Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

There were bastions of earth and logs, a dry ditch, a stockade, a parade of considerable extent, and barracks of logs, that answered the double purpose of dwellings and fortifications. A few light field-pieces stood in the area of the fort, ready to be conveyed to any point where they might be wanted; and one or two heavy

washing of waters. Jasper announced to his companions that they now heard the surf of the lake. Low, curved spits of land lay before them, into the bay formed by one of which the canoe glided, and then it shot up noiselessly upon a gravelly beach. The transition that followed was so hurried and great, that Mabel scarce knew what passed. In the course of a few minutes, how-iron guns looked out from the summits of the adever, sentinels had been passed, a gate was opened, and the agitated girl found herself in the arms of a parent who was almost a stranger to her.

CHAPTER VIII.

"A land of love, and a land of light,
Withouten sun, or moon, or night:
Where the river swa'd a living stream,
And the light a pure celestial beam:
The land of vision, it would seem
A still, an everlasting dream."

QUEEN'S WAKE

vanced angles, as so many admonitions to the audacious to respect their power.

When Mabel, quitting the convenient but comparatively retired hut, where her father had been permitted to place her, issued into the pure air of the morning, she found herself at the foot of a bastion that lay invitingly before her, with a promise of giving a coup d'œil of all that had been concealed in the darkness of the preceding night. Tripping up the grassy ascent, the lighthearted as well as light-footed girl found herself at once on a point where the sight, at a few varying glances, could take in all the external novelties of her new situation.

THE rest that succeeds fatigue, and which at- To the southward lay the forest through which tends a newly-awakened sense of security, is gen- she had been journeying so many weary days, erally sweet and deep. Such was the fact with and which had proved so full of dangers. It was Mabel, who did not rise from her humble pallet, separated from the stockade by a belt of open such a bed as a sergeant's daughter might claim in land, that had been principally cleared of its a remote frontier post, until long after the garri- woods to form the martial constructions around son had obeyed the usual summons of the drums, her. This glacis, for such in fact was its military and had assembled at the early parade. Ser-uses, might have covered a hundred acres, but geant Dunham, on whose shoulders fell the task with it every sign of civilization ceased. All beof attending to these ordinary and daily duties,yond was forest-that dense, interminable forest had got through all his morning avocations, and was beginning to think of his breakfast, ere his child left her room and came into fresh air, equally bewildered, delighted, and grateful, at the novelty and security of her new situation.

that Mabel could now picture to herself, through her recollections, with its hidden, glassy lakes, its dark, rolling streams, and its world of Nature!

Turning from this view, our heroine felt her cheek fanned by a fresh and grateful breeze, such At the time of which we are writing, Oswe- as she had not experienced since quitting the fargo was one of the extreme frontier posts of the distant coast. Here a new scene presented itself; British possessions on this continent. It had not although expected, it was not without a start, been long occupied, and was garrisoned by a bat- and a low exclamation indicative of pleasure, that talion of a regiment that had been originally the eager eyes of the girl drank in its beauties. Scotch, but into which many Americans had been To the north, and east, and west, in every direereceived, since its arrival in this country-an in- tion, in short, over one entire half of the novel novation that had led the way to Mabel's father panorama, lay a field of rolling waters. The elefilling the humble but responsible situation of ment was neither of that glassy green which disthe oldest sergeant. A few young officers, also, tinguishes the American waters in general, nor who were natives of the colonies, were to be found yet of the deep blue of the ocean; the color bein the corps. The fort itself, like most works of ing of a slightly amber hue, that scarcely affected that character, was better adapted to resist an its limpidity. No land was to be seen, with the attack of savages than to withstand a regular exception of the adjacent coast, which stretched siege; but the great difficulty of transporting to the right and left, in an unbroken outline of heavy artillery and other necessaries rendered forest, with wide bays, and low headlands or the occurrence of the latter a probability so re- points; still, much of the shore was rocky, and mote, as scarcely to enter into the estimate of into its caverns the sluggish waters occasionally the engineers who had planned the defences. | rolled, producing a hollow sound, that resembled

the concussions of a distant gun. No sail whitened the surface, no whale or other fish gambolled on its bosom, no sign of use or service rewarded the longest and most minute gaze at its boundless expanse. It was a scene, on one side, of apparently endless forests, while a waste of seemingly interminable water spread itself on the other. Nature had appeared to delight in producing grand effects, by setting two of her principal agents in bold relief to each other, neglecting details; the eye turning from the broad carpet of leaves to the still broader field of fluid, from the endless but gentle heavings of the lake to the holy calm and poetical solitude of the forest, with wonder and delight.

