When this is the case, men are apt to think over kindly of each other; and I fear me that the daughter may not be so likely to view a plain ignorant hunter as favorably as the father does."
"Tut, tut, Pathfinder!
You don't know yourself, man, and may put all faith in my judgment.
In the first place you have experience; and, as all girls must want that, no prudent young woman would overlook such a qualification.
Then you are not one of the coxcombs that strut about when they first join a regiment; but a man who has seen service, and who carries the marks of it on his person and countenance.
I daresay you have been under fire some thirty or forty times, counting all the skirmishes and ambushes that you've seen."
"All of that, Sergeant, all of that; but what will it avail in gaining the good-will of a tender-hearted young female?"
"It will gain the day.
Experience in the field is as good in love as in war.
But you are as honest-hearted and as loyal a subject as the king can boast of -- God bless him!"
"That may be too; but I'm afeared I'm too rude and too old and too wild like to suit the fancy of such a young and delicate girl as Mabel, who has been unused to our wilderness ways, and may think the settlements better suited to her gifts and inclinations."
"These are new misgivings for you, my friend; and I wonder they were never paraded before."
"Because I never knew my own worthlessness, perhaps, until I saw Mabel.
I have travelled with some as fair, and have guided them through the forest, and seen them in their perils and in their gladness; but they were always too much above me to make me think of them as more than so many feeble ones I was bound to protect and defend.
The case is now different.
Mabel and I are so nearly alike, that I feel weighed down with a load that is hard to bear, at finding us so unlike.
I do wish, Sergeant, that I was ten years younger, more comely to look at, and better suited to please a handsome young woman's fancy."
"Cheer up, my brave friend, and trust to a father's knowledge of womankind.
Mabel half loves you already, and a fortnight's intercourse and kindness, down among the islands yonder will close ranks with the other half.
The girl as much as told me this herself last night."
"Can this be so, Sergeant?" said the guide, whose meek and modest nature shrank from viewing himself in colors so favorable.
"Can this be truly so?
I am but a poor hunter and Mabel, I see, is fit to be an officer's lady.
Do you think the girl will consent to quit all her beloved settlement usages, and her visitings and church-goings, to dwell with a plain guide and hunter up hereaway in the woods?
Will she not in the end, crave her old ways, and a better man?"
"A better man, Pathfinder, would be hard to find," returned the father.
"As for town usages, they are soon forgotten in the freedom of the forest, and Mabel has just spirit enough to dwell on a frontier.
I've not planned this marriage, my friend, without thinking it over, as a general does his campaign.
At first, I thought of bringing you into the regiment, that you might succeed me when I retire, which must be sooner or later; but on reflection, Pathfinder, I think you are scarcely fitted for the office.
Still, if not a soldier in all the meanings of the word, you are a soldier in its best meaning, and I know that you have the good-will of every officer in the corps.
As long as I live, Mabel can dwell with me, and you will always have a home when you return from your scoutings and marches."
"This is very pleasant to think of, Sergeant, if the girl can only come into our wishes with good-will.
But, ah's me! It does not seem that one like myself can ever be agreeable in her handsome eyes.
If I were younger, and more comely, now, as Jasper Western is, for instance, there might be a chance -- yes, then, indeed, there might be some chance."
"That for Jasper Eau-douce, and every younker of them in or about the fort!" returned the Sergeant, snapping his fingers.
"If not actually a younger, you are a younger-looking, ay, and a better-looking man than the Scud's master - "
"Anan?" said Pathfinder, looking up at his companion with an expression of doubt, as if he did not understand his meaning.
"I say if not actually younger in days and years, you look more hardy and like whipcord than Jasper, or any of them; and there will be more of you, thirty years hence, than of all of them put together.
A good conscience will keep one like you a mere boy all his life."
"Jasper has as clear a conscience as any youth I know, Sergeant, and is as likely to wear on that account as any in the colony."
"Then you are my friend," squeezing the other's hand, "my tried, sworn, and constant friend."
"Yes, we have been friends, Sergeant, near twenty years before Mabel was born."
"True enough; before Mabel was born, we were well-tried friends; and the hussy would never dream of refusing to marry a man who was her father's friend before she was born."
"We don't know, Sergeant, we don't know.
Like loves like.
The young prefer the young for companions, and the old the old."
"Not for wives, Pathfinder; I never knew an old man, now, who had an objection to a young wife.
Then you are respected and esteemed by every officer in the fort, as I have said already, and it will please her fancy to like a man that every one else likes."
"I hope I have no enemies but the Mingos," returned the guide, stroking down his hair meekly and speaking thoughtfully.
"I've tried to do right, and that ought to make friends, though it sometimes fails."