The goblin now the fool alarms,

Hags meet to mumble o’er their charms,

The night-mare rides the dreaming ass,

And fairies trip it on the grass.

COTTON.

The embarkation of so small a party was a matter of no great delay or embarrassment. The whole force confided to the care of Sergeant Dunham consisted of but ten privates and two non-commissioned officers, though it was soon positively known that Mr. Muir was to accompany the expedition. The Quartermaster, however, went as a volunteer, while some duty connected with his own department, as had been arranged between him and his commander, was the avowed object. To these must be added the Pathfinder and Cap, with Jasper and his subordinates, one of whom was a boy. The party, consequently, consisted of less than twenty men, and a lad of fourteen. Mabel and the wife of a common soldier were the only females.

Sergeant Dunham carried off his command in a large bateau, and then returned for his final orders, and to see that his brother-in-law and daughter were properly attended to. Having pointed out to Cap the boat that he and Mabel were to use, he ascended the hill to seek his last interview with Lundie.

It was nearly dark when Mabel found herself in the boat that was to carry her off to the cutter. So very smooth was the surface of the lake, that it was not found necessary to bring the bateaux into the river to receive their freights; but the beach outside being totally without surf, and the water as tranquil as that of a pond, everybody embarked there. When the boat left the land, Mabel would not have known that she was afloat on so broad a sheet of water by any movement which is usual to such circumstances. The oars had barely time to give a dozen strokes, when the boat lay at the cutter’s side.

Jasper was in readiness to receive his passengers; and, as the deck of the Scud was but two or three feet above the water, no difficulty was experienced in getting on board of her. As soon as this was effected, the young man pointed out to Mabel and her companion the accommodations prepared for their reception. The little vessel contained four apartments below, all between decks having been expressly constructed with a view to the transportation of officers and men, with their wives and families. First in rank was what was called the after-cabin, a small apartment that contained four berths, and which enjoyed the advantage of possessing small windows, for the admission of air and light. This was uniformly devoted to females whenever any were on board; and as Mabel and her companion were alone, they had ample accommodation. The main cabin was larger, and lighted from above. It was now appropriated to the Quartermaster, the Sergeant, Cap, and Jasper; the Pathfinder roaming through any part of the cutter he pleased, the female apartment excepted. The corporals and common soldiers occupied the space beneath the main hatch, which had a deck for such a purpose, while the crew were berthed, as usual, in the forecastle. Although the cutter did not measure quite fifty tons, the draft of officers and men was so light, that there was ample room for all on board, there being space enough to accommodate treble the number, if necessary.

As soon as Mabel had taken possession of her own really comfortable cabin, in doing which she could not abstain from indulging in the pleasant reflection that some of Jasper’s favor had been especially manifested in her behalf, she went on deck again. Here all was momentarily in motion; the men were roving to and fro, in quest of their knapsacks and other effects; but method and habit soon reduced things to order, when the stillness on board became even imposing, for it was connected with the idea of future adventure and ominous preparation.

Darkness was now beginning to render objects on shore indistinct, the whole of the land forming one shapeless black outline of even forest summits, to be distinguished from the impending heavens only by the greater light of the sky. The stars, however, soon began to appear in the latter, one after another, in their usual mild, placid lustre, bringing with them that sense of quiet which ordinarily accompanies night. There was something soothing, as well as exciting, in such a scene; and Mabel, who was seated on the quarter-deck, sensibly felt both influences. The Pathfinder was standing near her, leaning, as usual, on his long rifle, and she fancied that, through the growing darkness of the hour, she could trace even stronger lines of thought than usual in his rugged countenance.

“To you, Pathfinder, expeditions like this can be no great novelty,” said she; “though I am surprised to find how silent and thoughtful the men appear to be.”

“We learn this by making war ag’in Indians. Your militia are great talkers and little doers in general; but the soldier who has often met the Mingos learns to know the value of a prudent tongue. A silent army, in the woods, is doubly strong; and a noisy one, doubly weak. If tongues made soldiers, the women of a camp would generally carry the day.”

“But we are neither an army, nor in the woods. There can be no danger of Mingos in the Scud.”

“No one is safe from a Mingo, who does not understand his very natur’; and even then he must act up to his own knowledge, and that closely. Ask Jasper how he got command of this very cutter.”

