第9章
Why, nothing but a soldier.A sergeant, to be sure, but that is a sort of a soldier, 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 Ser-geant has risen in his calling, and they say he is an im-portant 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 honorable, 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 Indian.The Sarpent, here, has his fashions, and I have mine; and yet have we fi't side by side these many years; without either thinking a hard thought consarning the other's ways.I tell him there is but one heaven and one hell, notwithstanding his tradi-tions, 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.The sea is what my poor sister Bridget used to call a 'purifying place,' and one is out of the way of tempta-tion when out of sight of land.I doubt if as much can be said in favor of your lakes up hereaway.""That towns and settlements lead to sin, I will allow;but our lakes are bordered by the forests, and one is every day called upon to worship God in such a temple.That men are not always the same, even in the wilderness, Imust admit for the difference between a Mingo and a Delaware is as plain to be seen as the difference between the sun and the moon.I am glad, friend Cap, that we have met, however, if it be only that you may tell the Big Sarpent here that there are lakes in which the water is salt.We have been pretty much of one mind since our acquaintance began, and if the Mohican has only half the faith in me that I have in him, he believes all that I have told him touching the white men's ways and natur's laws;but it has always seemed to me that none of the red-skins have given as free a belief as an honest man likes to the accounts of the Big Salt Lakes, and to that of their being rivers that flow up stream.""This comes of getting things wrong end foremost,"answered Cap, with a condescending nod."You have thought of your lakes and rifts as the ship; and of the ocean and the tides as the boat.Neither Arrowhoad nor the Serpent need doubt what you have said concerning both, though I confess myself to some difficulty in swal-lowing the tale about there being inland seas at all, and still more that there is any sea of fresh water.I have come this long journey as much to satisfy my own eyes concerning these facts, as to oblige the Sergeant and Mag-net, though the first was my sister's husband, and I love the last like a child.""You are wrong, friend Cap, very wrong, to distrust, the power of God in any thing," returned Pathfinder earnestly."They that live in the settlements and the towns have confined and unjust opinions consarning the might of His hand; but we, who pass our time in His very presence, as it might be, see things differently -- I mean, such of us as have white natur's.A red-skin has his notions, and it is right that it should be so; and if they are not exactly the same as a Christian white man's, there is no harm in it.Still, there are matters which belong altogether to the ordering of God's providence; and these salt and fresh-water lakes are some of them.I do not pretend to account for these things, but I think it the duty of all to believe in them.""Hold on there, Master Pathfinder," interrupted Cap, not without some heat; "in the way of a proper and manly faith, I will turn my back on no one, when afloat.Al-though more accustomed to make all snug aloft, and to show the proper canvas, than to pray when the hurricane comes, I know that we are but helpless mortals at times, and I hope I pay reverence where reverence is due.All Imean to say is this: that, being accustomed to see water in large bodies salt, I should like to taste it before I can believe it to be fresh.""God has given the salt lick to the deer; and He has given to man, red-skin and white, the delicious spring at which to slake his thirst.It is unreasonable to think that He may not have given lakes of pure water to the west, and lakes of impure water to the east."Cap was awed, in spite of his overweening dogmatism, by the earnest simplicity of the Pathfinder, though he did not relish the idea of believing a fact which, for many years, he had pertinaciously insisted could not be true.
Unwilling to give up the point and, at the same time, un-able to maintain it against a reasoning to which he was un-accustomed, and which possessed equally the force of truth, faith, and probability, he was glad to get rid of the subject by evasion.
"Well, well, friend Pathfinder," said he, "we will leave the argument where it is; and we can try the water when we once reach it.Only mark my words -- I do not say that it may not be fresh on the surface; the Atlantic is sometimes fresh on the surface, near the mouths of great rivers; but, rely on it, I shall show you a way of tasting the water many fathoms deep, of which you never dreamed;and then we shall know more about it."
The guide seemed content to let the matter rest, and the conversation changed.
"We are not over-conceited consarning our gifts," ob-served the Pathfinder, after a short pause, "and well know that such as live in the towns, and near the sea -- ""On the sea," interrupted Cap.
"On the sea, if you wish it, friend -- have opportunities which do not befall us of the wilderness.Still, we know our own callings, and they are what I consider natural callings, and are not parvarted by vanity and wantonness.