fresh water and the savages," said he; "and the sooner I get quit of it, the higher will be my opinion of myself.
Now you mention it, I will say that the man ran for that berth in the rocks, when the enemy first bore down upon us, with a sort of instinct that I thought surprising in an officer; but I was in too great a hurry to follow, to log the whole matter accurately.
God bless me!
God bless me! -- a traitor, do you say, and ready to sell his country, and to a rascally Frenchman too?"
"To sell anything; country, soul, body, Mabel, and all our scalps; and no ways particular, I'll engage, as to the purchaser.
The countrymen of Captain Flinty-heart here were the paymasters this time."
"Just like 'em; ever ready to buy when they can't thrash, and to run when they can do neither."
Monsieur Sanglier lifted his cap with ironical gravity, and acknowledged the compliment with an expression of polite contempt that was altogether lost on its insensible subject.
But Pathfinder had too much native courtesy, and was far too just-minded, to allow the attack to go unnoticed. "Well, well," he interposed, "to my mind there is no great difference 'atween an Englishman and a Frenchman, after all.
They talk different tongues, and live under different kings, I will allow; but both are human, and feel like human beings, when there is occasion for it."