Mabel Dunham, though unsophisticated, like most of her countrywomen of that period, and ingenuous and frank as any warm-hearted and sincere-minded girl well could be, was not altogether without a feeling for the poetry of this beautiful earth of ours. Although she could scarcely be said to be educated at all, for few of her sex, at that day, and in this country, received much more than the rudiments of plain English instruction, still she had been taught much more than was usual for young women in her own station of life, and, in one sense certainly, she did credit to her teaching. The widow of a field-officer, who formerly belonged to the same regiment as her father, had taken the child in charge at the death of its mother; and, under the care of this lady, Mabel had acquired some tastes, and many ideas, which otherwise might always have remained strangers to her. Her situation in the family had been less that of a domestic than of an humble companion, and the results were quite apparent in her attire, her language, her sentiments, and even in her feelings, though neither, perhaps, rose to the level of those which would properly characterize a lady. She had lost the coarser and less refined habits and manners of one in her original position, | without having quite reached a point that disqualified her for the situation in life that the accidents of birth and fortune would probably compel her to fill. All else that was distinctive and peculiar to her, belonged to natural character.

With such antecedents, it will occasion the reader no wonder if he learn that Mabel viewed the novel scene before her with a pleasure far superior to that produced by vulgar surprise. She felt its ordinary beauties as most would have felt them, but she had also a feeling for its sublimity for that softened solitude, that calm grandeur and eloquent repose, that ever pervade broad views of natural objects which are yet undisturbed by the labors and struggles of man.

"How beautiful!" she exclaimed, unconscious of speaking, as she stood on the solitary bastion, facing the air from the lake, and experiencing the genial influence of its freshness pervading both her body and her mind-"how very beautiful; and yet how singular!"

The words, and the train of her ideas, were interrupted by a touch of a finger on her shoulder, and turning, in the expectation of seeing her father, Mabel found Pathfinder at her side. He was leaning quietly on his long rifle, and laughing in his quiet manner, while, with an outstretched arm, he swept over the whole panorama of land and water.

[ocr errors]

"Here you have both our domains," he said, 'Jasper's and mine. The lake is for him, and the woods are for me. The lad sometimes boasts of the breadth of his dominions, but I tell him my trees make as broad a plain on the face of this 'arth as all his water. Well, Mabel, you are fit for either, for I do not see that fear of the Mingoes, or night-marches, can destroy your pretty looks."

"It is a new character for the Pathfinder to appear in, to compliment a silly girl."

"Not silly, Mabel; no, not in the least silly The sergeant's daughter would do discredit to her worthy father, were she to do or say any thing, that, in common honesty, could be called silly."

"Then she must take care and not put too much faith in treacherous, flattering words. But, Pathfinder, I rejoice to see you among us again; for, though Jasper did not seem to feel much uneasiness, I was afraid some accident might have happened to you and your friend on that frightful rift."

We

"The lad knows us both, and was sartain that we should not drown, which is scarcely one of my gifts. It would have been hard swimming, of a sartainty, with a long-barrelled rifle in the hand; and, what between the game, and the savages, and the French, Killdeer and I have gone through too much in company, to part very easily. No-no-we waded ashore, the rift being shallow enough for that, with small exceptions, and we landed with our arms in our hands. had to take our time for it, on account of the Iroquois, I will own; but, as soon as the skulking vagabonds saw the lights that the sergeant sent down to your canoe, we well understood they would decamp, since a visit might have been expected from some of the garrison. So it was only sitting patiently on the stones, for an hour, and all the danger was over. Patience is the greatest of virtues in a woodsman."

