CHAPTER II. Yea! long as nature's humblest child By simple sacrifice, Earth's fairest scenes are all his own; He is a monarch, and his throne Is built amid the skies! WILSON THE Mohican continued to eat, though the second white man rose, and courteously took off his cap to Mabel Dunham. He was young, healthful, and manly in appearance; and he wore a dress, which, while it was less rigidly professional than that of the uncle, also denoted one accustomed to the water. In that age real seamen were a class entirely apart from the rest of mankind; their ideas, ordinary language, and attire, being as strongly indicative of their calling, as the opinions, speech, and dress of a Turk denote a Mussulman. Although the Pathfinder was scarcely in the prime of life, Mabel had met him with a steadiness that may have been the consequence of having braced her nerves for the interview; but, when her eyes encountered those of the young man at the fire, they fell before the gaze of admiration with which she saw, or fancied she saw, he greeted her. Each, in truth, felt that interest in the other, which similarity of age, condition, mutual comeliness, and their novel situation, would be likely to inspire in the young and ingenuous. 66 "Here," said Pathfinder, with an honest smile bestowed on Mabel, are the friends your worthy father has sent to meet you. This is a great Delaware; and one that has had honors as well as troubles in his day. He has an Injin name fit for a chief, but as the language is not always easy for the inexperienced to pronounce, we nat'rally turn it into English, and call him the Big Sarpent. You are not to suppose, however, that by this name we wish to say that he is treacherous, beyond what is lawful in a red-skin, but that he is wise, and has the cunning that becomes a warrior. Arrowhead, there, knows what I mean." While the Pathfinder was delivering this address, the two Indians gazed on each other steadily, and the Tuscarora advanced and spoke to the other in an apparently friendly manner. "I like to see this," continued Pathfinder; "the salutes of two red-skins in the woods, Master Cap, are like the hailing of friendly vessels on the ocean. But, speaking of water, it reminds me of my young friend, Jasper Western, here, who can claim to know something of these matters, seeing that he has passed his days on Ontario." 66 "I am glad to see you, friend," said Cap, giving the young fresh-water sailor a cordial gripe; though you must have something still to learn, considering the school to which you have been sent. This is my niece, Mabel; I call her Magnet, for a reason she never dreams of, though you may possibly have education enough to guess at it, having some pretensions to understand the compass, I suppose." "The reason is easily comprehended," said the young man, involuntarily fastening his keen, dark eye, at the same time, on the suffused face of the girl; “and I feel sure that the sailor who steers by your Magnet, will never make a bad land-fall." "Ha! you do make use of some of the terms, I find, and that with propriety and understanding; though, on the whole, I fear you have seen more green than blue water!" "It is not surprising that we should get some of the phrases that belong to the land, for we are seldom out of sight of it twenty-four hours at a time." "More's the pity, boy; more's the pity. A very little land ought to go a great way with a seafaring man. Now, if the truth were known, Master Western, I suppose there is more or less land all round your lake." 66 'And, uncle, is there not more or less land all round the ocean?" said Magnet, quickly; for she dreaded a premature display of the old seaman's peculiar dogmatism, not to say pedantry "No, child, there is more or less ocean all round the land! that's what I tell the people ashore, youngster. They are living, as it might be, in the midst of the sea, without knowing it; by sufferance, as it were, the water being so much the more powerful, and the largest. But there is no end to conceit in this world, for a fellow who never saw salt water often fancies he knows more than one who has gone round the Horn. No, no; this earth is pretty much an island, and all that can be truly said not to be so, is water." Young Western had a profound deference for a mariner of the ocean, on which he had often pined to sail; but he had, also, a natural regard for the broad sheet on which he had passed his life, and which was not without its beauties in his eyes. "What you say, sir," he answered, modestly, "may be true, as to the Atlantic; but we have a respect for the land up here, on Ontario." "That is because you are always land-locked," returned Cap, laughing heartily. "But yonder is the Pathfinder, as they call him, with some smoking platters, inviting us to share in his mess; and I will confess that one gets no venison at sea. Master Western, civility to girls, at your time of life, comes as easy as taking in the slack of the ensign halyards; and if you will just keep an eye to her kid and can, while I join the mess of the Pathfinder and