“And how did he get command?” inquired Mabel, with an earnestness and interest that quite delighted her simple-minded and true-hearted companion, who was never better pleased than when he had an opportunity of saying aught in favor of a friend. “It is honorable to him that he has reached this station while yet so young.”

“That is it; but he deserved it all, and more. A frigate wouldn’t have been too much to pay for so much spirit and coolness, had there been such a thing on Ontario, as there is not, hows’ever, or likely to be.”

“But Jasper — you have not yet told me how he got the command of the schooner.”

“It is a long story, Mabel, and one your father, the Sergeant, can tell much better than I; for he was present, while I was off on a distant scouting. Jasper is not good at a story, I will own that; I have heard him questioned about this affair, and he never made a good tale of it, although every body knows it was a good thing. The Scud had near fallen into the hands of the French and the Mingos, when Jasper saved her, in a way which none but a quick-witted mind and a bold heart would have attempted. The Sergeant will tell the tale better than I can, and I wish you to question him some day, when nothing better offers.”

Mabel determined to ask her father to repeat the incidents of the affair that very night; for it struck her young fancy that nothing better could well offer than to listen to the praises of one who was a bad historian of his own exploits.

“Will the Scud remain with us when we reach the island?” she asked, after a little hesitation about the propriety of the question; “or shall we be left to ourselves?”

“That’s as may be: Jasper does not often keep the cutter idle when anything is to be done; and we may expect activity on his part. My gifts, however, run so little towards the water and vessels generally, unless it be among rapids and falls and in canoes, that I pretend to know nothing about it. We shall have all right under Jasper, I make no doubt, who can find a trail on Ontario as well as a Delaware can find one on the land.”

“And our own Delaware, Pathfinder — the Big Serpent — why is he not with us to-night?”

“Your question would have been more natural had you said, Why are you here, Pathfinder? The Sarpent is in his place, while I am not in mine. He is out, with two or three more, scouting the lake shores, and will join us down among the islands, with the tidings he may gather. The Sergeant is too good a soldier to forget his rear while he is facing the enemy in front. It’s a thousand pities, Mabel, your father wasn’t born a general, as some of the English are who come among us; for I feel sartain he wouldn’t leave a Frencher in the Canadas a week, could he have his own way with them.”

“Shall we have enemies to face in front?” asked Mabel, smiling, and for the first time feeling a slight apprehension about the dangers of the expedition. “Are we likely to have an engagement?”

“If we have, Mabel, there will be men enough ready and willing to stand between you and harm. But you are a soldier’s daughter, and, we all know, have the spirit of one. Don’t let the fear of a battle keep your pretty eyes from sleeping.”

“I do feel braver out here in the woods, Pathfinder, than I ever felt before amid the weaknesses of the towns, although I have always tried to remember what I owe to my dear father.”

“Ay, your mother was so before you. ‘You will find Mabel, like her mother, no screamer, or a faint-hearted girl, to trouble a man in his need; but one who would encourage her mate, and help to keep his heart up when sorest prest by danger,’ said the Sergeant to me, before I ever laid eyes on that sweet countenance of yours — he did!”

“And why should my father have told you this, Pathfinder?” the girl demanded a little earnestly. “Perhaps he fancied you would think the better of me if you did not believe me a silly coward, as so many of my sex love to make themselves appear.”

Deception, unless it were at the expense of his enemies in the field — nay, concealment of even a thought — was so little in accordance with the Pathfinder’s very nature, that he was not a little embarrassed by this simple question. In such a strait he involuntarily took refuge in a middle course, not revealing that which he fancied ought not to be told, nor yet absolutely concealing it.

“You must know, Mabel,” said he, “that the Sergeant and I are old friends, and have stood side by side — or, if not actually side by side, I a little in advance, as became a scout, and your father with his own men, as better suited a soldier of the king — on many a hard fi’t and bloody day. It’s the way of us skirmishers to think little of the fight when the rifle has done cracking; and at night, around our fires, or on our marches, we talk of the things we love, just as you young women convarse about your fancies and opinions when you get together to laugh over your idees. Now it was natural that the Sergeant, having such a daughter as you, should love her better than anything else, and that he should talk of her oftener than of anything else — while I, having neither daughter, nor sister, nor mother, nor kith, nor kin, nor anything but the Delawares to love, I naturally chimed in, as it were, and got to love you, Mabel, before I ever saw you — yes, I did — just by talking about you so much.”

