“I hear you are likely to receive orders to lift your anchor, serjeant, and to shift your berth into a part of the world where they say there are a thousand islands?”
“Pathfinder, this is some of your forgetfulness?—”
“Nay, nay, sarjeant; I forgot nothing, but it did not seem to me necessary to hide your intentions so very closely from your own flesh and blood.”
“All military movements ought to be made with as little conversation as possible,” returned the Serjeant, tapping the guide’s shoulder, in a friendly but reproachful manner. “You have passed too much of your life in front of the French, not to know the value of silence. But, no matter. The thing must soon be known, and there is no great use in trying, now, to conceal it. We shall embark a relief party, shortly, for a post on the lake, though I do not say it is for the Thousand Islands, and I may have to go with it; in which case, I intend to take Mabel, to make my broth for me, and I hope, brother, you will not despise a soldier’s fare, for a month or so.”
“That will depend on the manner of marching. I have no love for woods and swamps.”
“We shall sail in the Scud, and, indeed, the whole service, which is no stranger to us, is likely enough to please one accustomed to the water.”
“Ay, to salt-water, if you will, but not to lake-water. If you have no person to handle that bit of a cutter for you, I have no objection to ship for the v’y’ge, notwithstanding, though I shall look on the whole affair as so much time thrown away, for I consider it an imposition to call sailing about this pond, going to sea.”
“Jasper is every way able to manage the Scud, Brother Cap, and in that light I cannot say that we have need of your services, though we shall be glad of your company. You cannot return to the settlements until a party is sent in, and that is not likely to happen until after my return. Well, Pathfinder, this is the first time I ever knew men on the trail of the Mingos, and you not at their head!”
“To be honest with you, Sarjeant,” returned the guide, not without a little awkwardness of manner, and a perceptible difference in the hue of a face that had become so uniformly red by exposure, “I have not felt that it was my gift, this morning. In the first place, I very well know that the soldiers of the fifty fifth are not the lads to overtake Iroquois in the woods, and the knaves did not wait to be surrounded, when they knew that Jasper had reached the garrison. Then, a man may take a little rest, after a summer of hard work, and no impeachment of his good will. Besides, the Sarpent is out with them, and if the miscreants are to be found at all, you may trust to his inmity and sight; the first being stronger, and the last nearly if not quite as good as my own. He loves the skulking vagabonds as little as myself, and, for that matter, I may say that my own feelin’s towards a Mingo, are not much more than the gifts of a Delaware grafted on a christian stock. No—no—I thought I would leave the honor, this time, if honor there is to be, to the young ensign that commands, who, if he do’n’t lose his scalp, may boast of his campaign in his letters to his mother, when he gets in. I thought I would play idler once in my life.”
“And no one has a better right, if long and faithful service entitles a man to a furlough,” returned the Serjeant, kindly. “Mabel will think none the worse of you, for preferring her company to the trail of the savages, and I dare say will be happy to give you a part of her breakfast, if you are inclined to eat. You must not think, however, girl, that the Pathfinder is in the habit of letting prowlers around the fort, beat a retreat without hearing the crack of his rifle.”
“If I thought she did, Sarjeant, though not much given to showy and parade evolutions, I would shoulder Killdeer, and quit the garrison before her pretty eyes had time to frown. No—no—Mabel, knows me better, though we are but new acquaintances, for there has been no want of Mingos to enliven the short march we have already made in company.”
“It would need a great deal of testimony, Pathfinder, to make me think ill of you, in any way, and more than all in the way you mention;” returned Mabel, colouring with the sincere earnestness with which she endeavored to remove any suspicions to the contrary, from his mind. “Both father and daughter, I believe, even owe you their lives, and believe me that neither will ever forget it.”
“Thank you, Mabel, thank you with all my heart. But I will not take advantage of your ignorance neither, girl, and therefore shall say I do not think the Mingos would have hurt a hair of your head, had they succeeded by their deviltries and contrivances, in getting you into their hands. My scalp, and Jasper’s, and Master Cap’s, there, and the Sarpent’s, too, would sartainly have been smoked, but as for the Sarjeant’s daughter, I do not think they would have hurt a hair of her head!”
