Cap, it would have left you
sore hands. The cratur' is a hedgehog!"

"Blast me, if I thought it wholesome natural pork either!" returned Cap.
"But then I believed even a pig might lose some of its good qualities up
hereaway in the woods."

"If the skinning of it, brother, does not fall to my duty. Pathfinder, I
hope you didn't find Mabel disobedient on the march?"

"Not she, not she. If Mabel is only half as well satisfied with Jasper
and Pathfinder as the Pathfinder and Jasper are satisfied with her,
Sergeant, we shall be friends for the remainder of our days."

As the guide spoke, he turned his eyes towards the blushing girl, with
a sort of innocent desire to know her opinion; and then, with an inborn
delicacy, which proved he was far superior to the vulgar desire to
invade the sanctity of feminine feeling, he looked at his plate, and
seemed to regret his own boldness.

"Well, well, we must remember that women are not men, my friend,"
resumed the Sergeant, "and make proper allowances for nature and
education. A recruit is not a veteran. Any man knows that it takes
longer to make a good soldier than it takes to make anything else."

"This is new doctrine, Sergeant," said Cap with some spirit. "We old
seamen are apt to think that six soldiers, ay, and capital soldiers too,
might be made while one sailor is getting his education."

"Ay, brother Cap, I've seen something of the opinions which seafaring
men have of themselves," returned the brother-in-law, with a smile as
bland as comported with his saturnine features; "for I was many years
one of the garrison in a seaport. You and I have conversed on the
subject before and I'm afraid we shall never agree. But if you wish to
know what the difference is between a real soldier and man in what I
should call a state of nature, you have only to look at a battalion of
the 55th on parade this afternoon, and then, when you get back to York,
examine one of the militia regiments making its greatest efforts."

"Well, to my eye, Sergeant, there is very little difference, not more
than you'll find between a brig and a snow. To me they seem alike: all
scarlet, and feathers, and powder, and pipeclay."

"So much, sir, for the judgment of a sailor," returned the Sergeant with
dignity; "but perhaps you are not aware that it requires a year to teach
a true soldier how to eat?"

"So much the worse for him. The militia know how to eat at starting; for
I have often heard that, on thei