our Indian friends, I make no doubt she will remember it." Master Cap uttered more than he was aware of at the time. Jasper Western did look to the wants of Mabel, and she long remembered the kind, manly attention of the young sailor, at this their first interview. He placed the end of a log for a seat, obtained for her a delicious morsel of the venison, gave her a draught of pure water from the spring, and, as he sat near and opposite to her, fast won his way to her esteem by his gentle but frank manner of manifesting his care; homage that 'woman always wishes to receive, but which is never so flattering, or so agreeable, as when it comes from the young to those of their own age; from the manly to the gentle. Like most of those who pass their time excluded from the society of the softer sex, young Western was earnest, sincere, and kind in his attentions, which, though they wanted a conventional refinement that perhaps Mabel never missed, had those winning qualities that prove very sufficient as substitutes. Leaving these two inexperienced and unsophisticated young people to become acquainted through their feelings, rather than their expressed thoughts, we will turn to the group in which the uncle, with a facility of taking care of himself that never deserted him, had already become a principal actor. The party had taken their places around a platter of venison steaks, which served for the common use, and the discourse naturally partook of the characters of the different individuals that composed it. The Indians were silent and industrious, the appetite of the aboriginal American for venison being seemingly inappeasable; while the two white men were communicative and discursive, each of the latter being garrulous and opinionated in his way. But, as the dialogue will serve to put the reader in possession of certain facts that may render the succeeding narrative more clear, it will be well to record it. "There must be satisfaction in this life of yours, no doubt, Mr. Pathfinder," continued Cap, when the hunger of the travellers was so far appeased that they began to pick and choose among the savory morsels; "it has some of the chances and luck that we seamen like, and if ours is all water, yours is all land." 66 Nay, we have water too, in our journeyings and marches," returned his white companion: 66 we border-men handle the paddle and the spear almost as much as the rifle and the hunting-knife." 66 'Aye; but do you handle the brace and the bow-line; the wheel and the lead-line; the reef-point and the top-rope? The paddle is a good thing, out of doubt, in a canoe, but of what use is it in the ship?" "Nay, I respect all men in their callings, and I can believe the things you mention have their uses. One who has lived, like myself, in company with many tribes, understands differences in usages. The paint of a Mingo is not the paint of a Delaware; and he who should expect to see a warrior in the dress of a squaw, might be disapp❜inted. I'm not very old, but I have lived in the woods, and have some acquaintance with human natur'. I never believed much in the larning of them that dwell in towns, for I never yet met with one that had an eye for a rifle or a trail." "That's my manner of reasoning, Master Pathfinder, to a yarn. Walking about streets, going to church of Sundays, and hearing sermons, never yet made a man of a human being. Send the boy out upon the broad ocean, if you wish to open his eyes, and let him look upon foreign nations, or what I call the face of natur', if you wish him to understand his own character. Now, there is my brother-inlaw, the sergeant; he is as good a fellow as ever broke a biscuit, in his own way; but what is he, after all? why, nothing but a soger. A sergeant, to be sure, but that is a sort of a soger, you know. When he wished to marry poor Bridget, my sister, I told the girl what he was, as in duty bound, and what she might expect from such a husband; but you know how it is with girls, when their minds are jammed by an inclination. It is true, the sergeant has risen in his calling, and they say he is an important man at the fort; but his poor wife has not lived to see it all, for she has now been dead these fourteen years." "A soldier's calling is an honorable calling, provided he has fi't only on the side of right," returned the Pathfinder; "and as the Frenchers are always wrong, and his sacred Majesty and these colonies are always right, I take it the sergeant has a quiet conscience, as well as a good character. I have never slept more sweetly than when I have fi't the Mingos, though it is the law with me to fight always like a white man, and never like an Injin. The Sarpent, here, has his fashions, and I have mine; yet have we fou❜t side by side, these many years, without either's thinking a hard thought consarning the other's ways. I tell him there is but one heaven and one hell, notwithstanding his traditions, though there are many paths to both." “That is rational, and he is bound to believe you, though I fancy most of the roads to the last are on dry land, |