Send for your brother, Sergeant, and let us question him in this matter; for to sleep with distrust of one's friend in the heart is like sleeping with lead there.I have no faith in your presentiments."The Sergeant, although he scarcely knew himself with what object, complied, and Cap was summoned to join in the consultation.As Pathfinder was more collected than his companion, and felt so strong a conviction of the good faith of the party accused, he assumed the office of spokes-man.
"We have asked you to come down, Master Cap," he commenced, "in order to inquire if you have remarked anything out of the common way in the movements of Eau-douce this evening.""His movements are common enough, I daresay, for fresh water, Master Pathfinder, though we should think most of his proceedings irregular down on the coast.""Yes, yes; we know you will never agree with the lad about the manner the cutter ought to be managed; but it is on another point we wish your opinion."The Pathfinder then explained to Cap the nature of the suspicions which the Sergeant entertained, and the reasons why they had been excited, so far as the latter had been communicated by Major Duncan.
"The youngster talks French, does he?" said Cap.
"They say he speaks it better than common," returned the Sergeant gravely."Pathfinder knows this to be true.""I'll not gainsay it," answered the guide; "at least, they tell me such is the fact.But this would prove nothing ag'in a Mississagua, and, least of all, ag'in one like Jasper.
I speak the Mingo dialect myself, having learnt it while a prisoner among the reptyles; but who will say I am their friend? Not that I am an enemy, either, according to In-dian notions; though I am their enemy, I will admit, agree-able to Christianity."
"Ay Pathfinder; but Jasper did not get his French as a prisoner: he took it in his boyhood, when the mind is easily impressed, and gets its permanent notions; when nature has a presentiment, as it were, which way the character is likely to incline.""A very just remark," added Cap, "for that is the time of life when we all learn the catechism, and other moral improvements.The Sergeant's observation shows that he understands human nature, and I agree with him per-fectly; it _is_ a damnable thing for a youngster, up here, on this bit of fresh water, to talk French.If it were down on the Atlantic, now, where a seafaring man has occasion sometimes to converse with a pilot, or a linguister, in that language, I should not think so much of it, -- though we always look with suspicion, even there, at a shipmate who knows too much of the tongue; but up here, on Ontario, I hold it to be a most suspicious circumstance.""But Jasper must talk in French to the people on the other shore," said Pathfinder, "or hold his tongue, as there are none but French to speak to.""You don't mean to tell me, Pathfinder, that France lies hereaway, on the opposite coast?" cried Cap, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Canadas;"that one side of this bit of fresh water is York, and the other France?""I mean to tell you this is York, and that is Upper Canada; and that English and Dutch and Indian are spoken in the first, and French and Indian in the last.
Even the Mingos have got many of the French words in their dialect, and it is no improvement, neither.""Very true: and what sort of people are the Mingos, my friend?" inquired the Sergeant, touching the other on his shoulder, by way of enforcing a remark, the inherent truth of which sensibly increased its value in the eyes of the speaker: "no one knows them better than yourself, and Iask you what sort of a tribe are they?"
"Jasper is no Mingo, Sergeant."
"He speaks French, and he might as well be, in that particular.Brother Cap, can you recollect no movement of this unfortunate young man, in the way of his calling, that would seem to denote treachery?""Not distinctly, Sergeant, though he has gone to work wrong-end foremost half his time.It is true that one of his hands coiled a rope against the sun, and he called it _querling_ a rope, too, when I asked him what he was about;but I am not certain that anything was meant by it;though, I daresay, the French coil half their running rig-ging the wrong way, and may call it 'querling it down,'