“And why should I suppose that enemies known to spare neither women nor children would have shown more mercy to me than to another. I feel, Pathfinder, that I owe you my life.”
“I say nay, Mabel, they would’n’t have had the heart to hurt you. No, not even a fiery Mingo devil, would have had the heart to hurt a hair of your head! Bad as I suspect the vampires to be, I do not suspect them of anything so wicked as that. They might have wished you—nay forced you to become the wife of one of their chiefs, and that would be torment enough to a christian young woman, but beyond that I do not think even the Mingos themselves would have gone.”
“Well, then, I shall owe my escape from this great misfortune to you,” said Mabel, taking his hard hand into her own, frankly and cordially, and certainly in a way to delight the honest guide. “To me it would be a lighter evil to be killed, than to become the wife of an Indian.”
“That is her gift, sarjeant,” exclaimed Pathfinder, turning to his old comrade with gratification written on every lineament of his honest countenance, “and it will have its way. I tell the Sarpent, that no christianizing will ever make even a Delaware a white man; nor any whooping and yelling convart a pale face into a red skin. That is the gift of a young woman born of christian parents, and it ought to be maintained.”
“You are right, Pathfinder, and so far as Mabel Dunham is concerned, it shall be maintained. But, it is time to break your fasts, and if you will follow me, Brother Cap, I will show you how we poor soldiers live, here on a distant frontier.”
Chapter IX
“Now my co-mates and partners in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam—”
—As You Like It, II.i.1–5.
* * *
SERJEANT DUNHAM made no empty vaunt, when he gave the promise, conveyed in the closing words of the last chapter. Notwithstanding the remote frontier position of the post, they who lived at it, enjoyed a table that, in many respects, kings and princes might have envied. At the period of our tale, and, indeed, for half a century later, the whole of that vast region, which has been called the west, or the new countries, since the war of the revolution, lay a comparatively unpeopled desert, teeming with all the living productions of nature, that properly belonged to the climate, man and the domestic animals excepted. The few Indians that roamed its forests then could produce no visible effects on the abundance of the game, and the scattered garrisons, or occasional hunters, that here and there were to be met with on that vast surface, had no other influence, than the bee on the buckwheat field, or the humming-bird on the flower.
The marvels that have descended to our own times, in the way of tradition, concerning the quantities of beasts, birds and fishes that were then to be met with, on the shores of the great lakes in particular, are known to be sustained by the experience of living men, else might we hesitate about relating them, but having been eye-witnesses of some of these prodigies, our office shall be discharged with the confidence that certainty can impart. Oswego was particularly well placed to keep the larder of an epicure amply supplied. Fish, of various sorts, abounded in its river, and the sportsman had only
to cast his line to haul in a bass, or some other member of the finny tribe, which then peopled the waters, as the air above the swamps of this fruitful latitude is known to be filled with insects. Among others, was the salmon of the lakes, a variety of that well-known species, that is scarcely inferior to the delicious salmon of Northern Europe. Of the different migratory birds that frequent forests and waters, there was the same affluence, hundreds of acres of geese and ducks being often seen, at a time, in the great bays that indented the shores of the lake. Deer, bears, rabbits and squirrels, with divers other quadrupeds, among which was sometimes included the elk, or moose, helped to complete the sum of the natural supplies, on which all the posts depended more or less, to relieve the unavoidable privations of their remote frontier positions.
In a place where viands, that would elsewhere be deemed great luxuries, were so abundant, no one was excluded from their enjoyment. The meanest individual at Oswego habitually feasted on game that would have formed the boast of a Parisian table, and it was no more than a healthful commentary on the caprices of taste, and of the waywardness of human desires, that the very diet, which in other scenes would have been deemed the subject of envy and repinings, got to pall on the appetites. The coarse and regular food of the army, which it became necessary to husband on account of the difficulty of transportation, rose in the estimation of the common soldier, and, at any time, he would cheerfully desert his venison, and ducks, and pigeons, and salmon, to banquet on the sweets of pickled pork, stringy turnips and half-cooked cabbage.
