“The same to yourself, Mr. Muir, with many thanks.  Remember the passage of arms for the morrow.”

The Quartermaster withdrew, leaving Lundie in his library to reflect on what had just passed.  Use had so accustomed Major Duncan to Lieutenant Muir and all his traits and humors, that the conduct of the latter did not strike the former with the same force as it will probably the reader.  In truth, while all men act under one common law that is termed nature, the varieties in their dispositions, modes of judging, feelings, and selfishness are infinite.

CHAPTER XI.

Compel the hawke to sit that is unmann’d,
Or make the hound, untaught, to draw the deere,
Or bring the free against his will in band,
Or move the sad a pleasant tale to heere,
Your time is lost, and you no whit the neere! 
So love ne learnes, of force the heart to knit: 
She serves but those that feel sweet fancies’ fit.
Mirror for Magistrates.

It is not often that hope is rewarded by fruition so completely as the wishes of the young men of the garrison were met by the state of the weather on the succeeding day.  The heats of summer were little felt at Oswego at the period of which we are writing; for the shade of the forest, added to the refreshing breezes from the lake, so far reduced the influence of the sun as to render the nights always cool and the days seldom oppressive.

It was now September, a month in which the strong gales of the coast often appear to force themselves across the country as far as the great lakes, where the inland sailor sometimes feels that genial influence which characterizes the winds of the ocean invigorating his frame, cheering his spirits, and arousing his moral force.  Such a day was that on which the garrison of Oswego assembled to witness what its commander had jocularly called a “passage of arms.”  Lundie was a scholar in military matters at least, and it was one of his sources of honest pride to direct the reading and thoughts of the young men under his orders to the more intellectual parts of their profession.  For one in his situation, his library was both good and extensive, and its books were freely lent to all who desired to use them.  Among other whims that had found their way into the garrison through these means, was a relish for the sort of amusement in which it was now about to indulge; and around which some chronicles of the days of chivalry had induced them to throw a parade and romance not unsuited to the characters and habits of soldiers, or to the insulated and wild post occupied by this particular garrison.  While so earnestly bent on pleasure, however, they on whom that duty devolved did not neglect the safety of the garrison.  One standing on the ramparts of the fort, and gazing on the waste of glittering water that bounded the view all along the northern horizon, and on the slumbering and seemingly boundless