“And now you have seen me,” returned the smiling girl, whose unmoved and natural manner proved how little she was thinking of anything more than parental or fraternal regard, “you are beginning to see the folly of forming friendships for people before you know anything about them, except by hearsay.”

“It wasn’t friendship — it isn’t friendship, Mabel, that I feel for you. I am the friend of the Delawares, and have been so from boyhood; but my feelings for them, or for the best of them, are not the same as those I got from the Sergeant for you; and, especially, now that I begin to know you better. I’m sometimes afeared it isn’t wholesome for one who is much occupied in a very manly calling, like that of a guide or scout, or a soldier even, to form friendships for women — young women in particular — as they seem to me to lessen the love of enterprise, and to turn the feelings away from their gifts and natural occupations.”

“You surely do not mean, Pathfinder, that a friendship for a girl like me would make you less bold, and more unwilling to meet the French than you were before?”

“Not so, not so. With you in danger, for instance, I fear I might become foolhardy; but before we became so intimate, as I may say, I loved to think of my scoutings, and of my marches, and outlyings, and fights, and other adventures: but now my mind cares less about them; I think more of the barracks, and of evenings passed in discourse, of feelings in which there are no wranglings and bloodshed, and of young women, and of their laughs and their cheerful, soft voices, their pleasant looks and their winning ways. I sometimes tell the Sergeant that he and his daughter will be the spoiling of one of the best and most experienced scouts on the lines.”

“Not they, Pathfinder; they will try to make that which is already so excellent, perfect. You do not know us, if you think that either wishes to see you in the least changed. Remain as at present, the same honest, upright, conscientious, fearless, intelligent, trustworthy guide that you are, and neither my dear father nor myself can ever think of you differently from what we now do.”

It was too dark for Mabel to note the workings of the countenance of her listener; but her own sweet face was turned towards him, as she spoke with an energy equal to her frankness, in a way to show how little embarrassed were her thoughts, and how sincere were her words. Her countenance was a little flushed, it is true; but it was with earnestness and truth of feeling, though no nerve thrilled, no limb trembled, no pulsation quickened. In short, her manner and appearance were those of a sincere-minded and frank girl, making such a declaration of good-will and regard for one of the other sex as she felt that his services and good qualities merited, without any of the emotion that invariably accompanies the consciousness of an inclination which might lead to softer disclosures.

The Pathfinder was too unpractised, however, to enter into distinctions of this kind, and his humble nature was encouraged by the directness and strength of the words he had just heard. Unwilling, if not unable, to say any more, he walked away, and stood leaning on his rifle and looking up at the stars for full ten minutes in profound silence.

In the meanwhile the interview on the bastion, to which we have already alluded, took place between Lundie and the Sergeant.

“Have the men’s knapsacks been examined?” demanded Major Duncan, after he had cast his eye at a written report, handed to him by the Sergeant, but which it was too dark to read.

“All, your honor; and all are right.”

“The ammunition — arms?”

“All in order, Major Duncan, and fit for any service.”

“You have the men named in my own draft, Dunham?”

“Without an exception, sir. Better men could not be found in the regiment.”

“You have need of the best of our men, Sergeant. This experiment has now been tried three times; always under one of the ensigns, who have flattered me with success, but have as often failed. After so much preparation and expense, I do not like to abandon the project entirely; but this will be the last effort; and the result will mainly depend on you and on the Pathfinder.”

“You may count on us both, Major Duncan. The duty you have given us is not above our habits and experience, and I think it will be well done. I know that the Pathfinder will not be wanting.”

“On that, indeed, it will be safe to rely. He is a most extraordinary man, Dunham — one who long puzzled me; but who, now that I understand him, commands as much of my respect as any general in his majesty’s service.”

“I was in hopes, sir, that you would come to look at the proposed marriage with Mabel as a thing I ought to wish and forward.”

“As for that, Sergeant, time will show,” returned Lundie, smiling; though here, too, the obscurity concealed the nicer shades of expression; “one woman is sometimes more difficult to manage than a whole regiment of men. By the way, you know that your would-be son-in-law, the Quartermaster, will be of the party; and I trust you will at least give him an equal chance in the trial for your daughter’s smiles.”

“If respect for his rank, sir, did not cause me to do this, your honor’s wish would be sufficient.”

