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.«»Ay, bolster each other up in your ignorance,« returned Cap, with a sneer.»We seamen are so much outnumbered when ashore, that it is seldom we get our dues, but when your coast is to be defended, or trade is to be carried on, there is outcry enough for us.«»But, uncle, landsmen do not come to attack our coasts, so that seamen only meet seamen.«»So much for ignorance! – Where are all the armies that have landed in this country, French and English, let me inquire, miss?«»Sure enough, where are they!« ejaculated Pathfinder.»None can tell better than we who dwell in the woods, Master Cap.I have often followed their line of march by bones bleaching in the rain, and have found their trail by graves, years after they and their pride had vanished together.Generals and privates, they lay scattered throughout the land, so many proofs of what men are when led on by their love of great names, and the wish to be more than their fellows.«»I must say, Master Pathfinder, that you sometimes utter opinions that are a little remarkable, for a man who lives by the rifle; seldom snuffing the air but he smells gunpowder, or turning out of his berth, but to bear down on an enemy.«»If you think I pass my days in warfare against my kind, you know neither me, nor my history.The man that lives in the woods, and on the frontiers, must take the chances of the things among which he dwells.For this I am not accountable, being but a humble and powerless hunter and scout and guide.My real calling is to hunt for the army, on its marches, and in times of peace, although I am more especially engaged in the sarvice of one officer, who is now absent in the settlements, where I never follow him.No – no – bloodshed and warfare are not my real gifts, but peace and marcy.Still, I must face the inimy as well as another, and as for a Mingo, I look upon him, as man looks on a snake, a creatur' to be put beneath the heel, whenever a fitting occasion offers.«»Well – well – I have mistaken your calling, which I had thought as regularly warlike as that of the ship's gunner.There is my brother-in-law, now; he has been a soldier since he was sixteen, and he looks upon his trade as every way as respectable as that of a sea- man, which is a point I hardly think it worth while to dispute with him.«»My father has been taught to believe that it is honorable to carry arms,« said Mabel, »for his father was a soldier before him.«»Yes, yes –« resumed the guide – »Most of the Sarjeant's gifts are martial, and he looks at most things in this world, over the barrel of his musket.One of his notions now, is to prefar a King's piece to a regular double-sighted long-barreled rifle! Such consaits will come over men, from long habit, and prejudyce is perhaps the commonest failing of human natur'.«»Ashore, I grant you,« said Cap.»I never return from a v'y'ge, but I make the very same remark.Now, the last time I came in, I found scarcely a man in all York, who would think of matters and things in general, as I thought about them myself.Every man I met, appeared to have bowsed all his idees up into the wind's eye, and when he did fall off a little from his one-sided notions, it was commonly to ware short round on his heel, and to lay up as close as ever, on the other tack.«»Do you understand this, Jasper? –« the smiling Mabel half whispered to the young man who still kept his own canoe so near, as to be close at her side.»There is not so much difference between salt and fresh water, that we who pass our time on them cannot comprehend each other.It is no great merit, Mabel, to understand the language of our trade.«»Even religion,« continued Cap, »is'n't moored in exactly the same place it was, in my young days.They veer and haul upon it, ashore, as they do on all other things, and it is no wonder if, now and then, they get jammed.Every thing seems to change but the compass, and even that has its variations.«»Well,« returned the Pathfinder, »I thought Christianity and the compass both pretty stationary.«»So they are, afloat, bating the variations.Religion at sea, is just the same thing to day, that it was when I first put my hand into the tar-bucket.No one will dispute it, who has the fear of God before his eyes.I can see no difference between the state of religion on board ship, now, and what it was when I was a younker.But it is not so ashore, by any means.Take my word for it, Master Pathfinder, it is a difficult thing to find a man – I mean a landsman – who views these matters, to-day exactly as he looked at them, forty years ago.«»And yet God is unchanged – his works are unchanged – his holy word is unchanged – and all that ought to bless and honor his name should be unchanged too!«»Not ashore.That is the worst of the land, it is all the while in motion, I tell you, though it looks so solid.If you plant a tree, and leave it, on your return from a three years' v'y'ge you do'n't find it, at all, the sort of thing you left it.The towns grow, and new streets spring up, the wharves are altered, and the whole face of the earth undergoes change.Now a ship comes back from an India v'y'ge just the thing she sailed, bating the want of paint, wear and tear, and the accidents of the sea.«»That is too true, Master Cap, and more's the pity.Ah's! me – the things they call improvements and betterments are undermining and defacing the land! The glorious works of God are daily cut down and destroyed, and the hand of man seems to be upraised in contempt of his mighty will.They tell me there are fearful signs of what we may all come to, to be met with, west and south of the great lakes, though I have never yet visited that region.«»What do you mean, Pathfinder?« modestly enquired Jasper.»I mean the spots marked by the vengeance of Heaven, or which perhaps have been raised up as solemn warnings to the thoughtless and wasteful, hereaways.They call them Prairies, and I have heard as honest Delawares as I ever knew, declare that the finger of God has been laid so heavily on them, that they are altogether without trees.This is an awful visitation to befal innocent 'arth, and can only mean to show to what frightful consequences a heedless desire to destroy may lead.«»And yet I have seen settlers, who have much fancied those open spots, because they saved them the toil of clearing.You relish your bread, Pathfinder, and yet wheat will not ripen in the shade [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]