The table of Serjeant Dunham, as a matter of course, partook of the abundance and luxuries of the frontier, as well as of its privations. A delicious broiled salmon smoked on a homely platter, hot venison steaks sent up their appetizing odours and several dishes of cold meats, all of which were composed of game, had been set before the guests, in honor of the newly-arrived visiters, and in vindication of the old soldier’s hospitality.
“You do not seem to be on short allowance, in this quarter of the world, serjeant,” said Cap, after he had got fairly initiated into the mysteries of the different dishes: “your salmon might satisfy a Scotsman.”
“It fails to do it, notwithstanding, brother Cap, for, among two or three hundred of the fellows, that we have in this garrison, there are not half a dozen, who will not swear that fish is unfit to be eaten. Even some of the lads, who never tasted venison except as poachers at home, turn up their noses at the fattest haunches that we get here.”
“Ay, that is christian natur’,” put in the Pathfinder, “and I must say it is none to its credit. Now, a redskin never repines, but is always thankful for the food he gets, whether it be fat, or lean; venison, or bear; wild turkey’s breast, or wild goose’s wing. To the shame of us white men be it said, that we look upon blessings without satisfaction, and consider trifling evils as matters of great account.”
“It is so with the 55th, as I can answer, though I cannot say as much for their christianity;” returned the Serjeant. “Even the Major, himself, old Duncan of Lundie, will sometimes swear an oat-meal cake is better fare than the Oswego bass, and sigh for a swallow of Highland water, when, if so minded, he has the whole of Ontario to quench his thirst in.”
“Has Major Duncan a wife and children?” asked Mabel, whose thoughts naturally turned towards her own sex, in her new situation.
“Not he, girl, though they do say that he has a betrothed, at home. The lady, it seems, is willing to wait, rather than suffer the hardships of service, in this wild region, all of which, brother Cap, is not according to my notions of a woman’s duties. Your sister thought differently, and had it pleased God to spare her, would have been sitting, at this moment, on the very camp stool that her daughter so well becomes.”
“I hope, Serjeant, you do not think of Mabel, for a soldier’s wife,” returned Cap, gravely. “Our family has done its share, in that way already, and it’s high time that the sea was again remembered.”
“I do not think of finding a husband for the girl in the 55th, or any other regiment, I can promise you, brother, though I do think it getting to be time that the child were respectably married.”
“Father!”
“’Tis not their gifts, Sarjeant, to talk of these matters in so open a manner,” said the guide, “for I’ve seen it verified by exper’ence, that he who would follow the trail of a virgin’s good-will, must not go shouting out his thoughts behind her. So; if you please we will talk of something else.”
“Well, then, brother Cap, I hope that bit of cold roasted pig is to your mind; you seem to fancy the food.”
“Ay, ay, give me civilized grub, if I must eat,” returned the pertinacious seaman. “Venison is well enough for your inland sailors, but we of the ocean like a little of that which we understand.”
Here Pathfinder laid down his knife and fork, and indulged in a hearty laugh, though always in his silent manner. Then he asked, with a little curiosity in his manner—
“Do’n’t you miss the skin, Master Cap; do’n’t you miss the skin?”
“It would have been better for its jacket, I think myself, Pathfinder, but I suppose it is a fashion of the woods to serve up shoats, in this style.”
“Well, well, a man may go round the ’arth and not know every thing! If you had had the skinning of that pig, Master Cap, it would have left you sore hands. The creatur’ is a hedge-hog!”
“Blast me, if I thought it wholesome natural pork, either;” returned Cap. “But then I believed even a pig might lose some of its good qualities, up, hereaway, in the woods. It seemed no more than reason that a fresh-water hog, should not be altogether as good as a salt-water hog. I suppose, serjeant, by this time, it is all the same to you?”