"I rejoice to hear this, for fatigue itself could

[ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small]

ni

SAFETY OF MABEL AND HER FRIENDS.

51

scarcely make me sleep, for thinking what might craft. To my eye, there is no likelier youth in befall you." these parts than Jasper Western."

I

"Lord bless your tender little heart, Mabel! But this is the way with all you gentle ones. must say, on my part, howsever, that I was right glad to see the lanterns come down to the waterside, which I knew to be a sure sign of your safety. We hunters and guides are rude beings, but we have our feelin's, our idees, as well as any giniral in the army. Both Jasper and I would have died, before you should have come to harm -we would."

"I thank you for all you did for me, Pathfinder; from the bottom of my heart, I thank you, and, depend on it, my father shall know it. I have already told him much, but still have a duty to perform on this subject."

too.

"Tush, Mabel! The sergeant knows what the woods be, and what men-true red men be, There is little need to tell him any thing about it. Well, now you have met your father, do you find the honest old soldier the sort of person you expected to find?"

"He is my own dear father, and received me as a soldier and a father should receive a child. Have you known him long, Pathfinder?"

"That is as people count time. I was just twelve when the sergeant took me on my first scouting, and that is now more than twenty years ago. We had a tramping time of it, and, as it was before your day, you would have had no father, had not the rifle been one of my nat'ral gifts."

"Explain yourself!"

"It is too simple for many words. We were ambushed, and the sergeant had got a bad hurt, and would have lost his scalp, but for a sort of inbred turn I took to the weapon. We brought him off, however, and a handsomer head of hair, for his time of life, is not to be found in the rijiment that the sergeant carries about him, this blessed day."

"You saved my father's life, Pathfinder!" exclaimed Mabel, unconsciously, though warmly, taking one of his hard, sinewy hands into both her own. “God bless you for this, too, among

your other good acts!"

"Nay, I did not say that much, though I. believe I did save his scalp. A man might live 'without a scalp, and so I cannot say I saved his life. Jasper may say that much consarning you; for, without his eye and arm, the canoe would never have passed the rift in safety on a night like the last. The gifts of the lad are for the water, while mine are for the hunt and the trail. He is yonder in the cove there, looking after the canoes, and keeping an eye on his beloved little

For the first time since she had left her room, Mabel now turned her eyes beneath her, and got a view of what might be called the foreground of the remarkable picture she had been studying with so much pleasure. The Oswego threw its dark waters into the lake between banks of some height; that on its eastern side being bolder and projecting farther north than that on its western. The fort was on the latter, and immediately beneath it were a few huts of logs, which, as they could not interfere with the defence of the place, had been erected along the strand for the purpose of receiving and containing such stores as were landed, or were intended to be embarked, in the communications between the different ports on the shores of Ontario. There were two low, curved, gravelly points, that had been formed, with surprising regularity, by the counteracting forces of the northerly winds and the swift current, and which, inclining from the storms of the lake, formed two coves within the river. That on the western side was the most deeply indented, and, as it also had the most water, it formed a sort of picturesque little port for the post. It was along the narrow strand that lay between the low height of the fort and the water of this cove, that the rude buildings just mentioned, had been erected.

Several skiffs, batteaux, and canoes, were hauled up on the shore, and in the cove itself lay the little craft from which Jasper obtained his claim to be considered a sailor. She was cutterrigged, might have been of forty tons burden, was so neatly constructed and painted as to have something of the air of a vessel-of-war, though entirely without quarters, and rigged and sparred with so scrupulous a regard to proportions and beauty, as well as fitness and judgment, as to give her an appearance that even Mabel at once distinguished to be gallant and trim. Her mould was admirable, for a wright of great skill had sent her drafts from England, at the express request of the officer who had caused her to be constructed; her paint, dark, warlike, and neat; and the long, coach-whip pennant that she wore at once proclaimed her to be the property of the king. Her name was the Scud.

[blocks in formation]

like the Scud, here, which they call the Squirrel, in their own tongue, however; and which seems to have a natural hatred of our own pretty boat, for Jasper seldom goes out that the Squirrel is not at his heels."

