For several minutes the two lovers sat, silently waiting his return, uncertain what propriety required of them under circumstances so marked and so peculiar.
At length they beheld their friend advancing slowly towards them, with a thoughtful and even pensive air.
"I now understand what you meant, Jasper, by speaking without a tongue and hearing without an ear," he said when close enough to the tree to be heard.
"Yes, I understand it now, I do; and a very pleasant sort of discourse it is, when one can hold it with Mabel Dunham.
Ah's me!
I told the Sergeant I wasn't fit for her; that I was too old, too ignorant, and too wild like; but he would have it otherwise."
Jasper and Mabel sat, resembling Milton's picture of our first parents, when the consciousness of sin first laid its leaden weight on their souls.
Neither spoke, neither even moved; though both at that moment fancied they could part with their new-found happiness in order to restore their friend to his peace of mind.
Jasper was pale as death, but, in Mabel, maiden modesty had caused the blood to mantle on her cheeks, until their bloom was heightened to a richness that was scarcely equalled in her hours of light-hearted buoyancy and joy.
As the feeling which, in her sex, always accompanies the security of love returned, threw its softness and tenderness over her countenance, she was singularly beautiful.
Pathfinder gazed at her with an intentness he did not endeavor to conceal, and then he fairly laughed in his own way, and with a sort of wild exultation, as men that are untutored are wont to express their delight.
This momentary indulgence, however, was expiated by the pang which followed the sudden consciousness that this glorious young creature was lost to him for ever.
It required a full minute for this simple-minded being to recover from the shock of this conviction; and then he recovered his dignity of manner, speaking with gravity, almost with solemnity.
"I have always known, Mabel Dunham, that men have their gifts," said he; "but I'd forgotten that it did not belong to mine to please the young, the beautiful, and l'arned.
I hope the mistake has been no very heavy sin; and if it was, I've been heavily punished for it, I have.
Nay, Mabel, I know what you'd say, but it's unnecessary; I feel it all, and that is as good as if I heard it all.
I've had a bitter hour, Mabel.
I've had a very bitter hour, lad."
"Hour!" echoed Mabel, as the other first used the word; the tell-tale blood, which had begun to ebb towards her heart, rushing again tumultuously to her very temples; "surely not an hour, Pathfinder?"
"Hour!" exclaimed Jasper at the same instant;
"No, no, my worthy friend, it is not ten minutes since you left us!"
"Well, it may be so; though to me it has seemed to be a day.
I begin to think, however, that the happy count time by minutes, and the miserable count it by months.
But we will talk no more of this; it is all over now, and many words about it will make you no happier, while they will only tell me what I've lost; and quite likely how much I desarved to lose her.
No, no, Mabel, 'tis useless to interrupt me; I admit it all, and your gainsaying it, though it be so well meant, cannot change my mind.
Well, Jasper, she is yours; and, though it's hard to think it, I do believe you'll make her happier than I could, for your gifts are better suited to do so, though I would have strived hard to do as much, if I know myself, I would.
I ought to have known better than to believe the Sergeant; and I ought to have put faith in what Mabel told me at the head of the lake, for reason and judgment might have shown me its truth; but it is so pleasant to think what we wish, and mankind so easily over-persuade us, when we over-persuade ourselves.
But what's the use in talking of it, as I said afore?
It's true, Mabel seemed to be consenting, though it all came from a wish to please her father, and from being skeary about the savages -- "
"Pathfinder!"
"I understand you, Mabel, and have no hard feelings, I haven't.
I sometimes think I should like to live in your neighborhood, that I might look at your happiness; but, on the whole, it's better I should quit the 55th altogether, and go back to the 60th, which is my natyve rigiment, as it might be.
It would have been better, perhaps, had I never left it, though my sarvices were much wanted in this quarter, and I'd been with some of the 55th years agone; Sergeant Dunham, for instance, when he was in another corps.
Still, Jasper, I do not regret that I've known you -- "
"And me, Pathfinder!" impetuously interrupted Mabel; "do you regret having known me?
Could I think so, I should never be at peace with myself."
"You, Mabel!" returned the guide, taking the hand of our heroine and looking up into her countenance with guileless simplicity, but earnest affection;
"How could I be sorry that a ray of the sun came across the gloom of a cheerless day -- that light has broken in upon darkness, though it remained so short a time?
I do not flatter myself with being able to march quite so light-hearted as I once used to could, or to sleep as sound, for some time to come; but I shall always remember how near I was to being undeservedly happy, I shall.
So far from blaming you, Mabel, I only blame myself for being so vain as to think it possible I could please such a creatur'; for sartainly you told me how it was, when we talked it over on the mountain, and I ought to have believed you then; for I do suppose it's nat'ral that young women should know their own minds better than their fathers.
Ah's me!
It's settled now, and nothing remains but for me to take leave of you, that you may depart; I feel that Master Cap must be impatient, and there is danger of his coming on shore to look for us all."
"To take leave!" exclaimed Mabel.
"Leave!" echoed Jasper;
"You do not mean to quit us, my friend?"
"'Tis best, Mabel, 'tis altogether best, Eau-douce; and it's wisest.
I could live and die in your company, if I only followed feeling; but, if I follow reason, I shall quit you here.
You will go back to Oswego, and become man and wife as soon as you arrive, -- for all that is determined with Master Cap, who hankers after the sea again, and who knows what is to happen, -- while I shall return to the wilderness and my Maker.
Come, Mabel," continued Pathfinder, rising and drawing nearer to our heroine, with grave decorum, "kiss me; Jasper will not grudge me one kiss; then we'll part."
"Oh, Pathfinder!" exclaimed Mabel, falling into the arms of the guide, and kissing his cheeks again and again, with a freedom and warmth she had been far from manifesting while held to the bosom of Jasper;