“If the skinning of it, brother, does not fall to my duty. Pathfinder, I hope you did’n’t find Mabel disobedient on the march?”
“Not she—not she. If Mabel is only half as well satisfied with Jasper and the Pathfinder, as the Pathfinder and Jasper are satisfied with her, sarjeant, we shall be friends for the remainder of our days.”
As the guide spoke, he turned his eyes towards the blushing girl, with a sort of innocent desire to know her opinion, and then with an inborn delicacy that proved he was far superior to the vulgar desire to invade the sanctity of feminine feeling, he looked at his plate, and seemed to regret his own boldness.
“Well, well, we must remember that women are not men, my friend,” resumed the serjeant, “and make proper allowances for nature and education. A recruit is not a veteran. Any man knows that it takes longer to make a good soldier, than it takes to make any thing else, and it ought to require unusual time to make a good soldier’s daughter.”
“This is new doctrine, serjeant,” said Cap, with some spirit. “We old seamen are apt to think that six soldiers, ay, and capital soldiers too, might be made, while one sailor is getting his education.”
“Ay, brother Cap, I’ve seen something of the opinions which sea-faring men have of themselves,” returned the brother-in-law, with a smile as bland as comported with his saturnine features; “for I was many years one of the garrison in a sea-port. You and I have conversed on the subject before, and I’m afraid we shall never agree. But if you wish to know what the difference is, between a real soldier, and man in what I should call a state of nature, you have only to look at a battalion of the 55th, on parade this afternoon, and then, when you get back to York, to examine one of the militia regiments making its greatest efforts.”
“Well, to my eye, serjeant, there is very little difference—not more than you’ll find between a brig and a snow. To me they seem alike; all scarlet, and feathers, and powder, and pipe clay.”
“So much, sir, for the judgment of a sailor,” returned the serjeant with dignity; “but perhaps you are not aware that it requires a year to teach a true soldier how to eat.”
“So much the worse for him! The militia know how to eat at starting, for I have often heard, that, on their marches, they commonly eat all before them, e
ven if they do nothing else.”
“They have their gifts, I suppose, like other men,” observed Pathfinder, with a view to preserve the peace, which was evidently in some danger of being broken, by the obstinate predilection of each of the disputants in favor of his own calling; “and when a man has his gift from Providence it is commonly idle to endivor to bear up ag’in it. The 55th, sarjeant, is a judicious rigiment, in the way of eating, as I know from having been so long in its Company, though I dare say militia corps could be found that would outdo them in feats of that natur’, too.”
“Uncle,” said Mabel, “if you have breakfasted, I will thank you to go out upon the bastion with me, again. We have neither of us, half seen the lake, and it would be hardly seemly for a young woman to be walking about the fort, the first day of her arrival, quite alone.”
Cap understood the motive of Mabel, and having, at the bottom, a hearty friendship for his brother-in-law, he was willing enough to defer the argument until they had been longer together, for the idea of abandoning it altogether, never crossed the mind of one so dogmatical and obstinate. He accordingly accompanied his niece, leaving Serjeant Dunham and his friend the Pathfinder, alone, together. As soon as his adversary had beaten a retreat, the serjeant, who did not quite so well understand the manœuvre of his daughter, turned to his companion, and with a smile that was not without triumph, he remarked—
“The army, Pathfinder, has never yet done itself justice; and, though modesty becomes a man, whether he is in a red coat or a black one, or for that matter, in his shirt-sleeves, I don’t like to let a good opportunity slip of saying a word in its behalf. Well, my friend,” laying his own hand, on one of the Pathfinder’s, and giving it a hearty squeeze—“how do you like the girl?”
“You have reason to be proud of her, sarjeant; you have great reason to be proud at finding yourself the father of so handsome and well mannered a young woman. I have seen many of her sex, and some that were great and beautiful, but never before did I meet with one, in whom I thought Providence had so well balanced the different gifts.”
The Leatherstocking Tales II Page 15