“I thank you, Sergeant. We have served much together, and ought to value each other in our several stations. Understand me, however, I ask no more for Davy Muir than a clear field and no favor. In love, as in war, each man must gain his own victories. Are you certain that the rations have been properly calculated?”

“I’ll answer for it, Major Duncan; but if they were not, we cannot suffer with two such hunters as Pathfinder and the Serpent in company.”

“That will never do, Dunham,” interrupted Lundie sharply; “and it comes of your American birth and American training. No thorough soldier ever relies on anything but his commissary for supplies; and I beg that no part of my regiment may be the first to set an example to the contrary.”

“You have only to command, Major Duncan, to be obeyed; and yet, if I might presume, sir —”

“Speak freely, Sergeant; you are talking with a friend.”

“I was merely about to say that I find even the Scotch soldiers like venison and birds quite as well as pork, when they are difficult to be had.”

“That may be very true; but likes and dislikes have nothing to do with system. An army can rely on nothing but its commissaries. The irregularity of the provincials has played the devil with the king’s service too often to be winked at any longer.”

“General Braddock, your honor, might have been advised by Colonel Washington.”

“Out upon your Washington! You’re all provincials together, man, and uphold each other as if you were of a sworn confederacy.”

“I believe his majesty has no more loyal subjects than the Americans, your honor.”

“In that, Dunham, I’m thinking you’re right; and I have been a little too warm, perhaps. I do not consider you a provincial, however, Sergeant; for though born in America, a better soldier never shouldered a musket.”

“And Colonel Washington, your honor?”

“Well! — and Colonel Washington may be a useful subject too. He is the American prodigy; and I suppose I may as well give him all the credit you ask. You have no doubt of the skill of this Jasper Eau-douce?”

“The boy has been tried, sir, and found equal to all that can be required of him.”

“He has a French name, and has passed much of his boyhood in the French colonies; has he French blood in his veins, Sergeant?”

“Not a drop, your honor. Jasper’s father was an old comrade of my own, and his mother came of an honest and loyal family in this very province.”

“How came he then so much among the French, and whence his name? He speaks the language of the Canadas, too, I find.”

“That is easily explained, Major Duncan. The boy was left under the care of one of our mariners in the old war, and he took to the water like a duck. Your honor knows that we have no ports on Ontario that can be named as such, and he naturally passed most of his time on the other side of the lake, where the French have had a few vessels these fifty years. He learned to speak their language, as a matter of course, and got his name from the Indians and Canadians, who are fond of calling men by their qualities, as it might be.”

“A French master is but a poor instructor for a British sailor, notwithstanding.”

“I beg your pardon, sir: Jasper Eau-douce was brought up under a real English seaman, one that had sailed under the king’s pennant, and may be called a thorough-bred; that is to say, a subject born in the colonies, but none the worse at his trade, I hope, Major Duncan, for that.”

“Perhaps not, Sergeant, perhaps not; nor any better. This Jasper behaved well, too, when I gave him the command of the Scud; no lad could have conducted himself more loyally or better.”

“Or more bravely, Major Duncan. I am sorry to see, sir, that you have doubts as to the fidelity of Jasper.”

“It is the duty of the soldier who is entrusted with the care of a distant and important post like this, Dunham, never to relax in his vigilance. We have two of the most artful enemies that the world has ever produced, in their several ways, to contend with — the Indians and the French — and nothing should be overlooked that can lead to injury.”

“I hope your honor considers me fit to be entrusted with any particular reason that may exist for doubting Jasper, since you have seen fit to entrust me with this command.”

“It is not that I doubt you, Dunham, that I hesitate to reveal all I may happen to know; but from a strong reluctance to circulate an evil report concerning one of whom I have hitherto thought well. You must think well of the Pathfinder, or you would not wish to give him your daughter?”

“For the Pathfinder’s honesty I will answer with my life, sir,” returned the Sergeant firmly, and not without a dignity of manner that struck his superior. “Such a man doesn’t know how to be false.”

“I believe you are right, Dunham; and yet this last information has unsettled all my old opinions. I have received an anonymous communication, Sergeant, advising me to be on my guard against Jasper Western, or Jasper Eau-douce, as he is called, who, it alleges, has been bought by the enemy, and giving me reason to expect that further and more precise information will soon be sent.”

“Letters without signatures to them, sir, are scarcely to be regarded in war.”

“Or in peace, Dunham. No one can entertain a lower opinion of the writer of an an............