"And is Jasper one to run from a Frenchman, though he appears in the shape of a squirrel, and that, too, on the water?"

"Of what use would valor be without the means of turning it to account? Jasper is a brave boy, as all on this frontier know; but he has no gun, except a little howitzer, and then his crew consists of only two men besides himself, and a boy. I was with him in one of his trampooses, and the youngster was risky enough, for he brought us so near the enemy that rifles began to talk; but the Frenchers carry cannon, and ports, and never show their faces outside of Frontenac without having some twenty men, besides their Squirrel, in their cutter. No-nothis Scud was built for flying, and the major says he will not put her in a fighting humor by giving her men and arms, lest she should take him at his word, and get her wings clipped. I know little of these things, for my gifts are not at all in that way; but I see the reason of the thingI see its reason, though Jasper does not."

"Ah! here is my uncle, none the worse for his swim, coming to look at this inland sea.'

[ocr errors]

Sure enough, Cap, who had announced his approach by a couple of lusty hems, now made his appearance on the bastion, where, after nodding to his niece and her companion, he made a deliberate survey of the expanse of water before him. In order to effect this at his ease, the mariner mounted on one of the old iron guns, folded his arms across his breast, and balanced his body, as if he felt the motion of a vessel. To complete the picture, he had a short pipe in his mouth.

"What is the matter with Ontario, Master Cap? It is large, and fair to look at, and pleasant enough to drink, for those who can't get at the water of the springs."

"Do you call this large?" asked Cap, again sweeping the air with the pipe. "I will just ask you what there is large about it? Didn't Jasper himself confess that it was only some twenty leagues from shore to shore?"

"But, uncle," interposed Mabel, "no land is to be seen, except here on our own coast. To me it looks exactly like the ocean."

"This bit of a pond look like the ocean! Well, Magnet, that from a girl who has had real seamen in her family is downright nonsense. What is there about it, pray, that has even the outline of a sea on it?"

"Why, there is water-water-water-nothing but water, for miles on miles-far as the eye can see."

"And isn't there water-water-water-nothing but water for miles on miles, in your rivers, that you have been canoeing through, too?-ay, and 'as far as the eye can see,' in the bargain?" 'Yes, uncle, but the rivers have their banks, and there are trees along them, and they are narrow."

"And isn't this a bank where we stand-don't these soldiers call this the bank of the lake, and ar'n't there trees in thousands, and ar'n't twenty leagues narrow enough of all conscience? Who the devil ever heard of the banks of the ocean, unless it might be the banks that are under the water?"

"But, uncle, we cannot see across this lake, as we can see across a river."

Ar'n't the Amarivers, and can

“There you are out, Magnet. zon, and Orinoco, and La Plata you see across them?-Harkee, Pathfinder, I very much doubt if this strip of water here be even "Well, Master Cap," asked the Pathfinder, in- a lake; for to me it appears to be only a river. nocently, for he did not detect the expression of You are by no means particular about your contempt that was gradually settling on the fea-geography, I find, up here in the woods." tures of the other, "is it not a beautiful sheet, and fit to be named a sea?"

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

"There you are out, Master Cap. There is a river, and a noble one too, at each end of it; but this is old Ontario before you, and, though it is not my gift to live on a lake, to my judgment there are few better that this."

"And, uncle, if we stood on the beach at Rockaway, what more should we see, than we now behold? There is a shore on one side, or banks there, and trees, too, as well as those which are here."

"Just as I expected! A pond in dimensions, and a scuttle-butt in taste. It is all in vain to travel inland, in the hope of seeing any thing "This is perverseness, Magnet, and young either full grown or useful. I knew it would turn | girls should steer clear of any thing like obstiout just in this way." nacy. In the first place, the ocean has coasts,

[graphic]

"This bit of a pond look like the ocean! Well, Magnet, that from a girl who has had real seamen in her family is downright nonsense.'

[ocr errors]

The Pathfinder, p. 52.

« PředchozíPokračovat »